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Classroom Profile

Frederick Kroebert Sparrow
The Michigan Alumnus 88

For his work on microscopic soil and
 water fungi, Associate Professor FRED
ERICK K. SPARROW, JR., '25, has re
ceived national and international 
honors. In 1929, after receiving his 
doctorate at Harvard University, he
 was appointed Assistant Professor of 
Biology at Dartmouth, where he served
 till 1936, at which time he was ap
pointed to the University Department
 of Botany as an Assistant Professor. 


In 1944 he was raised to an Associate 
Professorship, and also at this time
 won the Russel Award, which is given 
annually to a junior member of the 
faculty who has shown conspicuous
 achievement in his field. During these
 years he also served as a Research 
Fellow at the Woods Hole Oceano
graphic Institution, and as a National 
Research Fellow in Biological Science 
at Cornell University, Cambridge University, and at the University of 
Copenhagen.

High among his profes
sional honors have been invitational 
papers read before: VI International
 Congress, Amsterdam, 1935; The
 British Association for the Advance
ment of Science, Norwich, 1935; The
 Linnean Society of London, 1936; and 
he was a Corresponding Member of the
 III International Congress for Micro
biology, New York, 1939. He is at
 present Editor of the Michigan Acad
emy of Science, Arts, and Letters;
 Secretary-Treasurer of the Mycological Society of America, and is a past
 Associate-Editor of the Mycologia.


His publications include 40 papers in
 American, British, and Danish journals
 on water fungi, and he is the author of 
"Aquatic Phycornycetes," a textbook, which has been published by the University of Michigan Press, and the
 Oxford University Press, London. Dr.
 Sparrow's research has been primarily 
concerned with microscopic soil and
 water fungi, and has been undertaken 
in the United States, Great Britain,
 Holland, and Denmark. As a result of 
information gained from his work in
 Denmark, research on marine mycology
 was initiated in this country at the
 Woods Hole Oceanographic Institu
tion.

A member of Alpha Sigma Phi 
fraternity, Professor Sparrow also be
longs to the New England Botanical 
Club, Sigma Xi, Mycological Society
 of America, British Mycological So
ciety, Botanical Society of America,
 Washington Academy of Science, and 
the Cambridge (England) Philosophi
cal Society. Married to the former
 Nan Gabler, '23, he has two boys. His
 hobbies are. music and natural history.