Olby, Robert C. (Robert Cecil)

Biography

A historian of 19th and 20th century biology with a focus on genetics and molecular biology, Robert Cecil Olby (b. 4 October 1933 in Beckenham, England) is Emeritus Research Professor in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh. He earned a B.Sc. in Botany from the Imperial College of Science and Technology at London University in 1955, and went on to earn his Ph.D. in History of Science from Oxford University in 1963. He is a member of the History of Science Society and the International Academy of the History of Science.

After earning his graduate degree, Olby served as a University Lecturer from 1969 to 1975 while working on and publishing his first two books, Origins of Mendelism (1966, second edition 1985) and Charles Darwin (1967). These books, combined with The Path to the Double Helix: The Discovery of DNA (1974, 1994), made Olby a leading historian of genetics. After publishing Double Helix, he was University Reader in the History of Science at Leeds University from 1975 to 1993. Olby joined the Department of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh in 1994, following a year at Rockeller University as the Andrew Mellon Research Fellow. In 2001, Olby began writing a comprehensive biography of Nobel Prize winner Francis Crick, who, along with James Watson, discovered the structure of DNA in 1953.

Olby and Crick met at Oxford in 1966. The idea of a biography first emerged during their collaboration on Path to the Double Helix, but Crick’s stipulation that the biography not appear until after his death combined with Olby’s various teaching commitments meant the project was shelved until 2001. During its writing, Crick was available for information and to read the first fourteen chapters prior to his death in July 2004. Francis Crick: Hunter of Life’s Secrets was published in 2009 by Cold Spring Harbor Press.

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