Robert H. Crabtree was born in London, England in 1948. He attended Brighton College and the New College, Oxford University where he worked with Malcolm L. H. Green. He obtained his Ph. D. at Sussex University in 1972 under the direction of Joseph Chatt. After postdoctoral research in Gif-s-Yvette, France, he obtained a position with the C.N.R.S., first as an Attaché de Recherche and later Chargé de Recherche.
In 1977, Robert Crabtree joined the faculty at Yale University where he is currently Professor of Chemistry. He has served on the editorial boards of Chemical Reviews, New Journal of Chemistry, Journal of Molecular Catalysis, and Organometallics and has received numerous awards for his research accomplishments including the Organometallic Chemistry Prize of Royal Society of Chemistry (1991) and the Organometallic Chemistry Prize of the American Chemical Society (1993).
Professor Crabtree is perhaps best known for his pioneering work on C-H and H-H bond activation by transition metal complexes. His current work includes the design of reactive dyes to act as color indicators for the rapid activity screening of large numbers of transition metal homogeneous catalysts; studies of hydrogen bonding in transition metal complexes; studies of C-F activation in metal-fluorocarbon complexes; and studies on model systems of manganese enzymes.