Robert P. Multhauf (June 8, 1919– May 8, 2004) was an American historian of science, museum curator, director, scientific scholar, and author.
[2] Multhauf returned to the US in 1948 to pursue graduate studies at the University of California in Berkeley, where he earned a Master of Arts degree in 1950 and a Ph.D. in 1953.
[1] The master's degree focused on the history of Sino–Japanese relations from 1921 to 1932, following up his war work,[2] but he switched to the history of science for his Ph.D., with a thesis The Relationship between Technology and Natural Philosophy in the Renaissance, as Illustrated by the Technology of the Mineral Acids supervised by anatomist and medical historian John Bertrand deCusance Morant Saunders (1903–1991).
[2][4] In 1954, via a connection from Richard Shryock,[2] the Smithsonian Institution hired Multhauf as an associate curator for the Division of Engineering, in the United States National Museum.
[1] Multhauf married Mary Smith in June 1948 in Yokohama during his time serving in Japan, and the marriage lasted until a divorce in 1961 following separation in 1958.