Bronislaw M. Honigberg

A protozoan, Ditrichomonas honigbergii, described in 1993 was named in his honour.

Biography

Bronisław M. Honigberg was born and educated in Warsaw, Poland. He completed secondary education just before World War II broke out. He and his family fled to US. They arrived at San Francisco on 10 May 1941 by the ship Asama Maru. They were detained at the port as their ticket was not specific for the family. Confirming that he was a medical student, they were released after five days.

Entering the University of California, Berkeley, he earned a BA in 1943, an MA in 1946, PhD in 1950. His research was supervised by Harold Kirby, who had established the order Trichomonadida.

He became naturalized citizen in 1948. In 1950, he was appointed assistant professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, becoming full professor in 1961. He was Director of the Parasitological Center of the university from 1980. He continued research on protozoology, concentrating on trichomonads and kinetoplastids.

In 1963, he became chairman of the first Committee on Taxonomy and Taxonomical Problems of the Society of Protozoologists. Under his leadership a revised Systematics of Protozoa was published in 1964.

He died of heart attack, and is interred at Wildwood Cemetery at Amherst. He and his wife Rhoda had two sons, Paul Mark and Martin Philip.