Robert C. Dynes

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Robert C. Dynes bigraphy, stories - Physicists

Robert C. Dynes : biography

8 November 1942 –

Robert Carr Dynes (born November 8, 1942 in London, Ontario, Canada) is a Canadian-American physicist, researcher, and academic administrator, and professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley, and the former President of the University of California system, and former Chancellor of the University of California, San Diego.

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Biography

Early years

Dynes was born in Ontario, Canada where he earned a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and physics from the University of Western Ontario in 1964. He then earned master’s (1965) and doctorate (1968) degrees in physics from McMaster University. He became a naturalized United States citizen in 1984.

Career

Dynes worked at Bell Laboratories from 1964 to 1990, studying semiconductors and superconductors. He then became professor of physics at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) in 1991. In 1996 he became Chancellor of the UCSD campus, then in 2003 was chosen to be the 18th President of the University of California system.

Dynes’ scientific honors include the 1990 Fritz London Memorial Prize in Low Temperature Physics and his 2001 election to the Council of the National Academy of Sciences, a society to which he was elected in 1989.

Dynes is a fellow of the American Physical Society, the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Dynes remains active in his research and heads a modest sized low temperature physics laboratory at Berkeley.

In November 2008, Dynes’ close aide and his UC Associate President Linda Morris Williams, was awarded a controversial pay out SF Chronicle "Severance, new UC job for aide in pay scandal" http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/11/26/MNBB14D1B4.DTLCalifornia State Auditor Report 2006-103, May 2, 2006 http://www.bsa.ca.gov/reports/2006-103/employees/232.htmlSF Examiner "Dynes example of larger problem" http://www.examiner.com/a-926142~Robert_Dynes_an_example_of_larger_UC_problem.html and re-hired as an Associate Chancellor at University of California, Berkeley by Chancellor Robert Birgeneau. This event led President Mark Yudof to make changes to the buy out program.Sf Chronicle "UC Chief Changes Buyout Plan"http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/object/article?f=/c/a/2008/12/03/MNH614GCU0.DTL&o=2San Diego Reader "After the Fall" http://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2008/dec/10/breaking-news-1/

Personal life

Dynes naturalized to the United States in 1984. He married Cristel Dynes in 1968 and they divorced in January, 1998. He married physics professor, Frances Hellman San Diego Reader "UCSD Big Money and Ball Club" http://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2000/feb/24/ucsd-big-money-and-ball-club/ in May 1998 and they divorced in 2006. He married former UCSD legal counsel and UC Associate of the President, Ann Parode, in March 2007.