Skip to content
Wellsprings
Louis Agassiz

Louis Agassiz

1807 CE1873 CE · Môtiers

Jean Louis Rodolphe Agassiz ( AG-ə-see; French: [aɡasi]; May 28, 1807 – December 14, 1873) was a Swiss-born American biologist and geologist who is recognized as a scholar of Earth's natural history. Spending his early life in Switzerland, he received a PhD at the University of Erlangen and a medical degree at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München. After studying with Georges Cuvier and Alexander von Humboldt in Paris, Agassiz was appointed professor of natural history at the University of Neuchâtel. He emigrated to the United States in 1847 after visiting Harvard University. He went on to become professor of zoology and geology at Harvard, to head its Lawrence Scientific School, and to found its Museum of Comparative Zoology. Agassiz is known for observational data gathering and analysis. He made institutional and scientific contributions to zoology, geology, and related areas, including multivolume research books running to thousands of pages. He is particularly known for his contributions to ichthyological classification, including of extinct species such as megalodon, and to the study of historical geology, including the founding of glaciology. His theories on human, animal and plant polygenism have been criticised as implicitly supporting scientific racism.

Adapted from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

See Louis Agassiz’s journey on the map →

Life journeyclick any stop, or use ←/→Trace on the map →

Stop 1 of 3Born

Môtiers

We know they were here, but the specifics of what they did at this stop aren’t recorded yet in our corpus.

See other sages who lived in Môtiers

The world in their lifetime

Thinkers and teachers of other traditions whose lives overlapped with Louis Agassiz’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.

Works

No works attributed in the corpus yet.

Influenced byAlexander von HumboldtLouis AgassizShapedWilliam James
Related figuresGeorges CuvierSuggested by shared subject matter, not a documented teaching relationship.