Jean Dybowski

Jean Thadée Emmanuel Dybowski (1856 to 1928) was a French agronomist, naturalist and explorer of Polish heritage, born at Charonne near Paris to Polish parents who had settled in France after the November Uprising of 1831. He studied at the agronomy school at Grignon, became a lecturer there in 1877 and from 1889 did developmental research in southern Algeria. In 1891 he went to the French Congo on a mission to extend French influence north of the Ubangi River, returned in 1892 with geographical information on the area between the Ubangi and Shari rivers and zoological specimens, and wrote La Route du Tchad du Loango au Chari. He served as director of agriculture and commerce in Tunisia, organized colonial test gardens, is credited with founding the agricultural station at Nogent-sur-Marne and was a founder of the French Institute of Colonial Agronomy in Paris and a member of the Polish Academy of Learning in Kraków. Dybowski's twinspot, a finch, is named for him.