He then moved to Wayne State University, as a postdoctoral fellow in the research group of Carl Djerassi, working on isoquinoline alkaloids.

[2] In 1959, he received a National Science Foundation fellowship to work with Hans Schmid [de] at the University of Zürich in Switzerland on iridoid glycosides.

[4] In 1968, Bobbitt became lead instructor for an American Chemical Society course on thin-layer chromatography and taught seminars across the US on that subject.

[citation needed] Bobbitt met his wife, Jane Ann Hickman, while they were both students at West Virginia University.

In retirement, Bobbitt made wine, raised bees, and gardened, but he remained active in the laboratory and writing papers well into his 80s.