Complete Academic Robes - University of Western Ontario

Date1997

Credit LineGift of the U.W.O. Regional Collection, 2009.

Object number2009.029.001

Label TextDr. Robert Hall Haynes was awarded an honorary Doctor of Science degree by UWO in 1997 and the presumption is that he received these academic robes at this time. Dr. Haynes graduated from The University of Western Ontario in 1953 as an honours student in physics and mathematics. He went on to earn his PhD in biophysics in 1957 under the supervision of the late Professor Alan C. Burton, the distinguished founder of Western's Biophysics Department. While still a graduate student, he also worked with Dr. Ivan H. Smith at Victoria Hospital on the early use of the "cobalt bomb" in cancer therapy. He joined the faculty of the University of Chicago and in 1964 became Associate Professor of Biophysics at the University of Chicago at Berkeley. During these years, he was in the vanguard of an historically significant movement into molecular biology and genetics. Dr. Haynes was a prolific author in these fields, contributing numerous articles to scholarly journals in biophysics. In 1968 he returned to Canada to become chairman of the new biology department at York University. He served on the National Research Council of Canada and as President of the Genetics Society of Canada. He became an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1990. Dr. Haynes, a Londoner by birth, was descended from a pioneer family settled by Thomas Talbot. A relative of his was Dr. J.W. Crane who, beginning in 1913, became a professor at Western's Medical School.

NameCostume, Academic