James F. Crow (1916 - 2012) obtained his bachelors degree from Friends University in Wichita, Kansas and his doctoral studies concerned evolutionary genetics in fruit flies (Drosophila mulleri) at the University of Texas.
Before his arrival at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Crow taught genetics, zoology, statistics, and navigation at Dartmouth College. He joined the faculty with the recommendation of University of Wisconsin geneticist Joshua Lederberg in 1947. Though Crow was a productive laboratory researcher, he was equally successful as a classroom instructor. Crow taught general genetics as well as more specific courses in human genetics and population genetics which became his specialty. Part of Crow's teaching approach was to compile his own notes and distribute them so that students would be saved the task of taking their own notes during his lectures. These compilations became Genetics Notes, often simply called Crow's Notes, and eventually saw eight published editions and were translated into several languages. Crow's notes became a standard text for the teaching of introductory genetics.
Crow held a number of leadership positions within the University of Wisconsin faculty. He was chair of the Department of Medical Genetics from 1958 to 1963 and acting dean of the Medical School for two years thereafter. He was then again chair of Medical Genetics until 1972 and chair of the Department of Genetics from 1975 to 1977. Crow also headed the Ad Hoc Committee on the Role of Students in the Government of the University (1967). This committees report, colloquially referred to as "The Crow Report", advocated for the withdrawal by the university from intervention in the lives of its students and the end of so called "in loco parentis" activities. This conclusion, along with the recommendation that students be more deeply represented and involved in the processes of campus government represented a departure from University practices up to that point.
Crow oversaw a large number of graduate students during his time at the Department of Genetics. Perhaps the most prominent was Japanese geneticist Motoo Kimura. Kimura and Crow collaborated heavily in the emerging field of population genetics, which studies genetics across large numbers of individuals. Crow and Kimura co-published "An Introduction to Population Genetics Theory" in 1970, and Kimura came to be that fields central theorist. Crow's life long friendship with Kimura lead him and his wife Ann to make many trips to Japan starting in the mid 1950s. Crow was made an honorary member of the Japanese Academy of Sciences in 1985.
Crow's research covered a number of fields within genetics, including both laboratory and theoretical work. Crow's contribution included a number of experiments on hidden genetic variation and its effect over time in populations. Experiments performed by his group also recharacterized subtleties in some recessive genes and showed how such genes can act like dominant ones in certain circumstances. In an interview for "Conversations in Genetics" in 2000, Crow described his own life and research as being "characterized more by diversity than by systemic concentration on one or two subjects."
Another angle of Crow's research concerned the genetic effects of environmental mutagens like radiation or chemicals. These studies lead Crow to serve on a number of national committees through the National Research Council. These committees included the Committee on Biological Effects of Atomic Radiation, the Committee on Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation, Committee on Nuclear and Alternative Energy Systems, the Committee on Chemical Environmental Mutagens, the Scientific Advisory Committee of the Radiation Effects Research Foundation in Hiroshima, and the Atomic Bomb Casualty Committee. For many of these, Crow served as chair of the genetics section.
Crow was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1961 and was active on its nomination and election committees. In addition, Crow served in a number of capacities with the National Institutes of Health including the Advisory Committee to the Director and the Genetics Study Section.
Crow retired in 1986 and discontinued teaching his larger courses. However, he continued to give guest lectures and seminars and devoted much time to the editorship of the journal "Genetics" for which he his colleague William Dove produced a monthly column called "Perspectives in Genetics" for which Crow and Dove solicited and edited numerous short historical pieces from various geneticists about the development of the field.
Throughout his life, Crow was an accomplished amateur musician. Crow played the viola in the Madison Symphony Orchestra from 1949 to 1994 and lead a fundraising effort to build an endowment for the Pro Arte String Quartet which remains a part of the Mead-Witter School of Music.
