Isolda Rocha e Silva Albuquerque

Isolda Rocha e Silva Albuquerque is a Brazilian entomologist. A Guggenheim Fellow, she specialised in cockroaches and was a researcher at the Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi.

Biography

She was born on 27 January 1931 in Rio de Janeiro. After studying abroad at the University of Paris from 1951 until 1952, she later returned to Brazil, where she got her bachelor's degree in natural history from the in 1954.
In 1952, she began working as an investigator at the National Research Council. She was awarded two Guggenheim Fellowships in 1959 and 1960. She married fellow entomologist Dalcy de Oliveira Albuquerque.
In 1962, she and her husband started working at the Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi, where the latter eventually became director. She described several new species, including Xestoblatta bananae, Xestoblatta iani, Xestoblatta roppai, and Xestoblatta vera. In addition to a dozen articles in the, which her employer published, she also published in the. She was manager of the Blattodea collection at the National Museum of Brazil.
William Leslie Overal and Inocêncio de S. Gorayeb called her "a renowned specialist in South American Blattoidea", which she had a large collection of specimens, and said that her published work "represents significant contributions to the knowledge of the fauna of the Brazilian Amazon". In 1966, Ashley B. Gurney and Louis M. Roth named the genus Isoldaia after her "in recognition of her sustained efforts to broaden the knowledge of South American Blattaria". In 1983, Jose C. M. Carvalho and Maria Luiza Felippe named the species Isoldalinus rarus and its genus Isoldalinus "in recognition of her work on Neotropical Blattariae".