Bob Blankenship has been a part of the WashU community for 13 years as faculty in the Department of Biology. From 2009-18, he served as director and principal investigator of the Photosynthetic Antenna Research Center (PARC), which brought together a “dream team” of the best scientists in the world studying light absorption and energy collection phase of the process of photosynthesis.

“Founding and directing PARC for the nine years of its lifetime as a Department of Energy-supported Energy Frontier Research Center has been the most fulfilling aspect of my professional life,” says Blankenship. He also particularly enjoyed teaching Chem480/Bio4810, an intensive introduction to the field of biochemistry. In order to connect with the large class of 100-200 students, Blankenship would share stories and anecdotes about the history of ideas and key people from the field, many of whom he has met or knows personally.

“Many, many times students have come to me later and told me how much they enjoyed these stories, as they humanized the subject and gave some sense of how difficult it is to really know something,” he says.

Blankenship plans to retire in Tempe, Arizona, to be near his children. His first project in retirement is to prepare the third edition of his book Molecular Mechanisms of Photosynthesis. “This book has influenced a generation of new researchers in the area of photosynthesis and is more than anything else my most important contribution to the education of new scientists in this area of research,” says Blankenship.