Robert F. Curl is the Kenneth S. Pitzer-Schlumberger Professor of Natural Sciences Emeritus and University Professor Emeritus at Rice University. He attended Rice Institute receiving his BA from Rice in 1954 and his Ph.D. from Berkeley in 1957 where he studied under Kenneth S. Pitzer. He received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1996 jointly with Richard Smalley and Harold Kroto. He has been on the Rice faculty since 1957. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, European Academy of Arts and Sciences, Phi Beta Kappa, Phi Lambda Upsilon, and Sigma Xi. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a Fellow of the Optical Society of America, Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, and Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand. He has received a number of other awards. His primary research interests have been in molecular spectroscopy, chemical kinetics, and the chemistry of elemental carbon.

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