Kraft, Gerald Thompson (Gerry)   (1939 -  )

Born in 1939 in USA;.

He is a prominent American-born Australian phycologist and botanist known for his extensive research on marine algae.

In 1968 he collected in the Philippines as part of his Masters research.

He is based at the University of Melbourne School of Botany, and has dedicated his career to the taxonomy, evolution, and biodiversity of benthic marine algae—particularly red algae—found throughout southern Australia and the Pacific.

For more than 30 years Dr Kraft, along with his students and colleagues, studied the species-rich marine algal communities of Lord Howe Island, an oceanic outcrop of volcanic origin situated between Australia and New Zealand, which is fringed by the worlds southernmost consolidated coral reef.

His early collections were lodged in the University of Melbourne herbarium (now MELU).
In recent years, he has donated his collection of several thousand algae specimens to the National Herbarium of Victoria.

Because of his profound impact on phycology, several marine species (such as Predaea kraftiana and Antithamnionella rhodokraftia) and the red algae genus Kraftionema have been named in his honour.

Source: Extracted from:
FLORA OF AUSTRALIA Volume 1 Introduction 2nd edition - A history of systematic botany in Australia
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Gerald-Kraft
https://www.instagram.com/p/DNU_W_rqF0C/
Portrait Photo: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Gerald-Kraft.

Collecting localities for 'Kraft, G.T.' from AVH (2026)

Data from 17,550 specimens