Edwin R. Willis

Edwin R. Willis, also identified in library and biographical records as Edwin Roy Willis, was an American entomologist born in New York City in 1911. Available records show that he moved to Michigan as a child, later studied in Louisiana and Ohio, served in World War II, and went on to build a career in entomology in places including Philadelphia, Massachusetts, and Illinois.

He is most closely associated with major collaborative studies of cockroaches, including The Biotic Associations of Cockroaches and The Medical and Veterinary Importance of Cockroaches, both written with Louis M. Roth and published by the Smithsonian. Those works helped document cockroaches not just as household pests, but as insects with important ecological relationships and medical relevance.

A family history catalog also notes that he wrote an autobiography, My life: a skeleton biography. Willis died in 1987. Although not a household name, he left behind careful, durable scientific work that still gives readers a sense of how much close observation can reveal about even the most overlooked creatures.