Robin M. Williams
Robert Martin "Robin" Williams, CB, CBE was a Chairman of the State Services Commission in New Zealand from 1975 to 1981. He was Vice Chancellor at the University of Otago from 1967 to 1972 and Vice Chancellor of the Australian National University in Canberra from 1973 to 1975.
He studied in Christchurch at Christ's College and then Canterbury University College, graduating MA with first class honours in mathematics and mathematical physics, and studied under Karl Popper, then a refugee lecturer. Postwar he graduated from St. John's College, Cambridge with a BA and PhD.
He held a MA and a PhD degree, and an honorary LLD degree. He was in the Applied Mathematics Laboratory of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, and worked on the Manhattan Project in 1944–45 on the separation of uranium.
In the 1973 New Year Honours, Williams was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire, for services to science, administration and education.
Williams was born in Christchurch, died at Wellington in 2013, aged 93.
