Reeve M Bailey, Professor of Biological Sciences and Curator of Fishes in the Museum of Zoology, has retired from active faculty status as of June 30, 1981, after a most productive career as a researcher, teacher, and curator.

A native of West Virginia, Dr. Bailey attended the University of Toledo before entering The University of Michigan where he received his A.B. degree in 1933 and his Ph.D. in 1938. In 1938 he went to Iowa State University as Instructor in Zoology, and was promoted to Assistant in 1943. The following year he returned to The University of Michigan as Associate Curator of Fishes in the Museum of Zoology and became Curator of Fishes in 1948. He was also Assistant Professor (1944-50), Associate Professor (1950-59), and Professor (1959- ) in the Department of Zoology of this University.

An internationally known ichthyologist, Dr. Bailey has published widely on the systematics, hybridization, and zoogeography of North American fresh water fishes. He is also an authority on the nomenclature of fishes and for thirty years has been a member of the Committee of Names of Fishes of the American Fisheries Society (serving as chairman from 1951- 71). He also served as President and Chairman of the Executive Committee of that society (1974-75), and is one of eleven ichthyologists to receive the prestigious American Fisheries Society Award of Excellence. He also served as member of the Editorial board and president of the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists (1959). He served on the Council of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (1968-72), and has been active in several other learned societies.

Field studies on fishes were conducted by Dr. Bailey in several parts of the United States, as well as Michigan, and his papers are the basis for much of our knowledge of the classification and distribution of the most important groups of fishes in the Mississippi and Great Lakes drainages. His studies in Iowa and South Dakota led to major works on the fishes of those states. Amazonian, Bolivia, Paraguay, Guatemala, and Lake Tanganyika have also been sites of his fieldwork.

In his thirty-six years as senior curator of the Division of Fishes, Dr. Bailey maintained exemplary standards in the collection, identification, and processing of new material, as well as encouraging and aiding many significant studies based on the fish collection. The nearly three million catalogued specimens in the collection are a renowned resource for scientific research and a major attraction for students and evolutionary biologists. The leading position of the University of Michigan Museum of Zoology in the graduate training of ichthyologists is to a considerable extent the result of Dr. Bailey's work with graduate students, who hold important positions in the field.

The Regents now salute this distinguished researcher, teacher, and curator by naming him Professor Emeritus of Biological Sciences.