Robert Edson Warner was born on April 11, 1931. He received the BS degree from Antioch College in 1954 and the Ph D from the University of Rochester in 1959. Before joining the Oberlin College faculty in 1965, he served as instructor and assistant professor at The University of Rochester, 1959-1961, Antioch College, 1961-1963, and The University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada, 1963-1965. At The University of Manitoba, he and two students were the second group to observe bremsstrahlung production in proton-proton collisions. In 1993-94, he was Visiting Professor and Master Teacher at the University of Michigan. While at Oberlin College, Warner taught an array of classes, including a popular course in musical acoustics.

Warner was a visiting professor during sabbaticals at the Nuclear Physics Laboratory of Oxford University, England, 1971-1972, at the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory (Michigan State University) in 1980-1981 and 1995-96, and the Nuclear Structure Laboratory of Notre Dame University in 1987-1988. He was Visiting Scientist at the Kernfysisch Versneller Institute, Groningen, The Netherlands in the spring and summer of 1988 and at the University of Surrey, Guildford, England in the summer and fall, 2001.

Warner's research at Oberlin was continuously supported by the National Science Foundation from 1965 through 1998. He involved his students, many of whom are co-authors of his papers, in the design and execution of experiments, the analysis of experimental data, and their interpretation through nuclear model calculations. In his early years he completed his studies of proton-proton bremsstrahlung and did many knockout measurements of the cluster structure of light nuclei. In the 1980s he shifted to measurements of total reaction cross sections of light nuclei, particularly of those with possible halo structure. In retirement, he is revisiting his reaction cross section data to extract single-nucleon removal cross sections. For their experiments, he and his students used accelerators at NASA-Lewis, Chalk River, Indiana University, Notre Dame, Michigan State, Osaka (Japan), and Uppsala (Sweden). He held a visiting fellowship from the Japan Society for Promotion of Science in Winter 1995.

On March 24, 1999, the American Physical Society recognized Warner's remarkable contribution to the professional development of undergraduate physics students by presenting him with the fourteenth annual "Prize to a Faculty Member for Research in an Undergraduate Institution".

Warner became the Donald R. Longman Professor of Natural Science in the fall of 1995 and held that professorship until his retirement on 30 June 2001. He sings bass in the Cleveland Orchestra Chorus and is active in the Cleveland Hiking Club.

"1999 Prize to a faculty member for research in an undergraduate institution" in 1999 Prizes & Awards. American Physical Society. 24.

Exner, Rich. 1999. "The Physics of Life: Oberlin College professor uses music, other methods to reveal the harmonies of science to his students." The Plain Dealer (March 24).