Portrait of Carol Robinson

Seated portrait of Carol Robinson, taken at the Physical and Theoretical Chemistry Laboratory, University of Oxford. A portrait of Cyril Hinshelwood (1897–1967), by Douglas Hardinge Anderson, is visible behind her.

Dame Carol Robinson, chemist and President of the Royal Society of Chemistry, was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2004. She has pioneered the application of mass spectrometry techniques to problems in chemical biology. Her groundbreaking research on the three-dimensional structure of proteins in particular has demonstrated the power of such techniques in studying large molecular compounds.

The first female Professor of Chemistry at both Oxford and Cambridge universities, in 2013 Carol was awarded the title of Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire for her services to science. She was also the recipient of the Royal Society’s Rosalind Franklin Award, Davey Medal and Royal Medal, in 2004, 2010 and 2019, respectively.