James F. Crow is Professor Emeritus of Genetics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Some of his most significant peer-reviewed contributions were coauthored with Motoo Kimura. His major contribution to the field, however, is arguably his teaching. He has written an influential introductory textbook on genetics and a more advanced one with Kimura, and the list of his graduate students and postdocs reads like a "who is who" of population genetics, and includes Alexey Kondrashov, James Bull, Joe Felsenstein, Russell Lande, Dan Hartl, Takeo Maruyama, Terumi Mukai, Wen Hsiung Li, Chung I. Wu and many others.

Biography

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Early life and education

Crow was born in 1916 in Collegeville, Pennsylvania, where his father was a teacher at Ursinus College. The family moved to Wichita, Kansas, two and a half years later, in 1918, where Crow was part of the 1918 flu pandemic. He went to school in Wichita, then to Friends University, a Quaker School, also in Wichita, graduating in 1937.

At school, he enjoyed physics and chemistry, but pursued chemistry more strongly at university. He picked up biology as well, and double majored in chemistry and biology. A genetics course in his junior year was his first exposure to that field, even though the syllabus omitted the modern synthesis.

Delaying the decision of whether to become a biologist or chemist, Crow applied for graduate fellowships in both biology and biochemistry. He took up the first positive reply, a position with H. J. Muller at the University of Texas at Austin, in spite of knowing that Muller was in Russia at the time. It turned out that Muller had no intention to return to his position in Texas, and so J. T. Patterson became Crow's supervisor there. Under the influence of Muller, Patterson was starting to switch to Drosophila genetics, having previously worked on the embryology of the armadillo, and so it was that Crow came to study the genetic isolating mechanisms in the Drosophila mulleri group. This included a combination of doing mating crosses between species and looking for chromosome rearrangements using polytene chromosomes. (Polytene chromosomes are large aggregations of actual chromosomes which, once appropriately stained, facilitate the discovery of chromosome rearrangements through an ordinary light microscope. Polytene chromosomes are mostly found in the salivary glands of some species.) In his studies of pre-mating isolation, Crow was one of the first to study genetic reinforcement, and also observed that species occurring together were sexually isolated, while those living apart were not.

A great influence on Crow at the time was W. S. Stone, who encouraged him to learn more mathematics, while he himself knew none. Crow later admitted to struggling with some of the advanced maths and physics courses he took as a result, but also said they had been rewarding.

Dartmouth College and the war

Crow graduated with his PhD in 1941 and moved to Dartmouth College just prior to the war, where he remained until 1948. The original plan had been to get a postdoctoral fellowship to work with Sewall Wright at the University of Chicago, but this proved difficult just at the start of the war.

His appointment in Dartmouth was to teach genetics and general zoology, but as faculty were drafted off into military endeavours, Crow took on an increasing number of courses. Crow particularly delighted in being able to teach embryology and comparative anatomy. When it seemed likely that he himself would be drafted, Crow took a course in navigation, at which, owing to his mathematical training, he proved so adept that he was asked to teach it. As parasitology became relevant to the war (as it did on the opposing front, where Willi Hennig was active in this area), he was asked to also teach parasitology and haematology. Not long after, he was also teaching statistics. It may be that, having to teach many hours each day, Crow discovered his love for teaching at this point. He later recounted that there were several students all of whose courses were taught by him.

In spite of his college-time involvement with pacifist groups that had communist leanings, he eventually tried to enlist, but was deferred until the end due to his teaching commitments.

Professor Crow is known among colleagues as Jim Crow.

References

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Interview with Professor James Crow. 2006. BioEssays 28 (6), 660-678. DOI 10.1002/bies.20426

External links

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• Website

Population geneticists | Evolutionary biologists | Members and associates of the US National Academy of Sciences