In 1938 he was designated Alumnus Summa Laude Dignatus of the University of Washington, that school's highest honor for its alumni.

Robert Kincaid received his medical degree from Queen's University and undertook his internship at Bellevue Hospital in New York City.

A paucity of family funds led Kincaid to work a variety of odd jobs for several years following high school, but a chance encounter with University of Washington (UW) biology professor Orson "Bugs" Johnson and the Young Naturalists Society led him to resolve to spend his meager savings to relocate to Seattle and enroll at the university.

Back in Washington, Kincaid's interests focused more on insect life, and a report that year in the Boston Evening Transcript noted that he had discovered 41 new species of bees, including 22 of the genus Osmia.

Theodore Dru Alison Cockerell, at the time one of America's leading entomologists, directed a portion of the sizable Kincaid bee collection to the Smithsonian Institution.

[2][5] Kincaid missed commencement exercises at the University of Washington due to his appointment as the entomologist attached to the Harriman Alaska Expedition.

[3] In his new position, Kincaid began scouting the Puget Sound region for a suitable site at which the university could establish a marine research field station.

[9] Kincaid was dispatched to Japan in 1908 by the United States Department of Agriculture to identify and collect a natural parasite for the gypsy moth, which, at the time, was creating havoc in Massachusetts.