American phycologist, De Alton Saunders took part in the Harriman Alaska Expedition of 1899 and was particularly interested in the brown algae of the Pacific Coast of North America. Originally from Alfred in Allegany County, New York, Saunders moved to Brookings in South Dakota where he worked at the South Dakota Agricultural and Mechanical College as professor of botany and entomology between 1896 and 1903. Leading an expedition to the Big Stone Lake region early on in his employment he was also a head of department at the college. In 1899 Saunders published a flora of the ferns and flowering plants of South Dakota and also consumed in the study of brown algae off the coast of California, describing many new species.

In 1899 he was chosen to take part as a botanist on the Alaskan expedition which was funded by E.H. Harriman. The team of 30 scientists travelled in luxury aboard the Elder which was said to be like a floating university, with lectures given almost every night. Accompanied by such great figures as C.H. Merriman (a founder of the National Geographic Society) and John Muir (naturalist and founder of the Sierra Club), the party visited Glacier Bay, Yakutat Bay, prince William Sound and the Shumagin Islands in the Bering Sea, collecting and documenting cultural practices. Although the expedition produced findings of merit in the fields of natural history and ethnography, it has become somewhat controversial. This is not because of Harriman's near obsession with shooting a trophy bear, which he did on Kodiak Island, but because they sought out an abandoned Tlingit Village at Foggy Bay in Cape Fox and gathered numerous artefacts and souvenirs, including many of the villages totems. A century later the expedition's journey was retraced on the Clipper Odyssey and many of the artefacts were returned.

In 1901 Saunders published a report on the algae found on the Harriman expedition and in 1903 he moved with his wife and two children to Waco in Texas, where he worked as a field agent for the US government. By 1920 they had moved again, this time within Texas, to Greenville in Hunt County and Saunders was employed on the government's Cotton Seed Breeding Station. He remained in this city for the rest of his life. The genus of brown algae Saundersella Kylin was named for him in 1940.

Sources:
J. Ewan, 1950, Rocky Mountain Naturalists
M.J. Wynne, 2010, "Phycological Trailblazer. No. 33: De Alton Saunders", Phycological Newsletter , 46(2): 9-15.