Boris Uvarov

Sir Boris Petrovitch Uvarov, KCMG (born 1889, Uralsk – died 1970, London) was a Russian-British entomologist.

Biography

Boris Petrovitch Uvarov was son of Pyotr P. Uvarov, a state bank employee, and his wife, Aleksandra. He studied biology in the University of St. Petersburg, graduating in 1910. He worked as entomologist in Stavropol and put locust control on a sound scientific basis. From 1915 he worked in Tiflis, which after the Russian revolution of 1917 had become the capital of the short-lived Democratic Republic of Georgia.

Starting in 1945, Dr. Uvarov and his small team received official designation as the Anti-Locust Research Centre. During the next fourteen years, the Centre developed into the foremost laboratory in the world for research on locusts. He made important contributions areas of taxonomy, population biology and locust control.

Honours

On 10 June 1961, Dr. Uvarov was named Member Second Class, or Knight Commander, of the Most Distinguished Order of Saint Michael and St George, for his contributions to science, particularly as Director of the Anti-Locust Research Centre.

Family

His niece was Dame Olga Uvarov.

Works

• Locusts and Grasshoppers (1928)
• Insect Nutrition and Metabolism (1928)
• Insects and Climate (1931)
• Grasshoppers and Locusts (V. I, 1966, ISBN 0851350720 V. II, 1977 ISBN 9780851350721)

References

• Wigglesworth, Vincent B.: "Boris Petrovitch Uvarov. 1889-1970", Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society, Vol. 17 (November 1971), pp. 713-40
• Wigglesworth, V. B.: "Uvarov, Sir Boris Petrovich (1889–1970)", rev. V. M. Quirke, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography