Allan R. Robinson
Allan R. Robinson, Gordon McKay Professor of Geophysical Fluid Dynamics, Emeritus, died suddenly on September 25, 2009, at his summer home overlooking Buzzards Bay. Professor Robinson established and, for nearly four decades almost singlehandedly ran, a graduate program in physical oceanography in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences. Many of his nearly 30 Ph.D. students and 25 postdoctoral fellows hold leadership positions at major universities and research centers. Allan was known throughout the world of oceanography for his insightful contributions to understanding the Gulf Stream, the evolution of ocean eddies (the oceanic equivalent of weather), and the dynamics of circulation in the Mediterranean Sea. In the early 1980s he demonstrated that ocean current forecasting was possible and developed the Harvard Ocean Prediction System, a uniquely portable forecasting and analysis tool that is still widely used. He then successfully connected this methodology to...