Robert E. Kohler

Robert E. Kohler trained as a chemist, but has long been informally devoted to books and creative literature. A happy accident in midlife led him to unite these separate threads in history of science and environmental history, fields he pursued as a scholar and teacher at the University of Pennsylvania from 1973 to his retirement in 2006. His passion for collecting contemporary art, which he shared with his wife Frances, began as a secondary pursuit but developed into a mid- to late-life vocation and primary life’s work. Frances was another creative shapeshifter: educated in classics and comparative literature, she discovered a gift and calling in history of science, as managing editor of the premier journal in the couple’s shared field.