Professor Ralph Robinson served The University of the West Indies, Mona for a total of thirty-six (36) years spanning 1985 to 2021. He has made significant contributions to the development of the Department of Life Sciences, Faculty of Science and Technology and The UWI on a whole through his applied collaborative research, professional skills, academic leadership and public service.

During his tenure, Professor Robinson served in the capacity of Deputy Dean where he led the curriculum reform and modernization efforts in the Faculty of Science and Technology which saw a complete overhaul of the programmes and courses offered by the Faculty, restructuring 3-credit courses and 93-credit degrees in line with international standards. He also held the Academic Quality Assurance portfolio in the Faculty; served as a Member of the Academic Programmes Committee and the Integrity Committees which formed the basis of the University Council of Jamaica Institutional Accreditation Exercise for the Mona campus; was a Member of the Panel of Chairpersons - Student Disciplinary Committee; was a Member of the Mona Campus Task Force on Budget Reduction; and actively served as a Member of the Steering Committee for the Ministry of Education/UWI B.Ed. (Distance) Secondary Programme.

Professor Robinson’s specialized area of interest is parasitic infections that naturally occur in animals and are transmissible to humans. He has established a robust research programme focused on the epidemiology and transmission of parasitic infections in humans and animals in Jamaica and the Caribbean region. He has supervised six (6) PhD and ten (10) MPhil students and has produced fifty (50) refereed publications (booklets, book chapters and original research articles) and more than seventy (70) conference abstracts. He also garnered external funding for three Research Fellowships in the Faculty. Google Scholar currently reports his h-index as 22, with more than 1320 citations, 259 of which occurred in the past five years.

Professor Robinson was the recipient of the Principal’s Research Award for the Best Research Publication, Faculty of Pure and Applied Sciences (2001 and 2003); Principal’s Research Award for Distinguished Researcher in Recognition of Outstanding Research in the Faculty of Pure and Applied Sciences (2003); Principal’s Research Award for Most Outstanding Research Activity in the Faculty of Pure and Applied Sciences (2007), and in 2008 The Principal’s Research Award for Best Research Publication in the Faculty of Pure and Applied Sciences. He and his team were awarded international Letters Patent for their discovery of a ‘Method of treating Strongyloides infections and medicaments therefor’ in 2010.

Professor Ralph Robinson has also displayed a passion for bioethics and served as a Scientific Member of the UHWI/UWI Ethics Committee for seven years; is the Founding Secretary in 2006 of the Bioethics Society of the English-Speaking Caribbean and its newsletter Bioethics Caribe; and introduced a new graduate-level course ‘ETHI6010 Research Ethics’ which served as a template for a similar course currently offered online across the University by Graduate Studies and Research. He is also a member of several governmental and national scientific committees including Member of the Board of Directors of the Jamaica Agricultural Development Foundation since 2000; Member of the Training Advisory Committee University at Buffalo-UWI Fogarty International Center Global Infectious Diseases Research Training Program (2017-present); Volunteer Expert (Parasitologist) with the Center’s Clinical Research Support Team (2019 -present), and is a commissioned (2010) Justice of the Peace (St. Andrew).

Congratulations Prof. Robinson! You have indeed served well.

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