Jentina E. Leene

Jentina E. Leene (5 September 1906 – 28 October 1994) was a Dutch scientist who had an early career in zoology, specifically carcinology, was a science teacher and then a textile scientist. Her zoological work was highly regarded, especially her doctoral thesis on the swimming crabs of the genus Charybdis.

Early career Leene was born in Amsterdam on 5 September 1906. She was educated in Amsterdam, going to Amsterdam University where she graduated in 1931 with a master's degree in zoology, specialising in comparative anatomy, studying the hearts of monitor lizards from the genus Varanus. She went on to study for a Ph.D. and she chose to study the taxonomy of crabs, probably under the influence of her teacher Professor J.E.W. Ihle who was working on the specimens collected by the Siboga expedition of 1899-1900. He allocated the swimming crabs, Portunidae, to Leene who attempted to write a monograph of the family and visited a number of museums in the Netherlands and abroad in the course of this work. Her thesis was published in 1930, proving to be a thorough treatment of the swimming crabs of the genus Charybdis and some other smaller genera of the family Portunidae, she hoped to complete a monograph of the family over subsequent years. Leene was awarded her doctoral degree cum laude on 22 June 1938 and her thesis is still considered as an important work for workers on the Portunidae.

Teaching The economic situation in the 1930s meant that Leene could not continue her zoology career and to make ends meet she became a high school biology teacher, teaching at a number of schools in different towns in order to gate an income she could survive on. This left little time for her to continue her studies in carcinology. On 15 October 1939 she was appointed as a teacher of biology at a girls' school for technical education in Arnhem, while having another job teaching in Haarlem. When a teacher specialising in textile fibre research left Leene was asked to take that subject on too. She became interested and proficient in this subject ad in 1945 she was appointed as a curator in the Division of Fibre Technology in the Department of Mechanical Technology of Technische Hogeschool Delft (Delft Institute of Technology).

1930 J. E. Leene & A. G. Vorstman, Note on the structure of the heart of Varanus as compared with other reptilian hearts. Tijdschrift Nederlandsche Dierkundige Vereeniging 3 (2) 62-66 1936 Note on Charybdis erythrodactyla, Charybdis acutifrons and Charybdis obtusifrons nov. spec. Zoologische Mededelingen Leiden 19 117-127 1937 Notes on Charybdis demani nov. spec, Charybdis variegata var. brevispinosa nov. var. and other Charybdis species. Zoologische Mededelingen 19 165-176; 1938 The Decapoda Brachyura of the Siboga-Expedition. VII. Brachygnatha: Portunidae. Siboga Expeditie Monografie, 39 (c3) 1-156 1940 Biological Results of the Snellius Expedition. VI. The Portunidae of the Snellius Expedition (Part I). Temminckia 5: 163-188 1949 Jentina E. Leene & Alida M. Buitendijk Note on Charybdis ihlei nov. spec., Charybdis beauforti nov. spec., and Charybdis edwardsi nom. nov., from the collection of the British Museum (Natural History), London. Bijdragen tot de Dierkunde 28 : 291-298. 1950 In Memoriam A.M. Buitendijk, Mededelingen van de Nederlandsche Vereniging van Vrouwen met Academische Opleiding 16 (4) 1. 1952 Jentina E. Leene & Alida M. Buitendijk On some Portunid crabs from the Indo-west pacific region Zoologische Mededelingen Leiden 31 (19)213-223

Conservation and restoration of textiles Sieders, R., J. W. H. Uytenbogaart, and J. E. Leene, "The restoration and preservation of old fabrics", Studies in conservation, vol. 2, no. 4, pp. 161–169, 1956 Textile Conservation. Jentina E. Leene, ed. New York: Smithsonian Institution. 1972.