Otto Kersten
Otto Kersten was a German chemist and geographer.
He studied chemistry and natural sciences at the University of Leipzig, and after graduation, worked as an assistant at the vocational school in Chemnitz. In 1862 he took part in Karl Klaus von der Decken's expedition in East Africa, where the two men made a partial ascent of Mount Kilimanjaro. In 1863 he traveled with von der Decken to the Seychelles and the Mascarenes, and during the following year, Kersten visited Madagascar, the Comoros and Mafia Island. In 1865 he returned to Europe.
From 1870 he served at the German consulate in Jerusalem, and in 1875 became manager of a chemical factory in Berlin. In 1878, with Robert Jannasch, he founded the Zentralverein für Handelsgeographie. In 1883 he carried out economic geography research in Morocco.
In 1869–79 he published . Its editors included Wilhelm Peters, Jean Cabanis, Franz Martin Hilgendorf, Eduard von Martens, Carl Eduard Adolph Gerstaecker, Otto Finsch, Gustav Hartlaub, et al.
Animals and plants with the specific epithets of kersteni and kerstenii commemorate his name; examples being Lygodium kerstenii, Rieppeleon kerstenii, and Pseudagrion kersteni.
