17th Rodney Porter Memorial Lecture

Professor Dame Carol Robinson, FRS
(Department of Chemistry, University of Oxford)

Carol Robinson is a Royal Society Research Professor, Doctor Lee’s Professor Elect at the University of Oxford and a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire.

Carol is the first female Professor of Chemistry at the University of Oxford and was previously the first female Professor of Chemistry at the University of Cambridge. She is renowned for pioneering the use of mass spectrometry as an analytical tool and for her ground-breaking research into the 3D structure of proteins.

Carol was a graduate student at Churchill College from 1980 -1982, completing her PhD in two years. Following an eight-year career break to begin raising her three children, she returned to research at Oxford, later becoming a titular professor in 1999.

In 2001 she returned to Cambridge to continue her research into mass spectrometry and was elected a Professorial Fellow at Churchill College, a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2004, and a Royal Society Research Professor in 2006. In 2009 she was elected Doctor Lee’s Professor of Chemistry at the University of Oxford and in 2013 was awarded the title of Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire.