I have been studying God’s continuing creation most of my life. As a child I attended a Lutheran church with my parents. I received my undergraduate education at St. Olaf College where I majored in physics but maintained a strong interest in religion. I completed my master’s and doctoral work in physics at Wayne State University. There I continued to learn about Christianity in the multicultural city of Detroit. In the 1950s and 60s I was employed as a research physicist at the General Motors Research Laboratories just outside of Detroit.

Those were exciting years because General Motors dominated the automotive industry and the new field of research called materials science that I worked in was just beginning to blossom. My research was being published in a number of international journals. At the same time my wife Rhoda and I were busy taking care of our three daughters and helping establish a new mission congregation for the Lutheran church in a suburb of Detroit.

After I had been at GM ten years I became aware of a need for the development of the physics department at Augustana, a Lutheran college in Rock Island, Illinois. Rhoda and I did some soul searching and decided that God needed me at Augustana. So we moved to Rock Island and that became a new adventure for us. I enjoyed teaching the eager young students and the physics department became strong. In addition I was able to continue my research, collaborating with scientists at Argonne National Laboratory and the University of Illinois. Visits to the Holy Land and European countries in later years increased my understanding of the history of Christianity.

– Robert C. Frank