Dr. Robert E. Menzer

First Director and Founder of the Marine Estuarine & Environmental Science Graduate Program

(December 21, 1938 - September 5, 2023)

Dr. Robert Menzer is the founder of the Marine Estuarine & Environmental Science Graduate Program and became its first Director in 1978. Among Dr. Menzer’s numerous contributions, his groundbreaking research on the carcinogenicity of pesticides helped lead to the development of national regulations on the chemicals used in pesticide production.

Dr. Menzer received his Bachelor’s degree in Chemistry at the University of Pennsylvania in June of 1960. He then earned his Master’s in Entomology at the University of Maryland, College Park in 1962, and continued on to the University of Wisconsin, Madison for a Ph.D. in entomology, which he received in August of 1964.

Dr. Menzer returned to College Park and joined the faculty of the Department of Entomology serving in various roles including Professor and went on to to serve in campus leadership at the Graduate School as Associate Dean of Graduate Studies and Research (1974-1977), and Acting Dean in 1977 where he remained until 1989. Dr. Menzer was instrumental in not only the mentoring of MEES graduate students, but also set in place MEES’ unique cross-collaborative structure partnering with USM institutions, and served as a mentor to MEES junior faculty. Dr. Menzer also founded the MEES Graduate Program Fund in 1987, and along with his family established an endowment in the Reid Evans Menzer Memorial Graduate Award which has been instrumental in funding our graduate student’s research and helped them achieve Master and doctoral degree completion. He left the University of Maryland to become Acting Director of the Office of Exploratory Research at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency before relocating to Florida to become the Director of the EPA’s Environmental Research Laboratory in Gulf Breeze. Dr. Menzer has a total of 75 articles published in peer-reviewed journals, dealing with pesticide chemistry and toxicology, with emphasis on fate and transport in the environment. He has also served on numerous committees of NAS-NRC, USDA, EPA, NIH and other agencies as well as remaining a member of the Hazardous Substances Data Bank Scientific Review Panel, National Library of Medicine where he served as Chairman from 1985-2000.

The MEES Graduate Program would like to extend our condolences to his wife Sara Lee and his children Eric, Paul, and Joan, who have made it possible for our graduate students to dream big and accomplish great things!