Robert A. Walker received his Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Carnegie-Mellon University in 1988. He joined the faculty of the Computer Science Department at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1989, and moved to the Computer Science Department at Kent State University in 1996, where is currently serving as Department Chair.

Robert's early research interests were in the field of high-level synthesis, in particular the scheduling and design space exploration problems. His more recent work has focused on novel architectures for embedded systems. Building on the KSU CS Department's historical strength in parallel computing, he and many of his students have explored the use of associative SIMD computing techniques on FPGAs, demonstrating their suitability for embedded systems running such applications as data mining, image processing, etc. With another student (now an alumnus), he is exploring techniques for improving instruction cache performance in embedded systems.

Since 1992, he has been deeply involved with the ACM Special Interest Group on Design Automation (ACM/SIGDA), serving as Secretary / Treasurer, Newsletter Editor, Chair, and currently as Past Chair. He received the SIGDA Meritorious Service Award in 1997, and the SIGDA Distinguished Service Award in 2006 "for dedicated service as SIGDA Chair (2001-2005) and over a decade of service to SIGDA, DAC, and the EDA profession".

Robert is very active in ACM, where he is currently serving as one of three Representatives from the SIG Governing Board to the ACM Council. He also serves on the ACM Council's Awards Committee, as Chair of the Senior Member Committee. He received the Outstanding Contribution to ACM Award in June 2008 "for a sustained record of dedicated and conscientious leadership within the ACM Special Interest Groups, including service as Chair of the SIG Governing Board, Chair of SIGDA, SGB Representative to Council, as well as leadership in ACM conference organization".

He is a Distinguished Member of ACM, a Senior Member of the IEEE, and a member of ACM/SIGDA, ACM/SIGARCH, ACM/SIGCSE, IEEE Computer Society, IEEE Circuits and Systems Society, and Sigma Xi. He has served on over 120 conference steering, organizing, and program committees, including 7 years on the DATE Sponsors' Committee, 4 years on the DAC Executive Committee, and 7 years on the the ICCAD Executive Committee. He has a strong interest in teaching, and received the Lilly Endowment Teaching Fellowship in 1990 and the Rensselaer Distinguished Teaching Fellowship in 1992.