Walter Koelz

Who was Walter Koelz?

Walter Norman Koelz was an American zoologist and museum collector.

Walter Koelz's parents were immigrants from the Black Forest region of Germany, and his father was a village blacksmith in Waterloo. Walter Koelz studied zoology and received the degree of Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Michigan in 1920. In 1925 he joined the McMillan Expedition to the American Arctic. He also studied whitefishes during his work at the University of Michigan at the Institute for Fisheries Research. He was offered a post with the Himalayan Research Institute of the Roerich Museum in 1930. He visited Naggar in Kulu, in May 1930, to begin botanical explorations. He returned to Michigan in 1932, but his interest in Tibetan culture led to his appointment as a Research Fellow on the Charles L. Freer Fund in September 1932.

In 1933 he returned to Indian Tibet to collect anthropology related material for the University of Michigan. In 1936 Dr. Koelz travelled once more to India to collect plants. For seven years from 1939 he explored Persia, Nepal, and parts of India including Assam and made a large collection of birds.