Roland Hirsch was educated at Oberlin College (B.A. 1961), and the University of Michigan (M.S. 1963, Ph.D. 1965). He was been on the faculty of the Chemistry Department at Seton Hall University, 1965-88, where he was the department chair in 1972-5 and 1979 and Associate Dean of the College of Arts & Sciences during 1981-84. Dr. Hirsch spent a year on leave as Senior Visitor, Oxford University in 1975-6. From 1984 to 1988 he was on leave as program manager of Separations & Analytical Chemistry with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). He was a Health Sciences Administrator with the National Institutes of Health from 1988-91. In 1991 Dr. Hirsch started at his current position as a program manager in the Medical Sciences Division in the Office of Biological and Environmental Research at the DOE, where he is in charge of the structural biology facility program, a manager in the DOE Genomes to Life program, and director of Environmental Management Science Program.

Dr. Hirsch was the recipient of the American Chemical Society Division of Analytical Chemistry Award for Distinguished Service in the Advancement of Analytical Chemistry. In his award speech, Dr. Hirsch spoke about analytical techniques and their importance in studying the biochemical processes that occur in living cells. He proclaimed it a "great time to be an analytical chemist" and that "the analytical sciences will be at the very center of the biology of the future." You can read Dr. Hirsch's speech below.

Links

Impact of forty years of advances in chemistry on evolutionary theory by Roland Hirsch
Analytical Science at the Center of Chemistry and Beyond its Frontier by Roland Hirsch