page_title: Robert H. Grubbs
section_title: Early life and education
hierarchical_section_title: Robert H. Grubbs / Early life and education
caption_attribution_description: English: Photograph of chemist Robert H. Grubbs, recipient of the 2010 AIC Gold Medal, 9 April 2010, at Heritage Day, Chemical Heritage Foundation, Philadelphia, PA, USA.
context_page_description: Robert Howard Grubbs ForMemRS is an American chemist and the Victor and Elizabeth Atkins Professor of Chemistry at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California. He was a co-recipient of the 2005 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on olefin metathesis. He is a co-founder of Materia, a university spin-off startup to produce catalysts.
context_section_description: Grubbs was born on February 27, 1942, on a farm in Marshall County, Kentucky, midway between Possum Trot and Calvert City. His parents were Howard and Faye Grubbs. Faye was a schoolteacher. After serving in World War II, the family moved to Paducah, Kentucky, where Howard trained as a diesel mechanic, and Robert attended Paducah Tilghman High School.
  At the University of Florida, Grubbs initially intended to study agriculture. However, he was convinced by professor Merle A. Battiste to switch to organic chemistry. Working with Battiste, he became interested in how chemical reactions occur. He received his B.S. in 1963 and M.S. in 1965 from the University of Florida.
  Next, Grubbs attended Columbia University, where he worked with Ronald Breslow on the antiaromaticity of cyclobutadiene. This work aroused his interest in metals and organometallic compounds which contain carbon-metal bonds. Grubbs received his PhD in 1968.
caption: AIC Gold Medal recipient, 2010
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