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Recollections of Mel Green


Mel Green co-taught a “history of genetics” course that I took as a first-year grad student at UC Davis. It was fitting because Mel Green was a living embodiment of the history of genetics. Mine was one of the last years that Mel co-taught that class, so I feel quite privileged.

Unlike some of my friends who have gone through Davis I only had a few conversations with Mel. But he gave us the wisdom of a life of learning and seeing genetics evolve as a discipline over the 20th century. It isn’t often that you talk to someone who could dismiss Charles Davenport because he had talked to the man and judged that he had a poor grasp of Mendelian theory!

Most everyone has a “Mel Green story.” So let me recount mine. Though it doesn’t have to do me with as such. Mel lived 101 years, and was active in science by the 1940s. In our history of genetics course we had to give a presentation on a particular topic (mine was on polytene chromosomes). The student who was giving the presentation on Drosophila research was not a genetics student. I had assumed she would be a bit nervous because Mel was a renowned Drosophilist, and he was sitting right there listening to everything.

At some point she began to refer to a researcher, “M Green.” She went on about “M Green” and his work for about five minutes, at one point pausing to note that “M Green” even worked at Davis! At this point the co-instructor had to stop her and tell her that “M Green” was sitting in the room, right next to her. Because the research was published in the 1940s the student had assumed that this was from someone who could never have been alive in the present. But there it was, Mel Green was still with us, a witness to all that history that had come and gone.