Robin L. Garrell received her B.S. degree in Biochemistry with Honors and Distinction from Cornell University in 1978, and Ph.D. in Macromolecular Science and Engineering from the University of Michigan in 1984. She was an Assistant Professor on the faculty of the University of Pittsburgh until 1991, when she joined the faculty of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of California, Los Angeles. At UCLA, she is the elected Chair of the Faculty of The College of Letters and Science, Associate Director of the Institute for Cell Mimetics in Space Exploration (CMISE), member of the Biomedical Engineering faculty, and member of the UCLA NSF-IGERT Materials Creation Training Program and Chemistry-Biology Interface Training Program Executive Boards. She currently serves on numerous journal Editorial Advisory Boards and on the NIH Bioanalytical Chemistry, Chemistry and Biophysics Study Section. Garrell was 1999 President of the Society for Applied Spectroscopy. She is the recipient of the National Science Foundation Presidential Young Investigator Award, Herbert Newby McCoy Award for Outstanding Research at UCLA, Iota Sigma Pi Agnes Fay Morgan Award, Hanson-Dow Award for Teaching Excellence at UCLA, and the UCLA Distinguished Teaching Award. She is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Garrell's research interests span bioanalytical and surface chemistry, with an emphasis fundamentals and applications of adhesion and wetting.