Robert Griffin received his B.S. summa cum laude in chemical engineering from Tufts University in 1993. For the two years prior to attending graduate school, Dr. Griffin was a Research Associate with Arthur D. Little, Inc., a management and technology consulting firm. He received an M.S. in 1997 and a Ph.D. in 2000 (both in chemical engineering) from the California Institute of Technology. His thesis was titled Experimental and Computational Studies of Secondary Organic Aerosol and was performed under the direction of Professor John H. Seinfeld. Between September 2000 and December 2002, Dr. Griffin was an assistant professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Duke University.

Dr. Griffin's research interests lie primarily in understanding the effects and behavior of organic species in the troposphere. Work includes both experimental and computational studies designed to understand how air quality can be improved on regional, national, and global scales. Current projects include modeling the formation of secondary organic aerosol in atmospheric models, modeling the atmospheric dynamics of biogenic volatile organic compounds (VOCs), understanding the importance of individual VOCs in hydrocarbon reactivity and ozone production efficiency in the New England atmosphere, field measurements of aerosol size and composition, and experimental studies of chlorine-VOC reactions in the marine atmosphere. Dr. Griffin's previous work has been published in journals that include Science, Environmental Science and Technology, The Journal of Geophysical Research - Atmospheres, Geophysical Research Letters, and The Journal of Atmospheric Chemistry.

Dr. Griffin's teaching interests are focused on undergraduate courses in introductory atmospheric science and chemistry and graduate courses in atmospheric chemistry, atmospheric aerosol physics, and atmospheric modeling. He is a member of the American Association of Aerosol Research, the American Chemical Society, the American Geophysical Union, and the Association of Environmental Engineering and Science Professors.