Robert O. Ritchie is the H.T. and Jessie Chua Distinguished Professor of Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, and Senior Faculty Scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. He received MA, PhD and ScD degrees in Physics/Materials Science from Cambridge University.

He is known for his research into the mechanics and micro-mechanisms of fracture and fatigue of a broad range of structural and biological materials, where he has provided a microstructural basis for their damage-tolerance and fatigue resistance.  His interests are currently focused on high-entropy and bulk-metallic glass metallic alloys, the structural integrity of human bone, and the development of novel structural materials inspired by Nature.

He has won numerous awards, recently the Turnbull Award from the Materials Research Society (2013), the Acta Materialia Gold Medal (2014), and the TMS Morris Cohen Award (2017); he was also the inaugural winner of the Sir Alan Cottrell Gold Medal from the International Congress on Fracture (2009). He is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, the U.S. National Academy of Engineering, the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences.