Charles Fuller Baker

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Charles Fuller Baker (1872–1927) was an American scientist who studied insects, plants, and farming. He became the second dean of the University of the Philippines College of Agriculture, now part of the University of the Philippines Los Baños.

He was born in Lansing, Michigan, the son of Joseph Stannard Baker and Alice Potter, and brother of Ray Stannard Baker. He earned a degree from Michigan Agricultural College in 1892. He worked at the Colorado Agricultural Experiment Station in Fort Collins, researching Hemiptera (true bugs). He joined the H. H. Smith expedition to Colombia in 1898–99 to collect plants and helped publish plant lists.

In 1903 he earned a Master of Science from Stanford University, then taught at Pomona College and worked on the Invertebrata Pacifica series. He spent 1904–1907 in Cuba at an agronomy research station in Santiago de las Vegas, and he also worked briefly in Para, Brazil. In 1912 he joined the College of Agriculture in Los Baños as a professor and dean. He also worked briefly at the Singapore Botanical Gardens in 1917.

Baker died in Manila on July 22, 1927, from chronic dysentery and is buried at Los Baños. His fungal collections were destroyed during World War II, but about 400,000 insect specimens were saved and sent to the US National Museum. The genera Bakeromyces and Bakerophoma were named in his honor, and the beetle Hesperopenna bakeri was named after him. When citing a plant name, his standard author abbreviation is C.F.Baker.