Michael S. Engel, FLS is an American paleontologist and entomologist. He has undertaken field work in Central Asia, Asia Minor, the Levant, Arabia, eastern Africa, the high Arctic, and South and North America, and published more than 550 papers in scientific journals. He was trained at the University of Kansas where in 1993 he received a B.Sc. in Physiology & Cell Biology and a B.A. in Chemistry, and at Cornell University where in 1998 he obtained his Ph.D. in Entomology. In 2006 he was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship for his work in insect paleontology. Dr. Engel is an authority on the geological history, phylogeny, and taxonomy of insects, and has made particular contributions to the systematics of living and fossil Zoraptera, Isoptera, Dermaptera, Raphidioptera, Neuroptera, and Hymenoptera, most notably the bees, including the honey bees. Some of Dr. Engel's research images have been included in exhibitions on the aesthetic value of scientific imagery. During his career Dr. Engel has discovered and described over 250 new genera/subgenera and over 600 new species of living and fossil arthropods, mostly insects but also Onychophora and Arachnida. 

September 24th, 1971 in Creve Coeur (Age 53)