Joel Robbin was born in Chicago in 1941 and completed his PhD at Princeton University in 1965 under the direction of Alonzo Church. After a postdoctoral position in Princeton he took up an Assistant Professorship at the University of Wisconsin-Madson in 1967, where he became full Professor in 1973.
Joel Robbin began his research in mathematical logic (and wrote a text book on this subject) and later moved on to dynamical systems and symplectic topology. In 1970 he proved a conjecture by Stephen Smale which asserts that Axiom A implies structural stability. His publications include a book on "Matrix Algebra" and joint book with Ralph Abraham on "Transversal Mappings and Flows".
He is a Fellow of the American Mathematical Society.
