Richard Robson (chemist)
Richard Robson is an English and Australian chemist and Professor of Chemistry at the University of Melbourne. Robson specialises in coordination polymers, particularly metal-organic frameworks. He has been described as "a pioneer in crystal engineering involving transition metals". In 2025, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry jointly with Susumu Kitagawa and Omar M. Yaghi for the development of metal-organic frameworks.
Early life and education
Robson was born in Glusburn, West Yorkshire, England, on 4 June 1937. He read chemistry at Brasenose College, Oxford, earning a BA in 1959 and a DPhil in 1962. His doctoral research, supervised by John A. Barltrop at the Dyson Perrins Laboratory, focused on the photochemistry of organic molecules.Robson conducted postdoctoral research at the California Institute of Technology and Stanford University under Henry Taube before accepting a lectureship in chemistry at the University of Melbourne in 1966, where he remained for the rest of his career.
Research
Richard Robson's groundbreaking research established foundational principles in the field of coordination polymers, particularly for infinite polymeric frameworks—later termed metal–organic frameworks. His interest in the field was sparked in 1974 while constructing large wooden models of crystalline structures for first-year chemistry lectures.In the 1990s, Robson created a new class of coordination polymers that underpinned an entire modern field of chemistry. His innovative approach used copper, which favours a tetrahedral geometry, in combination with a custom-designed tetranitrile organic linker. This method produced crystalline scaffolds with a diamond-like structure but with significant, engineered void space within the framework.
Honors and awards
Robson received the Burrows Award from the Inorganic Division of The Royal Australian Chemical Institute in 1998 and was elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science in 2000. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2022.Robson shared the 2025 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his early contribution to the field of metal–organic frameworks.