Robert Carr Dynes (8 November 1942 – 30 June 2025) was a Canadian-American physicist. He served as the 18th president of the University of California from 2003 to 2007 and as the 6th chancellor of the University of California, San Diego from 1996 to 2003.
Biography Early life and education Dynes was born in Ontario, Canada, where he earned a bachelor's degree in mathematics and physics from the University of Western Ontario in 1964. He then earned his master's (1965) and doctorate (1968) degrees in physics from McMaster University. He became a naturalized United States citizen in 1984.
Career Dynes worked at Bell Laboratories from 1964 to 1990 studying semiconductors and superconductors. He then became professor of physics at the University of California, San Diego in 1991. He became chancellor of the University of California, San Diego in 1996 and was chosen in 2003 to serve the 18th president of the University of California system.
Dynes' scientific honors included the 1990 Fritz London Memorial Prize in Low Temperature Physics and his 2001 election to the Council of the National Academy of Sciences.
Dynes was also a fellow of the American Physical Society (1981), (search on year=1981 and institution=Bell Laboratories) the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Dynes stayed active in research and headed a modest-sized low-temperature physics laboratory at Berkeley.
After five tumultuous years as the president of the University of California, filled with compensation scandals, the suicide of the University of California, Santa Cruz chancellor Denice Denton and other challenges,SF Chronicle Scandal Mars UC Chief LegacyFive Tumultuous Years on 13 August 2007, Dynes announced he would resign his presidency, return to his teaching position, and spend time with his new wife, Ann Parode. He resigned on 16 August 2007, and was succeeded by Mark Yudof, a former chancellor of the University of Texas system.
In November 2008, Dynes' close aide and his UC associate president Linda Morris Williams was awarded a controversial payoutSF Chronicle "Severance, new UC job for aide in pay scandal" https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Severance-new-UC-job-for-aide-in-pay-scandal-3183821.phpCalifornia State Auditor Report 2006-103, 2 May 2006 http://www.bsa.ca.gov/reports/2006-103/employees/232.html and re-hired as an associate chancellor at the University of California, Berkeley by chancellor Robert Birgeneau. This event led president Mark Yudof to make changes to the buyout program.Sf Chronicle "UC Chief Changes Buyout Plan"San Diego Reader "After the Fall" http://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2008/dec/10/breaking-news-1/
Personal life and death Dynes became a naturalized United States citizen in 1984. He married Cristel Dynes in 1968, but they divorced in January 1998. He married a physics professor, Frances Hellman,San Diego Reader "UCSD Big Money and Ball Club" http://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2000/feb/24/ucsd-big-money-and-ball-club/ in May 1998, but they also divorced in 2006. He married a former UCSD legal counsel and UC Associate of the President, Ann Parode Dynes,Appointment of Ann Parode Dynes as Associate of the President March 2007 Regent Minutes in March 2007.
Dynes died on 30 June 2025, at the age of 82.
References
Notes
External links Oral history interview transcript with Robert Dynes on 30 March 2020, American Institute of Physics, Niels Bohr Library & Archives Biography of Robert C. Dynes Homepage of Robert C. Dynes at UC San Diego