Ivey Foreman Lewis
| Ivey Foreman Lewis | |
|---|---|
| Born | August 31, 1882 Raleigh, North Carolina |
| Died | March 16, 1964 (aged 81) |
| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Botany, genetics |
| Institutions | |
| Author abbrev. (botany) | I.F.Lewis |
Ivey Foreman Lewis (August 31, 1882 – March 16, 1964) was an American botanist and geneticist who served for two decades as dean of the University of Virginia and helped found the Virginia Academy of Science. A proponent of eugenics throughout his career, in his final years, Lewis and his sister Nell Battle Lewis gained national attention for their opposition to racial desegregation in public education, especially the United States Supreme Court decisions in Brown v. Board of Education.
Lewis was born in Raleigh, North Carolina to a prominent physician and public health official Richard Henry Lewis. He had two brothers. His father remarried twice. He had a half sister Nell Battle Lewis. Lewis earned a B.S. (1902) and M.S. (1903) at the University of North Carolina, and later a PhD at Johns Hopkins University (1908).
During his own post-graduate studies through Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, Maryland, Lewis taught Biology at Randolph–Macon College in Ashland, Virginia from 1905 to 1912. After he received his PhD, Lewis accepted a position as Assistant Professor of Botany at the University of Wisconsin (1912 to 1914). He then taught as Professor of Botany at the University of Missouri from 1914 to 1915.
In 1915, University of Virginia president Edwin A. Alderman recruited Lewis, who became Professor of Biology and Agriculture, and began to modernize the institution and increase its research output. Lewis became popular at the University, as well as important in the state's scientific community—helping to found the Virginia Academy of Science and serving as its first president. Lewis was appointed Dean of the University in 1934 and (after a reorganization), Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences in 1946, a position he held until his retirement in 1953. He is buried at the University of Virginia Cemetery.
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