Michael Neander

Michael Neander, originally Neumann (1529 to 1581), was a German teacher, mathematician, medical academic and astronomer. He was born in Joachimsthal in Bohemia and educated at the University of Wittenberg, taking his bachelor's degree in 1549 and his master's in 1550. From 1551 until 1561 he taught mathematics and astronomy at Jena, and he became a professor in 1558 when the school where he taught was raised to a university. From 1560 until his death he was professor of medicine at the University of Jena, where he died in 1581. The crater Neander on the Moon is named after him, and the Galileo Project holds an entry on him. His career shows the sixteenth century union of mathematics, astronomy and medicine in one university teacher, who moved from teaching the mathematical arts of the quadrivium to the medical faculty of the same institution.