F. A. (François Alphonse) Forel

Born in Morges, Switzerland, in 1841, François-Alphonse Forel studied in Geneva and later became a professor at the University of Lausanne. Trained as a physician, he also worked across several branches of natural science, bringing together medicine, geology, meteorology, and biology in a way that made his research unusually wide-ranging.

Forel is best known for his long, careful investigation of Lake Geneva, published in the three-volume Le Léman. Because of this work, he is often described as a founder of limnology, the scientific study of inland waters. He examined lake currents, temperature, sediments, and life in the water, helping turn the close observation of lakes into a serious scientific field.

Beyond his lake research, he wrote on earthquakes, glaciers, and environmental questions, and he remained an active public intellectual in Switzerland until his death in 1912. His legacy endures both in earth science and in the broader habit of studying nature as an interconnected system.