Charles D. Michener is Professor Emeritus of Entomology and of Systematics and Ecology at the University of Kansas (KU). Michener received his B.S. (1939) and Ph.D. in Entomology (1941) from the University of California (UC).

Michener was born in 1918 in Pasadena, California. He was Assistant and Associate Curator of Lepidoptera and Hymenoptera (1942-1948) at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City before coming to KU in 1948 as an Associate Professor of Entomology. He was named Watkins Distinguished Professor of Entomology in 1958, and of Systematics and Ecology in 1968. During his time at the University of Kansas, he served as Chairman of the Department of Entomology (1949-1961, 1972-1975) and Director (1974-1983) and Senior Curator (1974-1989) of the Snow Entomological Museum. He retired from administration in 1989, but remained on the faculty to conduct research.

Michener received a Fulbright Research Grant (Australia, 1957-1959), and was a Guggenheim Fellow in 1955-1956 (Brazil) and 1966-67 (Africa). He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, and an honorary fellow of the American Entomological Society and Royal Entomological Society of London. He was president of the Kansas Entomological Society (1950), the Society for the Study of Evolution (1967), and served as editor and associate editor of many academic journals in his field. In 2002, he received the Distinguished Research Medal from the International Society of Hymenopterists.

Michener’s principal research fields include bee systematics, bee behavior and ecology, and the origin and evolution of social behavior. His book, The Bees of the World, was published in 2000, and is the world’s only comprehensive, worldwide treatment of all groups of bees.