Robert D. Rapp was born to a Pennsylvania German family in 1930. He spent his childhood in a rural Pennsylvania German community near Reading, PA. There, at an early age, he became acquainted with the local German dialect, because his neighbors were Pennsylvania German farmers and craftsmen. After a stint in the U.S. Navy, he matriculated at Tufts University (Medford, MA) and obtained a B.S. in Chemistry in 1955. Bob worked as a chemist in industry and as a clinical chemist in the Reading Hospital before entering graduate school at Lehigh University where he was awarded a PhD in 1967. He then served as Professor of Chemistry at Albright College (Reading, PA) until his retirement in 1992.… His research interests are in natural products and in medicinal chemistry. He is currently a Visiting Scientist at Lehigh University.