Alexander Grant Ruthven (April 1, 1882 – January 19, 1971) was a herpetologist, zoologist and the President of the University of Michigan from 1929 to 1951.

[1] Alexander Grant Ruthven was born in 1882 in Hull, Iowa.

[1] He is buried at Forest Hill Cemetery which is adjacent to the university.

[6] The work of Ruthven on the familiar garter snakes, published in 1908, may be regarded as founding an essentially new school of herpetology in the United States.

Ruthven attracted many students of reptiles to the University of Michigan, his most brilliant pupils being Frank N. Blanchard and Helen T.