Robert “Bob” Grubbs
» BS CHEMISTRY, '63
» MS CHEMISTRY, '65
When Bob Grubbs’ parents told him he would be an inventor one day, nobody could have predicted he would grow up to be a Nobel Prize-winning chemist. He went from creating things out of scrap wood as a child to rebuilding car engines as a teen to building new molecules as an adult. His discoveries and research have made significant impacts on the scientific community. Grubbs won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2005 for his revolutionary work in the field of metathesis — a process that allows chemists to build new molecules to improve products ranging from pharmaceutical drugs to specialized plastics.
Throughout his career, he has received numerous accolades for his discoveries, including an honorary doctoral degree from the University of Florida, an honorary fellowship at the Royal Society of Chemistry and induction into the Florida Inventors Hall of Fame. Grubbs now shares his love for chemistry at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.
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