Johann Jacob Ferber

Johann Jacob Ferber (29 August 1743 – April 1790) was a Swedish mineralogist. He came from a family of scientifically inclined pharmacists. He studied natural history with an emphasis on mineralogy at Uppsala University, where Carl Linnaeus was one of his teachers and supervisor of his thesis. After his graduation, Ferber embarked on an international and largely itinerant career. He held the chair in chemistry and natural history of the Academia Petrina in Jelgava 1774–1783, and was professor of mineralogy in Saint Petersburg 1783–1786. He was elected member of the Russian Academy of Sciences and of the Prussian Academy of Sciences. He died in Switzerland in 1790 during one of his many travels.

Ferber published his observations in books and publications of learned societies, and sustained an important network of scientists during a time when the sciences of mineralogy and geology were undergoing rapid development. Despite being widely recognised as an accomplished scientist by his contemporaries, his achievements were later to some degree neglected.