Goldschmidt, Richard B.

Goldschmidt, Richard B. (Benedict) (1878–1958) zoologist; born in Frankfurt, Germany. After teaching and performing research on Germany, he left due to Nazi pressure on Jewish scientists and emigrated to the U.S.A. in 1936. He became a professor of zoology at the University of California: Berkeley (1936–48), where he remained until his death; he concurrently served as Silliman Lecturer at Yale (1939–40). An internationally renowned scientist and writer, he belonged to twelve countries' professional societies, and made major contributions to studies on worms and fruit flies. His 25 years of research on moths included investigations of their physiology and genetics, degrees of intersexuality, embryology and evolution, and geographic variations. He was a pioneer in population genetics who wrote popular books on science in addition to many scientific books on evolution and heredity in both German and English.