Brian Harford Robinson

Brian Harford Robinson (24 April 1940 – 30 August 2016) was a New Zealand inorganic chemist. He is noted for his contribution to cluster chemistry and the design of organometallic compounds with biomedical applications. Early life and education Born in Christchurch on 24 April 1940, Robinson was the son of Jack Robinson and Lurline Robinson (née Cross). He was educated at Christchurch Boys' High School, and then studied at the University of Canterbury, graduating Master of Science with second-class honours in chemistry in 1962. He completed a PhD at the same institution in 1964. His thesis, titled Studies in the coordination chemistry of certain transition metals, elucidated the first structure of a cluster compound and its unusual delocalised bonding. On 12 May 1962, Robinson married Judith Rae, and they went on to have four children. Academic and research career After periods of post-doctoral research at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne and the University of Manchester in 1965 and 1966, Robinson was a faculty member in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Otago in Dunedin from 1967 to 2006. He became a professor in 1985 and the Mellor Professor of Chemistry in 1996, and served as the head of the Department of Chemistry from 1986 to 1998. When he retired in 2006 he was made a professor emeritus.