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Lawrence B. Robinson, UCLA Chemical Engineering Professor, Dies at 85
Professor Emeritus Lawrence B. Robinson. |
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Lawrence B. Robinson, a professor emeritus of chemical engineering at the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science and an expert in thermodynamics and energy conversion devices, died March 21 at his home in Los Angeles of natural causes. He was 85.
“All of us who knew Larry personally can fully appreciate that the University
has lost one of its finest gentlemen and scholars,” said Dean Vijay K. Dhir. “He
will be missed tremendously.”
Robinson became a member of the UCLA engineering faculty in 1960 as an associate professor at what
was then the College of Engineering. He was promoted to full professor two years later. Robinson
taught a variety of undergraduate and graduate courses in thermodynamics, nuclear reactor engineering,
properties of materials, and chemical physics, among other topics. From 1984 to 1986, Robinson served
as Vice Chair and Acting Chair of the Chemical Engineering Department, as Assistant Dean from 1969
to 1974, and as Associate Dean of the School from 1985 to 1990. He retired in 1990, although he
remained an active member of the faculty and continued to teach for many years.
During his career, Robinson’s research interests included the surface tension
of electrolytes, neutron physics, reactor theory, the magnetic properties of
solids and nonequilibrium thermodynamics.
In 1962, Robinson and his colleagues were deeply involved with fundamental research
in the theory of electrons in metal, particularly as pertaining to thermal and
magnetic phenomena and rare-earth metals and their alloys. They planned and executed
a series of highly novel experiments aimed at elucidating basic – as well as anomalous –
magnetic and thermal behavior. Their work led to a series of pioneering papers that
contributed significantly to the understanding of magnetic phenomena in the rare-earth
metals and alloys as based on indirect exchange coupling (via conduction electron) of
magnetic moments. The work also demonstrated – for the first time – that
ferromagnetic behavior could be made to disappear not only via heating but also
through the application of high pressure.
He brought a fundamental knowledge of physics and thermodynamics to UCLA, and both his
students and colleagues benefited from his broad, interdisciplinary background. With
other faculty in the department, he provided undergraduates students with more advanced
training in theoretical thermodynamics than they could have received at another institution
at the time. He served as an advisor to not only engineering PhD candidates during his career,
but also to students majoring in physics.
Robinson was an assistant professor of physics at Howard University in Washington, D.C.,
from 1946 to 1947, returning in 1948 as an associate professor. He also was an assistant
professor at Brooklyn College in New York, and a visiting professor at Rhinesche Westhalishe
Technishe Hochschule in Germany.
He spent several years working in industry before coming to UCLA. He was a research
engineer at North American Aviation and a research physicist at the Naval Research
Lab in Washington, D.C. Robinson was a member of the technical staff at Ramo-Wooldridge
Corp and Space Technology Labs before joining the UCLA faculty.
Robinson was a member of many professional societies, including the American Physical
Society, the New York Academy of Sciences, the honorary physics society, Sigma Pi Sigma,
and Tau Beta Pi, the honorary engineering society. He was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship,
as well as a National Science Foundation Senior post-doctorial fellowship. He also received
an honorary Doctorate of Science from Virginia Union University, his undergraduate alma mater.
He was born in Tappahannock, Virginia, and received his BS in mathematics from the Virginia Union
University in 1939. He earned his MS in chemistry and PhD in chemical physics from Harvard
University in 1941 and 1946, respectively. In 1943, he served his country in the Army Air Corps.
He had a life long interest in the Old West, especially its art, and was a founding member
of the Collegium of Western Art, as well as a member of The Westerners, an organization devoted
to the history of the American West. Robinson also served on the board of The American Art Council
for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
Robinson is survived by his wife Laura, three children, Lyn Adrian, Gwendolyn
Harvey, and Lawrence Baylor Jr., grandson Robinson Abraham Farber, sister Josephine
Burton, two brothers, Dr. Luther Robinson and Dr. Julian Robinson, and many nieces
and nephews. He will be deeply missed by his family, friends and colleagues.
- Marlys Amundson
04.15.05
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