Robert Byron Pipes (born 1941) is an educator, researcher in polymer sciences and was the seventeenth president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
From 1978 to 1985, he was director of the Center for Composite Materials at the University of Delaware and from 1989 to 1993, he was Robert L. Spencer Professor of Engineering.
[4] The faculty senate decided on April 1, 1998, to hold a faculty-wide no-confidence vote.
[7] In 1987, Pipes was elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering for interdisciplinary leadership in composite materials research, and for development of an exemplary model of university, industrial, and governmental interactions in research and education.
In 1983, he received the Gustus L. Larson Memorial Award from Pi Tau Sigma and the ASME.