John Albert Stevenson

John Albert Stevenson (July 16, 1890, Woonsocket, South Dakota – October 30, 1979, Annandale, Virginia) was an American mycologist and phytopathologist.

Biography John Albert Stevenson spent part of his childhood in Cornucopia, Wisconsin, where he became interested in studying nature and, especially, forestry. During his secondary education, he and his family lived in Bayfield, Wisconsin, in Sioux City, Iowa, and in Minneapolis. where he also studied plant pathology and ecology. At the University of Minnesota, his teachers included Edward Monroe Freeman, Elvin Charles Stakman, Frederic Edward Clements and Charles Edwin Bessey. In September 1914 in Minneapolis, Stevenson married Katherine Genevieve Thompson. After his graduation from the University of Minnesota, he had the intentions of becoming a plant pathologist with a higher academic credential. He attended George Washington University (D.C.) but withdrew with the status “ABT” (all but thesis). to work in Washington, D.C. as a plant pathology inspector with the USDA's Federal Horticultural Board. He occupied in subsequent years several titled positions, He was the author of two major technical treatises, An Account of Fungus exsiccati: Containing Material from the Americas (1971) and The Fungi of Puerto Rico and the American Virgin Islands (1975), and more than scientific 100 articles. He was an honorary curator of fungi in the Smithsonian Institution's botany department. The John A. Stevenson Library of the Systematic Botany and Mycology Laboratory in Beltsville is an important archival resource. The John A. Stevenson Reference Room houses the library, which in 1986 had approximately 7,000 books and journals and 60,000 reprints of scientific articles.

He received a number of awards, including the USDA's Superior Service Award. He held executive positions with the American Phytopathological Society and the Washington Academy of Sciences

Upon his death he was survived by his widow, three sons, eight grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren.

Selected publications Articles

Books and monographs

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