Theodore Christian Frye (September 15, 1869, Washington, Illinois – April 5, 1962, Seattle) was an American botany professor and one of the world's leading experts on bryology.
Theodore C. Frye also collected plants with Robert Fiske Griggs and published, with George Burton Rigg, a flora of the Northwest in 1912.
Frye and Charles Edward Magnusson experimented with a process of candying kelp bulbs[2] for which they were granted a patent in July 1910.
'[2] In 1913, the U.S. Department of Agriculture appointed Frye and George Burton Rigg to make surveys of Alaskan kelp beds as an alternative source of potash.
In 1962, faculty, alumni, and friends of Hotson, Rigg, and Frye established the Frye-Hotson-Rigg Award to honour the former professors of Botany at the University of Washington.
The award is given to undergraduate Biology students "conducting research using a plant, algae, or fungi system for work in botany, ecology, evolution, taxonomy, environmental science, or biodiversity.