Alfred Edwards Emerson, Jr. (December 31, 1896 – October 3, 1976) was an American biologist, Professor of Zoology at the University of Chicago, a noted entomologist and leading authority on termites.
On a suggestion from William Beebe, he visited the research station of the New York Zoological Society at Kartabo in British Guiana and began examining termites, an area that he studied throughout his life.
[4] Emerson and Winifred had a daughter, Helena, who became a professor of sociology, and a son William Jelliffe who worked on anatomy at the University of California.
Winifred died in 1949 after which he married Eleanor Fish, with whom he had written a children's book Termite City (1937).
[5] In a posthumous biography of Emerson, Wilson and Michener (1982) stated:[5] Through his sister who lived in India, Emerson became a friend of the Indian prime minister Indira Gandhi and also collaborated with termite specialists at the Zoological Survey of India in Calcutta.