Dieter Sturhan
Dr. Dieter Sturhan was born on September 30, 1936, in a village in Lower Saxony, Germany. He subsequently studied Zoology, Botany and Geography at universities in Kiel, Munich and Erlangen and was awarded a Ph. D. in 1962 under Prof. Dr. H.-J. Stammer. His thesis research was undertaken at the Bavarian Crop Protection Centre in Munich, initially with investigations on potato cyst nematodes and then studies on taxonomy, biology and ecology of longidorids, whose importance as pathogens had just been established.
In October 1962 Dr. Sturhan joined the Institute for Nematology of the Federal Biological Research Centre for Agriculture and Forestry at Muenster and received a permanent assignment in 1964. Since that time he has worked at this institution, with various interruptions as a nematological consultant in projects of the German Government in Iran, Nicaragua, Dominican Republic, Cape Verde, and Benin. He also has visited Research Centers broad within the scope of Cooperation Programs (USA, Israel, Egypt, Italy, New Zealand, Russia, Estonia, Slovakia and Czech Republic) and joined several scientific missions (Canary Islands, Madeira, Azores).
Dieter joined SON in 1969 and served for some years in the Intraspecific Designation Committee and the Translation and Exchange Committee. He is also member of other nematological, zoological, ornithological and phytopathological societies, and in 1997 he was elected as Fellow of the Russian Society of Nematologists. Since 1974, Dieter has served as the German correspondent for ESN "Nematological News" of the European Society of Nematologists, and he serves in the editorial staff of three nematological journals.
Dieter's main research areas are taxonomy and diagnosis and studies on ecology and distribution, where he has focused on cyst-forming nematodes, longidorids and trichodorids, but his wide-ranging research interest included many other phytonematodes, and freeliving soil and aquatic nematodes as well. He has authored or co-authored some 200 scientific papers, reviews and abstracts. His wide international cooperation is documented by the fact that his co-authors came from almost 20 different countries.
Dr Sturhan continues to curate the German Nematode Collection, which he established at the beginning of his career. He has organized many courses on nematode identification for German students and has trained people working in developmental projects abroad. For seven years he served as President of the Nematology Working Group of the German Phytomedical Society and had been responsible for organizing the annual meetings. Although not a staff member of the University of Muenster, he has taught Applied Zoology (plant pests) for 14 years, and a number of students did their theses on soil and aquatic nematodes under his supervision.
Dieter will retire this year (2001), which does, however, not mean that he will stop working on nematodes!