Warwick Estevam Kerr

Warwick Estevam Kerr (born September 9, 1922) is a Brazilian agricultural engineer, geneticist, entomologist, professor and scientific leader, notable for his discoveries in the genetics and sex determination of bees. The Africanized bee in the western hemisphere is directly descended from 26 Tanzanian queen bees (A. m. scutellata) accidentally released by a replacement bee-keeper in 1957 in Rio Claro, São Paulo in the southeast of Brazil from hives operated by Kerr, who had interbred honey bees from Europe and southern Africa.

Kerr was born in 1922 in Santana do Parnaíba, São Paulo, Brazil, the son of Américo Caldas Kerr and Bárbara Chaves Kerr. The Kerr family immigrated by way of the United States. His family is originally from Scotland. The family moved to Pirapora do Bom Jesus, SP in 1925. He attended secondary school and the preparatory course at the Mackenzie in São Paulo and subsequently was admitted to the Escola Superior de Agricultura Luiz de Queiroz of the University of São Paulo, at Piracicaba, São Paulo, where he graduated as agricultural engineer.

From March 1975 to April 1979, Kerr moved to Manaus, Amazonas, as director of the National Institute of Amazonia Research (INPA), a research institute of the National Council of Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq). He officially retired from the University of São Paulo in January 1981, but not from scientific life. Exactly eleven days later he accepted a position as Full Professor at the Universidade Estadual do Maranhão in São Luís, state of Maranhão, where he became responsible for creating the Department of Biology; and, for a short period (1987–1988) served also as Dean of the University. He moved to the Universidade Federal de Uberlândia, in Uberlândia, state of Minas Gerais, in February 1988, as a Professor of Genetics.