Dr James Paul Chapin (1889–1964) was an American ornithologist.
One of the top ornithologists of the twentieth century. At age 19 he left Staten Island to become second in command of the American Museum of Natural History's six year expedition to the Congo. He received his doctorate from Columbia University in 1919 and worked at the American Museum of Natural History for 59 years. He moved to Staten Island in 1892 and was a regular contributor to publications of the Staten Island Institute of Arts and Sciences as a young teenager.[1]
Chapin was joint leader (with Herbert Lang) of the Lang-Chapin expedition which made a biological survey of the Belgian Congo between 1909 and 1915. For his work, The Birds of the Belgian Congo, Part I, he was awarded the Daniel Giraud Elliot Medal from the National Academy of Sciences in 1932.[2]