Taylor, William Randolph, 1895-

Professor of botany at University of Michigan, curator of algae at the University Herbarium, and biologist with the atomic bomb test program in Marshall Islands in 1946.

William Randolph Taylor was born in Philadelphia on December 21, 1895. He was educated at the University of Pennsylvania receiving his Ph.D. in botany in 1920. He taught at the University of Pennsylvania becoming professor of botany in 1927. Taylor was throughout his career interested in cytology. He was also deeply involved with microscopy, first with flowering plants and later with algae.

Taylor came to the University of Michigan in 1930 with an appointment as professor of botany and curator of algae in the Herbarium. Simultaneous to his career at Pennsylvania and Michigan, Taylor had worked with the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts where he taught the algal course and where he spent most summers from 1917 to 1989.

Taylor excelled as a collector of marine algae, especially seaweed, in British Columbia, New England and eastern Canada, throughout the Caribbean and northern South America, islands off western Mexico to the Galapagos Islands. In 1946, Taylor was appointed senior biologist in "Operation Crossroads" of the Department of Navy and conducted a botanical survey of Bikini and other Marshall Islands in the South Pacific prior to and immediately after the testing of atomic bombs.

Taylor published extensively in his field and was the recipient of many professional honors and citations. He died November 11, 1990.