Charles D. Michener

Charles Duncan Michener
Charles D. Michener at home, 2015
Born	(1918-09-22)September 22, 1918 Pasadena, California
Died	November 1, 2015(2015-11-01) (aged 97) Lawrence, Kansas
Nationality	American
Fields	entomology, melittology
Institutions	University of Kansas
Alma mater	University of California, Berkeley
Thesis	Comparative External Morphology, Phylogeny, and a Classification of the Bees (1942)
Doctoral advisor	Edward Oliver Essig
Doctoral students	Jim Baker, Edward M. Barrows, Suzanne W. T. Batra, Michael D. Breed, Denis Brothers, Sydney Cameron, Jim Cane, George Eickwort, Paul R. Ehrlich, Les Greenberg, William Gutierrez, Alexander Hawkins, Robert Minckley, William Ramirez, Carl Rettenmeyer, Rad Roberts, Brian H. Smith, Thomas Snyder, William Wcislo, John Wenzel, Alvaro Wille, and Douglas Yanega

Charles Duncan Michener (September 22, 1918 – November 1, 2015) was an American entomologist born in Pasadena, California. He was a leading expert on bees, his magnum opus being The Bees of the World.

Much of his career was devoted to the systematics and natural history of bees. His first peer-reviewed publication was in 1934, at the age of 16. He received his B.S. in 1939 and his Ph.D. in Entomology in 1941, from the University of California, Berkeley. He remained in California until 1942, when he became an Assistant Curator of Lepidoptera at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City.

In 1944 he published a classification system for bees that was soon adopted worldwide, and was in use until 1993 and 1995, when he co-authored new classifications. From 1943 to 1946, Michener also served as a First Lieutenant and Captain in the United States Army Sanitary Corps, where he researched insect-borne diseases, and described the life cycle of the common chigger.

Michener joined the faculty of the University of Kansas in 1948 as Associate Professor of Entomology. He was chairman of the Entomology Department from 1949 to 1961, and then again from 1972 to 1975. He was awarded a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship in 1955, and again in 1966. He was awarded the Watkins Distinguished Professor of Entomology in 1958, was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1965, and became Director of the Snow Entomological Museum (now part of the University of Kansas Natural History Museum, itself now a division within the University of Kansas Biodiversity Institute) in 1974. In February 2001, the Association of American Publishers gave its prestigious R.R. Hawkins Award for the Outstanding Professional Reference or Scholarly Work of 2000 to Michener's opus, The Bees of the World.