Carl W. Schaefer, ESA Fellow (2006)

Dr. Carl W. Schaefer, professor emeritus at the University of Connecticut, Storrs (UConn), was elected as Fellow in 2006.  He is recognized as a world leader in the study of Hemiptera-Heteroptera and as a prolific researcher and writer, with over 240 journal articles authored and seven books edited or co-edited. In 1973, he began The Heteropterists’ Newsletter, which he edited and produced for about twenty years.  Beginning that same year and for the next quarter century, he served as an editor of the Annals of the Entomological Society of America, and created the Sections of articles in that journal. He was commemorated in the journal (November, 1999). He now (with others) edits Zootaxa.

Dr. Schaefer was born in New Haven, CT on 6 September 1934. He earned his B.A. in zoology from Oberlin College and went on to earn his Ph.D. in entomology from UConn in 1964. He began his teaching career at Brooklyn College in 1963 and has been back with UConn since 1966, achieving the rank of professor in 1976.  He has advised dozens of masters and doctoral students at UConn, and a few in Asia and South Asia.

Dr. Schaefer has served the ESA in several leadership positions, including the President of the Eastern Branch. He was elected an Honorary Member of the Society in 1996, a Fellow in 2006, and he has been a Counselor for the Entomological Foundation since 1997. He was invited to give the plenary address at the 1998 Brazilian Entomological Congress in Rio de Janeiro, and participated in other Brazilian Congresses and in European ones as well. He was also the systematic organizer for the 2006 International Congress of Entomology in Foz do Iguassu, Brazil.

Dr. Schaefer has been very active in the American Association of University Professors, at UConn (twice president) and nationally; and was in the UConn Senate for several terms. For ten years he has been on the Mansfield (which includes Storrs) Town Council. In 1965, he was married at Pecos Pueblo, NM, on Christmas Eve. But that’s another story.

He has taught all sorts of things, mostly introductory biology and entomology. In the last several years he has taught medical entomology and a series of evolution courses, for which he taught individual writing; the writing, to the surprise of no-one, ratcheted down as video games ratcheted up. Medical entomology was especially fun because, as a graduate student, he grad-assisted someone working on bedbugs, and, lazy, fed experimental ones on his arm. In medical entomology courses, this turned out to be remarkably popular. (I have a small course for those who may want to do this.)

Now he has retired (2009), but still does research and edits. He also is a chocolate chip cookie and chocolate cake connoisseur. And he has three great grandchildren.

(updated July, 2012)