Dr. George S. Robinson

Dr. George S. Robinson is a graduate of Bowdoin College in Maine, where he majored in biology and chemistry. He holds an LL.B. from the University of Virginia School of Law, and an LL.M. and Doctor of Civil Laws degrees from McGill University’s Graduate Law Faculty, Montreal, Canada. For twenty-five years, Dr. Robinson served as legal counsel at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., where he enjoyed an exceptionally broad law practice relating primarily to domestic and international science research activities, business law, and publications law. Before that, he served as an international relations specialist at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration where he was Desk Officer for developing collaborative research and educational programs with Canada, the United Kingdom, Japan, Spain, and Pakistan. He also served as legal counsel at the Federal Aviation Administration. Dr. Robinson has authored over 100 articles and books on a broad range of subjects, including public and private international law relating to space activities, space commerce, and aviation law; science/technology law, maritime law and policies relating to oceanography and limnology research; law relating to conservation of land, critical habitats, and animal and plant species; terrestrial and oceanographic environmental law, and business law. Upon leaving the Smithsonian Institution in 1995, Dr. Robinson established with his sons and daughter-in-law the firm of Robinson & Associates Law Offices, P.C. (now Robinson and Robinson, LLC), a domestic and international law practice with offices in Virginia and Maryland. The practice has addressed, among other issues, matters of law relating to corporations and non-profit organizations, education, employment, intellectual property, collaborative research and attendant agreements, mergers and acquisitions, managed health care, and space commerce. Dr. Robinson has taught and lectured in law and business relating to space commerce at numerous universities in the United States and abroad, including among others George Mason University, St. Peter’s College/Oxford University, McGill University, George Washington University, and Georgetown University. He serves on the boards of directors of various science research facilities, foundations, and hospitals. He also has consulted for the National Research Council, the Smithsonian Institution, the Maritime-Aerospace Liaison Project of the Maine Maritime Academy, the Aerospace Technology Working Group, and NASA, where served over twenty years until recently on the Planetary Protection Subcommittee of the NASA Advisory Council (NAC).