Dr. R. J. Pumphrey

Abstract

DR. R. J. PUMPHBEY, who succeeds Prof. Orton, has for many years been associated with or on the staff of the Zoological Deparment at Cambridge. Going into residence in 1925 and winning the Frank Smart Prize in 1999. he has held an unusually wide range of distinuished research appointments,including Rockefeller and Beit fellowships. Since 1946 he has been an assistant director of research and as such primarily concerned with problems of sensory physiology. He is best known for his outstanding contributions to our knowledge of the auditory and visual functions in lower organisms. Much of this work involves a highly specialized and biophysical approach ; but the outstanding feature of its results is the extent to which they provide a much clearer and more convincing picture of the rolo of the sense organs in the everyday life of the organisms. This combination of intellectual acuity and wide-angled vision augurs well for the future of his new Department. Dr. Pumphrey is unusually well equipped to deal with the relationship of university departments to the teaching of biology in schools, for he has played a very active part in framing the syllabuses now in force for school and higher certificate examinations ; with a colleague, at Manchester, not uninterested in such matters, there is little fear of undue stagnation.