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Channing Robertson

American chemical engineer and academic

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 12, 2026
Entity authorityQ63699677
Source-derived summary

Channing Rex Robertson is a professor emeritus of chemical engineering at Stanford University. He held multiple significant roles at startup Theranos, founded by his student Elizabeth Holmes. Robertson took on major responsibilities at the company prior to its collapse, including becoming its first board member, engaging with venture capitalists, and recruiting biochemist Ian Gibbons. He retired from Stanford in 2012, becoming professor emeritus. Theranos named him the co-leader of their technology advisory board in 2017. He was called as a witness in United States v. Elizabeth A. Holmes, et al., which convicted Holmes and partner Sunny Balwani of criminal fraud. During his time working for Holmes, Robertson was paid US$500,000 per year by Theranos. Since his active role in the Theranos scandal, he went back to teach one course at Stanford.

Early life and education

Robertson spent the early part of his life in Los Angeles, California.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Channing Robertson” is american chemical engineer and academic. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Channing, Robertson and American, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA useful biographical orientation record, particularly for establishing names, roles and a first chronology. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2012, 2017—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. For this dossier, Channing, Robertson and American is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “american chemical engineer and academic” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 12, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q63699677. VIAF identifies the subject as 75352126. The Library of Congress control number is n86838116. None of the 2 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2012 and 2017.

Critical limits

A concise life account rarely captures disputed attribution, private networks or the changing language used to describe a career. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Channing Robertson”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Channing Robertson primary sources, Channing Robertson archive and Channing research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Channing Robertson”?
  2. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
  3. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Channing Robertson” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.