A native of The Netherlands, Dr. Robert Rene Henri Anholt has built a career as a distinguished researcher and teacher in the field of genetics. In 2018, Anholt was named Provost’s Distinguished Professor of Genetics and Biochemistry, Department of Genetics and Biochemistry, College of Science, Clemson University, and the director of Faculty Excellence for Clemson’s College of Science.
Anholt began his academic pursuits at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel, where he earned his Bachelor of Science in 1973. He would go on to receive a Master of Science in biochemistry in 1975 from University College in London, and, in 1982, a Ph.D. in biology from the University of California, San Diego.
He received an interim postdoctoral appointment from the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in San Diego and was a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Neuroscience at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Maryland from 1982–1986.
Anholt was an assistant professor in Duke University Medical Center’s departments of Physiology and Neurobiology from 1986-88 and from 1988–93, respectively. From 1992–93, he was a member of the Duke Comprehensive Cancer Center. From 1993 through 2018, Anholt held several teaching positions at North Carolina State University. He was a research associate professor in the Department of Zoology (1993–96); an associate professor in the Department of Zoology (1996–2000); the program director for the W.M. Keck Program for Behavioral Biology (1998–2000), and director of the W.M. Keck Center for Behavioral Biology (2000–18); professor in the Department of Zoology (2000–08); the William Neal Reynolds Distinguished Professor of Biology (2008–13); and the William Neal Reynolds Distinguished Professor of Biological Sciences (2013–18). While at N.C. State, Anholt was also a member of the Genomics Sciences Faculty (2000–18); an associate member of the Department of Genetics (2000–13); a member of the Comparative Biomedical Sciences Program, College of Veterinary Medicine (2006–18); and a member of the Comparative Medicine Institute (2014–19).
