Nathan Cobb

Nathan Augustus Cobb (* June 30, 1859 in Spencer, Massachusetts, † June 4, 1932 in Baltimore, Maryland) was an American zoologist, plant pathologist and Nematologe.

Life

Cobb grew up in simple rural conditions. He passed an entrance examination as a teacher and studied chemistry at the Worcester County Free Institute of Industrial Science. Then he was until 1887 a lecturer in science at Williston Seminary, East Hampton.

Cobb went in 1887 to Ernst Haeckel at the University of Jena, where it has 1888 a doctorate with a thesis on nematodes of Belugawals. He then went on a trip to Australia, but first could not stay in the local scientific community and had to keep up with odd jobs over water. Finally he took in 1890 to a position as a plant pathologist in the Department of Agriculture of New South Wales.

1905 joined Cobb as a plant pathologist for the Hawaiian Sugar Planters Association to Honolulu and two years later. In the headquarters of the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Washington, where he founded the still existing nematodologische laboratory Even after his retirement in 1924 he continued his work.

Cobb is regarded as one of the founders of Nematology, who described more than 1,000 species. He was an extremely productive and versatile researchers in the field of plant diseases and marine nematodes.