Robert Lamb Sproull (August 16, 1918 – October 9, 2014) was an American

educator A teacher, also called a schoolteacher or formally an educator, is a person who helps students to acquire knowledge, competence, or virtue, via the practice of teaching. ''Informally'' the role of teacher may be taken on by anyone (e.g. whe ...

physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate caus ...

and

US Department of Defense The United States Department of Defense (DoD, USDOD or DOD) is an executive branch department of the federal government charged with coordinating and supervising all agencies and functions of the government directly related to national secu ...

official. Sproull was born in

Lacon, Illinois Lacon is a city in, and the county seat of, Marshall County, Illinois, United States. It is part of the Peoria, Illinois Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 1,937 at the 2010 census, down from 1,979 in 2000. History Lacon was named ...

. A graduate of

Deep Springs College Deep Springs College (known simply as Deep Springs or DS) is a private, selective two-year college in Deep Springs, California. With the number of undergraduates restricted to 26, the college is one of the smallest institutions of higher educat ...

, Sproull studied

English literature English literature is literature written in the English language from United Kingdom, its crown dependencies, the Republic of Ireland, the United States, and the countries of the former British Empire. ''The Encyclopaedia Britannica'' defines E ...

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...

before taking a

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at the same university in

physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which r ...

. He began a promising and productive career as a physicist at Cornell and headed the

Laboratory of Atomic and Solid State Physics A laboratory (; ; colloquially lab) is a facility that provides controlled conditions in which scientific or technological research, experiments, and measurement may be performed. Laboratory services are provided in a variety of settings: physici ...

(LASSP) and the Materials Science Center. Sproull left Cornell to become director of ARPA, where he was a strong advocate of cooperation among academia, government, and industry to meet US scientific needs for defense and competition with the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

. After taking up an administrative post at Cornell, he became provost and

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of the

University of Rochester The University of Rochester (U of R, UR, or U of Rochester) is a private research university in Rochester, New York. The university grants undergraduate and graduate degrees, including doctoral and professional degrees. The University of Roc ...

in 1968. While at Rochester, he also served on Cornell's board of trustees. In 1970, he became Rochester's president, and the trustees voted in 1974 to make him the university’s chief executive officer. He retired as president and became professor of physics at the university in 1985. He served on the board of the

George C. Marshall Institute The George C. Marshall Institute (GMI) was a nonprofit conservative think tank in the United States. It was established in 1984 with a focus on science and public policy issues and had an initial focus in defense policy. Starting in the late 198 ...

. He was chairman of the

Defense Science Board The Defense Science Board (DSB) is a committee of civilian experts appointed to advise the U.S. Department of Defense on scientific and technical matters. It was established in 1956 on the recommendation of the second Hoover Commission. Charter ...

. He was a member of the Roundtable Council of the

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nati ...

. In 2005, the University of Rochester named its Center for High Intensity Laser Research in his honor.New Laser Facility Dedicated to President Emeritus Robert L. Sproull
Retrieved 2009-10-29. In 2006, Sproull and his wife donated $1 million to create the Robert L. and Mary L. Sproull Fund to support the work of the Cornell Center for Materials Research (CCMR). In 2006, Sproull was awarded the Telluride Tech Festival Award of Technology in

Telluride, Colorado Telluride is the county seat and most populous town of San Miguel County in the southwestern portion of the U.S. state of Colorado. The town is a former silver mining camp on the San Miguel River in the western San Juan Mountains. The first ...

. During his term as President of the University of Rochester, Dr. Sproull was known by the nickname "Particle Bob", a reference to his background in physics.

Books

References

External links

Oral history interview transcript with Robert L. Sproull on 11 July 1983, American Institute of Physics, Niels Bohr Library & Archives
- interview conducted by Spencer Weart {{DEFAULTSORT:Sproull, Robert L. 1918 births American physicists People from Lacon, Illinois Deep Springs College alumni Cornell University alumni Cornell University faculty Cornell Laboratory of Atomic and Solid State Physics DARPA directors 2014 deaths United States Department of Defense officials Presidents of the University of Rochester