Robert Lin obtained his B.S. from Caltech in 1962 and his Ph.D. in physics in 1967 from U.C. Berkeley. Since then he has been doing research at the Space Sciences Laboratory at Berkeley. In 1980 he was appointed a Senior Fellow. In 1988 he was appointed an Adjunct Professor in the Astronomy Department at Berkeley, and in 1991 he became a Professor in the Physics Department. In 1998 he became Director of the Space Sciences Lab.