Robert Earle Buchanan (March 27, 1883,Cedar Rapids, Iowa – 1973,Ames, Iowa) was an American bacteriologist and a professor and administrator atIowa State University.[1] He is known for his work on bacterial taxonomy.[2]
Buchanan grew up on a farm.[2] He graduated in 1904 with a B.S. and in 1906 with an M.S. from Iowa State College[3] (now named Iowa State University). He worked as an undergraduate as a student assistant toLouis Hermann Pammel, whom he accompanied on botanical surveys. He was from 1904 to 1906 as teaching assistant in bacteriology under Pammel.[1] In 1908 Buchanan received his Ph.D. in bacteriology from theUniversity of Chicago.[1] His doctoral dissertationThe Morphology of Bacillus Radicicola,[4] written under the supervision ofEdwin O. Jordan, deals with nitrogen-fixing bacteria that live in the nodules of a variety of legume species.[1] At Iowa State College, Buchanan was from 1908 to 1909 an associate professor and was appointed in 1909 a full professor.[3] He founded in 1910 the college's department of bacteriology and headed the department until his retirement in 1948.[2] Two important bacteriologists in the early history of the department are Max Levine (1889–1967) andChester Hamlin Werkman (1893–1962) (who was Buchanan's doctoral student).[1] Buchanan was the dean of Iowa State's Graduate College from 1919 to 1948[2] and director of the Iowa Agriculture Experiment Station from 1933 to 1945.[1]
Buchanan was elected in 1913 a fellow of theAmerican Association for the Advancement of Science.[5] In 1918 he was the president of the Society of American Bacteriologists (renamed in 1960 theAmerican Society for Microbiology).[1] In 1935 he was the president of theIowa Academy of Science.[3]
He married Estelle Denis Fogel in 1910.[3] Their son Joseph Hall Buchanan became a patent attorney and a brigadier-general.
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