Elvin Charles Stakman

Elvin Charles Stakman (born May 17, 1885, Algoma, Wis., U.S.—died Jan. 22, 1979, St. Paul, Minn.) was a pioneering American plant pathologist and educator who established the methods for identifying and combatting diseases of wheat and other important food crops.

Stakman received his B.A. (1906), M.A. (1910), and Ph.D. (1913) from the University of Minnesota. In 1909 he became instructor in the newly established department of plant pathology, and in 1940 he became head of the department, a position he held until his retirement in 1953. Through the years he also held an appointment in the U.S. Department of Agriculture, where he organized and directed research at the Federal Cereal Rust Laboratory, which reflected Stakman’s deep interest and prolific research in the behaviour and control of fungi-produced leaf rust in cereals.

His work with food crops led him to take an active role in international scientific affairs. In 1941 he was on a panel that advised the Rockefeller Foundation on the feasibility of cooperation between the Mexican government and the Rockefeller Foundation to improve crop production. The outcome was the establishment (1943) of a research station for the improvement of corn (maize), which then evolved into a worldwide network of such stations under the aegis of the International Center for Corn and Wheat Improvement, an organization that has done much to improve food production in developing countries. He continued to serve the Rockefeller Foundation until shortly before his death.

In addition to scientific papers, Stakman published Principles of Plant Pathology (1957; with J.G. Harrar), and Campaign Against Hunger (1967), with R. Bradfield and P. Mangelsdorf, his fellow consultants to the Rockefeller Foundation’s agricultural program.