Jeff Robbins, an IEEE Life Member and active IEEE Society on Social Implications of Technology member for over 30 years, admits he pursued engineering for surprising reasons: he first studied the subject “because the three older boys next door did,” and later enrolled in graduate school at the University of New Mexico due to another twist of fate, when his car broke down in Albuquerque. “Of course, it’s not so toss of the coin as that,” he says, citing a passion for “understanding how things worked, the universe included.” A problem identifier and solver from an early age, Robbins conducted experiments with his friends: “Long before solar energy, long before climate change was on the world’s tongues, a fellow student and I came up with a solar energy project that generated electricity — we also cooked a hot dog using a parabolic antenna we bought in New York City’s Chinatown.”
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