Robert Edward Lee was educated at Cornell University (B.S., 1960–4) and the University of Massachusetts, Amherst (Ph.D., 1966–71) and served as a Platoon leader in the US Army First Infantry Division (1964–6). He was Lecturer at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg (1971–7), Associate Professor at Shiraz (Pahlavi) University, Shiraz, Iran (1977–9), Fellow of Schepens Eye Research Institute and Harvard Medical School, Boston (1979–81) and is currently Coordinator of Biomedical Sciences at Colorado State University, a post he has held since 1981. For 50 years, and 5 editions of Phycology, Lee has been interested in the systematics, evolution, and ecology of the algae as well as the important economic aspects of the organisms.