Robert Howard Grubbs has a BS and MS Chemistry from University of Florida from 1963 and 1965 respectively. In 1968, he gained his PhD in Chemistry from Columbia University. He was a NIH Postdoctoral Fellow, Chemistry, at Stanford University from 1968 until 1969 and a faculty member at Michigan State University from 1969 to 1978. He is currently the Victor and Elizabeth Atkins Professor of Chemistry at the California Institute of Technology, and faculty member since 1978.
His awards have included the Nobel Prize in Chemistry (2005), and 9 ACS Awards. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences (1989), a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1994), Honorary Fellowship of the Royal Society of Chemistry (2006) and a member of the National Academy of Engineering (2015). He has 625+ publications and 160+ patents based on his research.
The Grubbs group discovers new catalysts and studies their fundamental chemistry and applications. For example, a family of catalysts for the interconversion of olefins, the olefin metathesis reaction has been discovered in the Grubbs laboratory. In addition to their broad usage in academic research, these catalysts are now used commercially.
Professor Robert Grubbs ForMemRS died on 19 December 2021.
Awards
Nobel Prize in Chemistry
Jointly with Yves Chauvin and Richard Royce Schrock ForMemRS
