April 23, 1897–September 12, 1975

BY EDWARD B. LEWIS

BERWIND P. KAUFMANN began his career as a botanist but turned from studies of plant chromosomes to making pioneering contributions to three principal fields: the induction of chromosomal rearrangements by ionizing radiation, identification of nucleolar organizer and heterochromatic regions of the somatic chromosomes of Drosophila, and determination of the biochemical composition of plant and animal chromosomes using purified enzymes.

Berwind Petersen Kaufmann was born on April 23, 1897, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with the B.Sc. degree in 1918, the M.A. in 1920, and the Ph.D. in 1925. While attending the university, he was an assistant and lecturer in the Department of Botany and at one point taught biology and drafting at Northeast High School in Philadelphia. His Ph.D. thesis dealt with the structure of the chromosomes of Tradescantia and led to his first major publication (1926). In 1926 Kaufmann went to Southwestern College, Memphis, Tennessee, where he taught biology. He left in 1929 to become a professor and the chairman of the Department of Botany at the University of Alabama.

In 1924 he married Jessie Thomson McCulloch, of Philadelphia. They had three sons: Berwind Norman,