VOLUME 100, NUMBER 29, JULY 18, 1996
© Copyright 1996 by the American Chemical Society
Robin M. Hochstrasser
Photo by Suzanne Sennheim
Biography Robin Hochstrasser was born in Edinburgh, Scotland on January 4, 1931. Robin’s youth was very much influenced by the Second World War, and he still vividly describes the dogfights in the skies over the Firth of Forth just after the beginning of the war. Robin received an unconventional high school education, leaving him considerable time to become accomplished at tennis, bridge, and billiards. After receiving a B.Sc. degree in “applied chemistry” from the Heriot-Watt S0022-3654(96)03476-4 CCC: $12.00
University in Edinburgh, he obtained a Ph.D. degree from Edinburgh University in “pure chemistry” in 1955. Robin’s thesis research was concerned with surface photochemistry, which aroused his interest in fundamental aspects of spectroscopy. In Britain of the 1950s, military service was obligatory, and Robin spent two years in the Royal Air Force as a Pilot Officer. During this period Robin developed one of his “secret weapons” in research; he studied mathematics through a © 1996 American Chemical Society
11790 J. Phys. Chem., Vol. 100, No. 29, 1996 correspondence course of the University of London and developed skills that sparked his interest in combining theory and experiment, and led him later to write the first textbook on group theory for chemical physicists. He also honed his billiards and tennis games, landing a position on an R.A.F. tennis team. His job in the air force was to teach electronics to the R.A.F. navigators so they could use and rapidly service the new highaltitude radar bombsights that had been installed in V-bombers. This is perhaps the only area where Robin did not show superior talent as a teacher. In the historical bombing raids on the Suez Canal, it was reported that all of Robin’s students missed their Egyptian targets badly [fortunately].1 After leaving the air force in 1957, Robin immediately took up a position as Instructor of Chemistry at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. With no postdoctoral experience and no laboratory experience for the previous two years, Robin immersed himself in experiments. However, Robin had become interested in quantum mechanics and decided to change his field. Instead of continuing in surface photochemistry, he launched his career as an independent investigator in molecular electronic spectroscopy, equipped only with a liquid nitrogen Dewar, a xenon arc lamp, a prism monochromator (from a Beckman “DU” spectrophotometer), some simple lenses, a photomultiplier tube, a battery, and a voltmeter. His work on radiationless transitions and luminescence in molecular crystals made the international spectroscopic community take notice of him, and in 1961 he took leave to study at the National Research Council in Ottawa and at Florida State University. While in Florida he first considered the ultrahigh magnetic field experiments on molecular triplet states, and decided to stay in the United States to carry them out. The new Laboratory for Research on the Structure of Matter at the University of Pennsylvania had plans for two high-field magnets, and he was invited to become a member of the tenured faculty in the Department of Chemistry at Penn. As it turned out, his magnetic field experiments were carried out first at the National Magnet Laboratory at MIT and only later at Penn. Apart from leaves in Cambridge, Canberra, Oxford, Paris, Munich, and Grenoble, Penn has been Robin’s home for the past 33 years. Robin brought modern spectroscopy to Penn, and his knowledge and expertise have had a wide-ranging impact at the university in chemistry, physics, biology, and medicine. The new laser technologies of the late 1960s greatly attracted him, and he began, along with a few other chemists, to adapt various types of lasers for answering chemical questions. Soon after that the “lasers in chemistry” revolution was fully underway, and he began to focus on nonlinear optical processes and on picosecond and later femtosecond dynamics in gases and condensed phases. The latter forms the main thrust of his current activity. It was his early work with nonlinear optical spectroscopy and excitons that first stimulated Robin’s interest in the time evolution of coherent phenomena in condensed phases. This familiarity with optical coherence processes still underpins Robin’s work as seen in his recent studies of impulsive photoreactions of small molecules in solution. (1) Guest editor note by A.H.Z.
In 1967 Robin was named Blanchard Professor of Chemistry and in 1983 Donner Professor of Science at the University of Pennsylvania. In 1978 he founded the first laser users’s facility, the NSF Regional Laser Facility at Penn, which in 1984 developed into the Regional Laser and Biotechnology Laboratories, which is an NIH Research Resource. This facility has served as an important resource for the entire mid-Atlantic region and has been an important influence in developing new applications of lasers in biomedical research. Robin’s bibliography includes more than 400 original scientific papers and two books, BehaViour of Electrons in Atoms (1962) and Molecular Aspects of Symmetry (1966). Since 1973 he has been Editor of Chemical Physics. Robin has received numerous honors, including selection as a Courtald Scholar (1952-55), John Simon Guggenheim Fellow (1972), and Alexander von Humboldt Senior Fellow (1978), receipt of the Bourke Medal of the Faraday Society (1981), election to both the National Academy of Sciences (1982) and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1982), and award of a D.Sc honoris causa from Heriot-Watt University, Scotland (1984). He has been a visiting professor at both Oxford and Cambridge Universities, the Australian National University in Canberra, the University of Grenoble, California Institute of Technology, and the University of Paris. His Named Lectureships include FMC Lecturer, Princeton University (1979), Sir Cyril Hinshelwood Lecturer, Oxford University (1982), William Draper Harkins Lecture, University of Chicago (1990), Kolthoff Lecturer, University of Minnesota (1991), Beckman Lecturer, University of Illinois (1993), Centennial Award Lecture CUNY (1994), and LICOR Award Lecture, University of Nebraska (1996). In addition to his many research accomplishments, Robin Hochstrasser has been a great teacher of research. At Penn Robin has supervised the Ph.D. dissertation research of more than 60 students and trained over 60 postdoctoral fellows. His enthusiasm for research is infectious, and this, together with his incredibly inventive mind and deep understanding of the physics of experiments, has been a great motivator for students. It was not uncommon for Robin to plan a meeting at 9:00 in the morning to discuss the results of experiments that he had suggested at 9:00 the previous evening! The reward for an allnight battle with the instruments was the prospect of an exciting and illuminating discussion with Robin in the morning. Finally on a personal note, Robin attacks everything in life with the same gusto that is his trademark in research. He loves fine food, wine, gourmet cooking, movies, and sports, including fishing, skiing, golf, and tennis as a participant, and soccer, cricket, football, and baseball as a spectator. His wit and overall marvelous sense of humor make him the very best and challenging of company. While on the faculty at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Robin met and married Carol Ostby, a genuinely sincere and delightful person. They have been married for 35 years and have two daughters, Polly and Jennie. The favorite pastime of the Hochstrasser family is a visit to Paris, which is becoming their second home. William A. Eaton H. Peter Trommsdorff Ahmed H. Zewail JP9634767
