Robert Eckles Swain (January 5, 1875 – May 31, 1961) was an alumnus of and faculty member at Stanford University, a mayor of

Palo Alto, California Palo Alto (; Spanish for "tall stick") is a charter city in the northwestern corner of Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a coastal redwood tree known as El Palo Alto. The city was es ...

and a founder of

SRI International SRI International (SRI) is an American nonprofit scientific research institute and organization headquartered in Menlo Park, California. The trustees of Stanford University established SRI in 1946 as a center of innovation to support economic ...

Early life

Born on January 5, 1875, in

Hollister, California Hollister is a city in and the county seat of San Benito County, located in the Central Coast region of California. With a 2020 United States census population of 41,678, Hollister is one of the largest cities in the Monterey Bay Area and a ...

, a town that his father and three associates had founded. After two years of high school, Swain entered Stanford University in its fourth class of undergraduates. His professor

Jarius Maxson Stillman Jarius is a masculine name, in use both as a given name and a family name. Notable people with the name include: * Jarius Hayes (born 1973), American football tight end * Jarius Holmes (born 1986), American soccer player * Jarius Wright (born 198 ...

, head of Stanford's department of chemistry, convinced him to study chemistry. Swain graduated with his bachelor's degree in 1899. Swain's first academic job occurred in 1898, prior to his graduation; he was a teaching assistant. In 1899, he was appointed as an instructor at Stanford, but left on a leave of absence to study biochemistry at

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Sta ...

under

Lafayette Mendel Lafayette Benedict Mendel (February 5, 1872 – December 9, 1935) was an American biochemist known for his work in nutrition, with longtime collaborator Thomas B. Osborne, including the study of Vitamin A, Vitamin B, lysine and tryptophan. ...

and

Russell Henry Chittenden Russell Henry Chittenden (18 February 1856 – 26 December 1943) was an American physiological chemist. He conducted pioneering research in the biochemistry of digestion and nutrition. Early life and education He was born in New Haven, Connectic ...

. Swain received a master's degree in 1901. The following year, he worked with

Franz Hofmeister Franz Hofmeister (30 August 1850, in Prague – 26 July 1922, in Würzburg) was an early protein scientist, and is famous for his studies of salts that influence the solubility and conformational stability of proteins. In 1902, Hofmeister became t ...

at Strassburg and with

Albrecht Kossel Ludwig Karl Martin Leonhard Albrecht Kossel (; 16 September 1853 – 5 July 1927) was a German biochemist and pioneer in the study of genetics. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1910 for his work in determining the ch ...

at Heidelberg, returning to Stanford as an assistant professor in 1902. After another year of leave, Swain completed a Ph.D. at Yale in 1904.

Career

In 1912, Swain attained the rank of full professor. In 1917, he became the head of Stanford's chemistry department, succeeding the professor that convinced him to pursue chemistry; he would hold that position until his retirement in 1940. From 1929 to 1933, Swain was acting president of Stanford University while

Ray Lyman Wilbur Ray Lyman Wilbur (April 13, 1875 – June 26, 1949) was an American medical doctor who served as the third president of Stanford University and was the 31st United States Secretary of the Interior. Early life Wilbur was born in Boonesboro, Iowa, ...

was

United States Secretary of the Interior The United States secretary of the interior is the head of the United States Department of the Interior. The secretary and the Department of the Interior are responsible for the management and conservation of most federal land along with natur ...

for

Herbert Hoover Herbert Clark Hoover (August 10, 1874 – October 20, 1964) was an American politician who served as the 31st president of the United States from 1929 to 1933 and a member of the Republican Party, holding office during the onset of the Gr ...

. Swain also participated in local politics, serving on the

city council from 1912 to 1921, including three terms as mayor from 1914 to 1916. Swain was a strong proponent of the establishment of a research institute at Stanford University, which would eventually become

Legacy

Swain and his first wife, Harriet King (Cuthbertson) Swain had two children: Robert Cuthbertson Swain, himself a prominent chemist, and Dorothy Muriel Swain, who married Ralph Norman Begien Jr. Professor Swain's second wife was Juanita Elena (Hiestrich) Jaffe Swain.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Swain, Robert E. 1875 births 1961 deaths Stanford University alumni Stanford University Department of Chemistry faculty Yale University alumni SRI International people People from Hollister, California Mayors of Palo Alto, California