The Presentation by D. Allan Bromley, Sterling Professor of the Sciences and Dean of Engineering,
 of the 
1998 Sheffield Distinguished Teacher Award
to 
Professor Robert D. Grober
Sheffield-Sterling-Strathcona Hall, Yale University 
October 7, 1999

As you know, each year the members of the Faculty of Engineering select one of their colleagues to receive that year's Sheffield Distinguished Teaching Award. It is intended as a high honor conferred by his or her peers.

In 1998 the winner of this award was on leave when the award would normally have been presented and so I now have the pleasure of presenting last year's award to Professor Robert D. Grober.

Professor Grober is a native of Milwaukee Wisconsin who in 1984 received his Bachelor's degree from Vanderbilt University in Physics and Mathematics and then his MS and PhD degrees in Physics from the University of Maryland. He then spent two years in the Material Chemistry Research Laboratory at the AT&T Bell Laboratories before joining the Yale faculty in 1994 as an Assistant Professor of Applied Physics and of Physics.

His research is in the area of optical imaging and specifically in near field optical microscopy. Having increased the available light throughput of these microscopes by more than a factor of a thousand he has, for the first time, made them suitable for both real time use on microcircuit fabrication lines and in the mapping of genes on DNA molecules.

He is both a Packard Fellow and a Defense Science Study Fellow in the Institute of Defense Analysis as well as a professional level golfer.

But most of all, he is a truly distinguished teacher. A year ago, while teaching a course on differential equations he received the same spectacular student evaluation as did Professor Vince Scully for his nationally famous course in art and architecture.

I can do no better than to quote from one of the evaluation sheets submitted by one of the students in this differential equations course. "I would rather have my teeth filed than take this course again, but I wouldn't have missed it for the world."

Bob, on behalf of your colleagues, if gives me great pleasure to present you with the 1998 Sheffield Distinguished Teacher's Award.