Robert Asa Cushman (6 November 1880 – 25 March 1957) was an American entomologist who worked mainly on agricultural entomology at the Bureau of Entomology in Washington DC. He also worked on the systematics of

ichneumonid The Ichneumonidae, also known as the ichneumon wasps, Darwin wasps, or ichneumonids, are a family (biology), family of parasitoid wasps of the insect order Hymenoptera. They are one of the most diverse groups within the Hymenoptera with roughly 2 ...

and chalcidoid wasps. Cushman was born in

Taunton Taunton () is the county town of Somerset, England, with a 2011 population of 69,570. Its thousand-year history includes a 10th-century monastic foundation, Taunton Castle, which later became a priory. The Normans built a castle owned by the ...

, Massachusetts and was trained at the

University of New Hampshire The University of New Hampshire (UNH) is a public land-grant research university with its main campus in Durham, New Hampshire. It was founded and incorporated in 1866 as a land grant college in Hanover in connection with Dartmouth College, mo ...

and

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...

. He worked in the

US Department of Agriculture The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is the United States federal executive departments, federal executive department responsible for developing and executing federal laws related to farming, forestry, rural economic development, ...

from 1906 working on aspects of economic entomology. He worked on the cotton boll weevil and then studied fruit insects at

Vienna, VA Vienna () is a town in Fairfax County, Virginia, United States. As of the 2020 U.S. census, Vienna has a population of 16,473. Significantly more people live in ZIP codes with the Vienna postal addresses (22180, 22181, and 22182), bordered approx ...

. From 1920 he worked full-time at the National Museum. He was a member of the

Entomological Society of Washington The Entomological Society of Washington was organized on February 29, 1884 at a meeting called by three entomologists employed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture: Charles Valentine Riley, Eugene Amandus Schwarz, and Leland Ossian Howard, in Ril ...

from 1911 and became its secretary in 1919, serving as a vice president in 1923 and 1924 and as its president in 1925. He published more than 113 articles through his career. He retired from service in 1944 due to poor health and moved along with his wife to live in

Altadena, California Altadena () ("Alta", Spanish for "Upper", and "dena" from Pasadena) is an unincorporated area and census-designated place in the Verdugo Mountains region of Los Angeles County, California, approximately 14 miles (23 km) from the downtown ...

. He died in 1957.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cushman, Robert Asa 1880 births 1957 deaths American entomologists Cornell University alumni 20th-century American zoologists