E. Raymond (Eugene Raymond) Hall

Born in Kansas in 1902, E. Raymond Hall became one of the most influential mammalogists of the 20th century. He studied at the University of Kansas and later earned his Ph.D. at the University of California, Berkeley, where he worked under noted naturalist Joseph Grinnell.

Hall served as Curator of Mammals at Berkeley before returning to the University of Kansas, where he taught zoology and led the Natural History Museum. Over the course of his career, he published hundreds of scientific papers and several books, including the widely known Mammals of North America.

His work focused on the classification, distribution, and variation of mammals, and he is remembered not only for his own research but also for training a generation of later mammalogists. Even decades after his death in 1986, his scholarship remains an important part of North American natural history.