Wellman, Frederick L.

Frederick Lovejoy Wellman (1897-1994) was a plant pathologist most known for his reasearch on coffee rust disease (Hemileia vastatrix). Born in Angola, Africa, Wellman moved to Kansas as a child. He attended Fairmount College, (now Wichita State University), receiving his A.B. degree in 1920. He then attended the University of Wisconsin in Madison, where he earned his M.A. in 1924 and Ph.D. in 1928. After graduation, Wellman began work as a plant pathologist for the United Fruit Company in Honduras. Wellman focused on Fusarium oxysporum, a fungus that causes disease in bananas. Wellman also worked for the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Interamerican Institute of Agricultural Sciences (IICA) in Turrialba, Costa Rica. In addition, he was the head of the Department of Plant Pathology and Botany at the Agricultural Experiment Station at the University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras. Throughout his career, Wellman traveled around the world studying coffee and preparing for coffee rust's eventual spread to the western hemisphere. By the time he retired, he had spent 24 years in the tropics, one year in Turkey, and one year near the equator.