French phycologist. Born and raised in Paris, Jean Feldmann studied natural sciences and pharmacy, gaining his diploma in the latter in 1929. It was botany and not pharmacy that captured his imagination, however, and inspired by field trips to Brittany and the marine algal flora found there, he devoted himself to phycology.

In 1933 Feldmann was appointed Assistant in Botany at the University of Algiers. He remained in Algeria for many years, being promoted to Professor in 1948. He completed a doctoral thesis (1937) dealing with the algal flora and marine ecology of the coast of the Albères (Eastern Pyrenees) and often visited the laboratory at Banyuls, becoming an expert on western Mediterranean seaweeds. He also learned about tropical marine botany on a visit to the West Indies in this period, and proposed a life-form scheme for algae based on Raunkiaer's life-form types of terrestrial plants.

Feldmann married his assistant Geneviève Mazoyer in 1938 and the pair collaborated on a number of works. Together they left Algeria in 1949 and settled in Paris, working at what would become the Université Pierre and Marie Curie. Feldmann was initially Maitre de Conférences and later Professor, retiring in 1976. In Paris he was able to further the study of phycology in France when he was given a large laboratory in the 1960s. He was actively involved in the International Seaweed Symposia and served as Secretary and organiser of the phycology section of the International Botanical Congress in Paris in 1954. Feldmann was instrumental in the establishment of the Société Phycologique de France in 1955 and vigorously advocated the creation of the International Phycological Society, which was brought about in 1961 with Feldmann as its first president.

As well as his phycological studies, Feldmann carried out research on Algerian fungi, mosses, freshwater algae and flowering plants. Most of his 220 published works dealt with marine algae, though, especially comprising floristic and taxonomic works. With his wife he made significant contributions on red algal life histories and made innovations in dealing with parasitic red algae. He also delineated the brown algal order Scytosiphonales and made important studies of siphonous green algae. He continued his research after his retirement but only had two more years to live, dying suddenly in 1978.

Sources:
F. Magne, "Jean Feldmann (1905-1978)", in D.J. Garbary & M.J. Wynne (eds), 1996, Prominent Phycologists of the 20th Century: 244-253.