A graduate of Sussex University, where he undertook a PhD on sex ratios in solitary wasps in 1985, Robert subsequently held postdoc positions at Cardiff University (UK), researching bees and pollination, Uppsala University (Sweden), working on bee population genetics, then the University of Tübingen, researching the genetics of social evolution. In 2003 took up an academic post at Queen’s University Belfast (UK) from where, in 2010, he moved to the University of Halle, to take up a chair in zoology. His main research areas are: social evolution, host-parasite relations, pollination and conservation genetics, with a taxonomic focus on bees.