Reginald Heber Robinson was born in Michigan in 1886 and earned an A. B. degree from Pacific University in Forest Grove, Oregon in 1909. He completed an MS in Chemistry at the University of California in 1912 and did post-graduate work in chemistry at Columbia University in the summer of 1914. R. H. Robinson joined the Oregon Agricultural Experiment Station in 1911 as Assistant Chemist and served as a researcher with the Experiment Station until his retirement in 1951. According to an article in the November 2, 1951 issue of the Barometer campus newspaper, he was considered the nation's foremost authority on agricultural spray residue problems. He published extensively and produced more than 75 scientific publications and bulletins during his career.
OSU’s top administrators gathered by this Rolls Royce outside of Education Hall (now Furman Hall). From left: Milosh Popovich, Dean of Administration; Robert W. Chick, Dean of Students; Robert W. MacVicar, President; Stuart E. Knapp, Dean of Undergraduate Studies; David B. Nicodemus, Dean of Faculty; and Roy A. Young, Vice-President for Research and Graduate Studies.
Steward attended Oregon Agricultural College in 1917-1918 and 1919-1920 and earned a BS in Agriculture in 1921. In 1921, he became a faculty member in botany at the University of Nanking in Nanking, China. He and his wife, Celia Belle Speak Steward, were appointed as educational missionaries by the Methodist Board of Missions. He returned to the United States for several years in the late 1920s to complete AM and PhD degrees in biology at Harvard University. Steward spent most of the 1930s and 1940s in China and was interned at Chapei Camp in Shanghai from 1943 to 1945. He returned to the United States permanently in 1950. Albert N. Steward was appointed by Oregon State College as Associate Professor of Botany, Herbarium Curator, and Associate Botanist for the Agricultural Experiment Station in 1951. He held these positions until his death in 1959.
Born in Pendleton, Oregon, Milne earned an A.B. degree in Mathematics from Whitman College in 1912 and A.M. and Ph.D. degrees from Harvard University in 1913 and 1915. He served on the faculty of Bowdoin College from 1915 until 1918 and then spent one year working with a group of mathematicians at Aberdeen Proving Ground. In 1919, he returned to Oregon as a faculty member in mathematics at the University of Oregon. In 1932, he became head of the Mathematics Department at Oregon State College, a position he held until his retirement in 1955. Milne was a pioneer in numerical analysis and computer mathematics and was known around the world for the "Milne method" of solving differential equations and for his three textbooks and many technical papers. He continued his research after retirement and was awarded the OSU Distinguished Service Award posthumously in June 1971. The Milne Computer Center was dedicated in his name in April 1972.
A pioneer in Oregon oceanography, Wayne Burt was the first director of what is now OSU's Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport. He is recognized as the founder of OSU's oceanography program.
Paul Petri was the Head of the Music department at Oregon State University from 1924-1947. Lillian Jeffreys Petri was a faculty member in Music during this same time period.