In 1885 he graduated with a bachelor's degree in agriculture from the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where William Trelease taught him in courses in ecology, cryptogamic botany, and botanical taxonomy.

However, he soon accepted an offer to work as an assistant to the botanist William G. Farlow at Harvard University and arrived in Cambridge, Massachusetts in early December 1885.

In the spring of 1886 Pammel received a letter from William Trelease, his former botany professor at Wisconsin, who had moved in 1885 to Washington University in St. Louis.

[6][3] A keen conservationist Pammel enjoyed outdoor recreation and was a prominent figure in the preservation of Iowa's natural parks.

Also an enthusiastic promoter of environmental education, he passed away while travelling to California where he and his wife of 43 years, Augusta Emmel, would spend the winter months.