Robert Lyman Starkey (September 27, 1899, in Fitchburg, Massachusetts – August 8, 1991, in Jamesburg, New Jersey) was an American microbiologist. He was the president of the American Society for Microbiology in 1963.

Biography

Starkey graduated in 1921 with a B.S. from Massachusetts Agricultural College (now named the University of Massachusetts Amherst). At Rutgers University, he graduated in 1923 with an M.S. and in 1924 with a Ph.D. in microbiology. During his graduate school years, he worked from 1922 to 1924 as an assistant at the New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station. From 1924 to 1926 he was an instructor in bacteriology at the University of Minnesota. In the department of microbiology of Rutgers University, he was an assistant professor from 1926 to 1934, an associate professor from 1934 to 1944, and a full professor from 1944[1] to 1965, when he retired as professor emeritus. From 1954 to 1965 he was the head of the department of agricultural microbiology.[2] At the New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station, he was an associate soil microbiologist from 1926 to 1944 and a research specialist from 1944[1] to 1965.[2] For the academic year 1937–1938 he was a Rockefeller Foundation fellow at the Delft University of Technology.[1]

He did research on bacterial decomposition of organic matter, nitrogen fixation, the role of sulfur, iron, carbon, nitrogen, and other elements in agricultural bacteriology, and industrial fermentation.[1] For a number of years, he was Selman Waksman's deputy at the New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station.[3]

Starkey was elected in 1930 a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.[4] From 1941 to 1942 he was the first president of the Theobald Smith Society (the New Jersey branch of the American Society for Microbiology).[5] In 1976 he received the Charles Thom Award from the Society for Industrial Microbiology and Biotechnology.[6]

In 1928 he married Florence G. Tenney (1901–1997). In 1928 she received her Ph.D. in microbiology from Rutgers. In the later part of her career, she worked as a researcher on antibiotics at E. R. Squibb & Sons.[7] She coauthored several papers with Selman Waksman.[8]

Selected publications

Articles

Books

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Cattell, Jaques, ed. (1949). American Men of Science: A Biographical Dictionary. Lancaster, Pennsylvania: The Science Press. pp. 2371–2372.
  2. 1 2 Pramer, D.; Lechevalier, H. A. (1974). "A salute to Dr. Robert L. Starkey on his seventy-fifth birthday". Soil Science. 118 (3): 139–140. Bibcode:1974SoilS.118..139P. doi:10.1097/00010694-197409000-00001. S2CID 94116015.
  3. ↑ Pringle, Peter (May 8, 2012). Experiment Eleven: Dark Secrets Behind the Discovery of a Wonder Drug. Bloomsbury Publishing USA. ISBN 9780802778956.
  4. ↑ "Historic Fellows". American Association for the Advancement of Science.
  5. ↑ "Obituary. Robert Lyman Starkey (mention of Theobald Smith Society)". ASM News. American Society for Microbiology. 57: 589. 1963. ISBN 9781555810146.
  6. ↑ "Charles Thom Awardees" (PDF). Society for Industrial Microbiology and Biotechnology.
  7. ↑ Cattell, Jaques, ed. (1949). American Men of Science: A Biographical Dictionary. Lancaster, Pennsylvania: The Science Press. p. 2371.
  8. ↑ Tenney, Florence G.; Waksman, Selman A. (August 1930). "Composition of Natural Organic Materials and Their Decomposition in the Soil: V. Decomposition of Various Chemical Constituents in Plant Materials, Under Anaerobic Conditions". Soil Science. 30 (2): 143. doi:10.1097/00010694-193008000-00004. S2CID 98700516.
  9. ↑ Waksman, Selman A.; Starkey, Robert L. (November 1931). "Review of The Soil and the Microbe by Selman A. Waksman and Robert L. Starkey". Soil Science. 32 (5): 406. Bibcode:1931SoilS..32..406W. doi:10.1097/00010694-193111000-00007.
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