About Robin
Robin B. Kinnel was born on January 18, 1937 in Milwaukee, WI. Six months after his birth, his family moved to the east coast where Robin grew up in South Jersey and Delaware. His father worked for many years as a chemical engineer at Dupont so chemistry was in Robin’s blood from the start.After graduating from high school in Wilmington, Delaware in 1954, Robin headed north to Harvard. He took a year off in the middle of his time at Harvard to work back in Delaware at Hercules Powder and then graduated from Harvard in 1959. Robin had an opportunity to do research at Harvard with Prof. Peter Yates in his senior year but didn’t really catch the chemistry bug until working at Merck for a year after graduation. His Merck experience convinced him to return to school so he went back to Cambridge, earning a PhD with Arthur C. Cope at MIT in 1964. From MIT he moved to Stanford for a two year post-doc with W. S. Johnson.
While still in California, Robin had an interview with Phil Rogers, Professor of Biology at Hamilton, who apparently had a penchant for interviewing candidates while on trips across the country. Robin must have passed muster because he was invited to Clinton to interview on campus. He was made an offer to join the department, then with a faculty of four, and began at Hamilton in August of 1966.
In his time at Hamilton, Robin has taught numerous courses in the chemistry department and has also, in the past five years, regularly taught an interdisciplinary course on the cultural and natural histories of the Adirondack Park. His outstanding teaching was recognized in 2007 with the Lang Teaching Prize. He has published twenty-one peer-reviewed journal articles, holds two patents and has successfully obtained numerous grants for research and equipment. Robin has served on and chaired just about every faculty committee on campus and spent a three year term as Associate Dean in the early ‘70’s. His biggest service commitment has been serving on and chairing the Health Professions Advising Committee for the majority of his time at the College, helping countless Hamilton students reach their goal of attending medical or dental school. He also served as the chair of the chemistry department for almost eighteen consecutive years.
Robin is probably best known by those on campus who don’t know him well as the guy who spends his sabbaticals in Hawaii. In fact, in his time at the College Robin has made very productive use of sabbaticals beginning with time in the early ‘70’s spent at Oregon State University. In his next sabbatical in 1976-77, Robin spent the year working in Jerry Meinwald’s lab at Cornell University. It was this experience that introduced him to the fields of marine natural products and chemical ecology which have been the major themes of his research ever since and inspired his first sabbatical in Hawaii in 1981-82 in Paul Scheuer’s lab. He has returned to Hawaii for three additional sabbaticals, most recently in 2005 to work in Thomas Hemscheidt’s lab, as well as for four summers.
Chemistry has clearly been the major thread in Robin’s professional life but it has always been an important part of personal life, as well. He met his wife, Anne, while he was at Harvard and she was a Radcliffe student, when they were enrolled in the same qualitative analysis lab. Anne also completed a degree in chemistry and taught high school chemistry in Clinton for twenty-two years. Robin and Anne have two children; neither of them are chemists but they also didn’t stray too far. Oldest son Tim earned a PhD at Wisconsin in physics and now does independent web design. Younger son Geoff has degrees in biology and works as a Senior Scientist at Bristol-Myers Squibb. Robin and Anne also have three grandchildren.
We recognize Robin’s formal retirement this weekend but it’s really retirement in name only. He has a sabbatical next year which will be spent half on campus, continuing ongoing research projects, and half in San Diego. He already has his sights set on research grant opportunities specifically for those with the title of Emeritus following their names so it is certain that he will continue to pursue research and he may even teach a course or two every once in a while. We look forward to his continued involvement in the department and at the College.
