Robert Hughes
Professor
Griffith University
Australia
Biography
Robert Edward Hughes (May 31, 1924 – April 2, 2017) was a pioneering American physical chemist renowned for his contributions to materials science and federal science policy. Born in New York City, he served in the U.S. Army from 1942 to 1946 before pursuing higher education, earning a B.S. from Cornell University (1948) and a Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley (1952) under William F. Giauque.
Hughes began his academic career as an assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania (1953), rising to full professor by 1964 and co-founding the Laboratory for Research on the Structure of Matter in 1962. He returned to Cornell University in 1964 as a professor of chemistry, directing the Materials Science Center from 1968 to 1974. His seminal work on the crystal structure of tetragonal boron earned high praise from Linus Pauling as "one of the best crystal-structure determinations that has ever been made."
Research Interest
Public Health Nutrition