Jacobo Isaac Ochoterena Mendieta (1885–1950) was a Mexican autodidact, biologist, botanist, plant collector, researcher, educator and academic who published over 230 scientific works. Initially a primary school teacher, he went on to become a professor at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (National Autonomous University of México, UNAM), a researcher at the government-funded research center Dirección de Estudios Biológicos (DEB), and Dean of the Biology Institute at UNAM. Ochoterena documented the diverse botany and zoology of Mexico, publishing both books and papers on a wide range of topics. A genus and at least 15 species have been named for Ochoterena, among them flowering plants, cacti, fish, skinks and lizards. He helped to identify the cause of the disease onchocerciasis, which has since been eradicated through public health initiatives. Ochoterena, with Fernando Ocaranza and Eliseo Ramírez Ulloa, was part of a new order of politically aligned medical institutions that developed in post revolutionary Mexico. As Dean of Biology, Ochoterena's descriptive and practical approach to biology and his emphasis on its applications in medicine shaped the institutionalization of biology in Mexico. This may have been one of the factors delaying the development in Mexico of a broad-based approach to biological concepts and the examination of theories such as evolution and the origin of life.
Early life and education Isaac Ochoterena was born in Atlixco, Puebla, to Colonel Pedro Ochoterena and Virginia Mendieta de Ochoterena. He attended school in his native city and at the Escuela Normal of Tlaxcala (Tlaxcala Normal School) and later the Escuela Nacional Preparatoria (National Preparatory School) in Mexico City where his teachers included Gabino Barreda, Justo Sierra Méndez, Miguel E. Schulz and naturalist Manuel Maria Villada. When Ochoterena was 16 his father died, and he gave up his initial plan of studying medicine. Ochoterena published his first article, "Algo de Paleontologia" in 1903. On the advice of Justo Sierra, Ochoterena applied for and passed an examination given by the Secretaría de Instrucción Pública y Bellas Artes qualifying him as a teacher of primary education in 1906. Beyond this early training, he was an autodidact, entirely self-taught.
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