13 Facts About Robert Kates

Robert W Kates was an American geographer and independent scholar in Trenton, Maine, and University Professor at Brown University.

Robert Kates had a chance encounter with a naturalist in a state park in Indiana when on vacation with his family, and this meeting inspired him to train to become an elementary school teacher, a job he thought would free up summer vacations for the family.

White gave him some key texts to read, Kates returned to discuss them, White recognized his abilities and steered him through an MA and eventually a PhD in Geography.

Robert Kates taught at the Graduate School of Geography, Clark University from 1962 until 1987.

Robert Kates worked in Africa with Clark colleagues, and developed and directed a resource assessment centre at the University of Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania.

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Robert Kates helped to establish the international Initiative for Science and Technology for Sustainability, was Executive Editor of Environment magazine for many years, and was a Senior Associate at Harvard University.

Robert Kates retired relatively early, became an 'independent scholar' and moved to Trenton, Maine overlooking the Narrows in the early 1990s.

Robert Kates remained professionally active until his mid 80s and in 2008, was appointed the inaugural Presidential Professor of Sustainability Science at the University of Maine, Orono.

Robert Kates's research focused on long-term trends in environment, development, and population, and he is particularly known for his work on natural hazards mitigation, driven by a Quaker belief in relevance to human society.

Robert Kates's approach was to set up "natural" experiments, and then to develop a set of comparative observations or analogs.

Robert Kates was awarded honorary DSc degrees from Clark University for his many contributions to hazards research and from the University of Maine.

Humans cannot "adapt" or, in Robert Kates's language, "adjust" successfully to hazards when a population is highly vulnerable or even exploited.

Robert Kates generally chose not to respond openly to his critics.