Robert Huber was born on February 20, 1937 in Munich, Germany to Sebastian and Helen Kebinger Huber. In 1947 Huber entered the Humanistisches Karls-Gymnasium in Munich, a school with an emphasis on humanistic studies. It was here he developed an interest in chemistry. In 1956 he graduated from the gymnasium and entered the Technische Hochschule of Munich--later renamed the Technical University--to study chemistry. He graduated in 1960, and married Christa Essig that same year. They would have four children together.

As a graduate student, Huber worked with a number of prominent chemists, including Walter Hieber in the field of inorganic chemistry, Ernst Fischer who studied organometallic chemistry, and F. Weygand in organic chemistry. But it was crystallography that won Huber's interest. Though his thesis work for his 1963 doctorate was done on the crystal structure of a diazo compound, it was crystallographic studies on the insect metamorphosis hormone ecdysone that set him on the...