‘Virtues of taking a risk’ helps shape a young scholar
February 12, 2021
UGA Distinguished Professor pays tribute to one of his inspirations
Gregory Robinson. (Andrew Davis Tucker/UGA)
Gregory H. Robinson, Foundation Distinguished Professor of Chemistry in the University of Georgia’s Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, wrote and published a scholarly tribute to Professor Jerry L. Atwood, who “inspired a generation of chemists to indulge their imaginations and to take risks in their pursuit of chemistry,” including Robinson:
The most consequential friendship of my life inauspiciously began on a cold, late-November evening in 1979, in Jacksonville, Alabama. Of course, I did not see it coming. I was studying chemistry at Jacksonville State University, slated to graduate with my B.S. in April 1980. Having recently fulfilled my four-year Gamecock football obligations, I was enjoying—for the first time—the freedom to fully concentrate on my studies. As the newly elected president of JSU’s Student Affiliate Chapter of the American Chemical Society, my prime duty was to introduce our lone guest speaker that fall semester—Professor Jerry L. Atwood of the University of Alabama.