J. S. Kennedy facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
John Stodart Kennedy
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| Born | May 19, 1912 |
| Died | February 4, 1993 (aged 80) |
| Alma mater | Westminster School, Imperial College London, University College, London |
| Awards | Fellow of the Royal Society, Linnean Medal |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Entomology |
John Stodart Kennedy (born May 19, 1912 – died February 4, 1993) was an American-born British scientist. He was an entomologist, which means he studied insects.
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Who Was John Stodart Kennedy?
John Stodart Kennedy was born in Titusville, Pennsylvania, USA. His father was a railway engineer from Britain, and his mother was American. His family moved around a lot when he was young.
After World War I, his family moved back to the United Kingdom. John went to Westminster School. He then studied insects at Imperial College London and later at University College, London.
Helping During Wartime
During World War II, John Kennedy used his knowledge of insects to help people. He worked on a project to protect crops from locusts. Locusts are like large grasshoppers that can eat huge amounts of plants, destroying farms. John helped organize ways to stop them.
Studying Insects
After the war, John worked for about 20 years in Cambridge. There, he met and married Claudette Bloch, who was a marine biologist.
In 1967, he returned to Imperial College. He became a professor there, teaching about how animals behave. He studied many different insects, like mosquitoes, locusts, and aphids. He was one of the first scientists to use experiments to study how locusts move and behave in their natural environment.
John also did important work on how aphids eat and how they can spread plant viruses. He helped us understand how insects behave in nature by looking at their body's responses in the lab. His ideas were very clever and he designed smart experiments.
Awards and Recognition
John Kennedy was a very respected scientist. In 1965, he was chosen to be a Fellow of the Royal Society. This is a special honor for top scientists in the UK.
In 1984, he received the Linnean Medal from the Linnean Society of London. This medal is given to scientists who have done great work in botany (the study of plants) or zoology (the study of animals).
To honor his important work, a building at Imperial College's Silwood campus was named after him in 2009.
