Swiss algologist and authority on the flora of Paraguay. Born in Moutier-Grandval in the Bernese Jura, Robert Chodat studied pharmacy at the University of Geneva, where he earned his doctorate in 1887. From 1887-1893 he ran a pharmacy in Geneva and in 1889 began a professorship at Geneva, where he remained until his death (he was professor of botany and head of the department from 1901). He took up the study of freshwater algae early in his career, developing a new technique for the pure culture of algae, and after 1910 began to study the gonidia of lichens. His PhD work, however, was taxonomic and dealt with the Polygalaceae (Milkwort family). He later published Monographia Polygalacearum.

He visited Paraguay while a young man and later encouraged his student, Émile Hassler, to do so. The pair determined specimens collected by Hassler, publishing "Plantae Hasslerianae" between 1898 and 1907 in the Bulletin de l'Herbier Boissier. Chodat went back to Paraguay in 1914, taking with him W. Vischer. The results of their collections were published as La Végétation du Paraguay in seven parts (1916-1927). Chodat also studied the organisms of fermentation and published a textbook, Principes de Botanique, in 1907. In 1915 he established an alpine laboratory at Bourg St. Pierre alpine garden, where he taught students every summer. He was made a foreign member of the Linnean Society in 1914, which awarded him the Gold Medal in 1933, and also held an honorary doctorate from Cambridge University.

Sources:
A.B. Rendle, 1934, "Obituary. Robert Chodat (1865-1934)", Journal of Botany, British and Foreign, 72: 207-208
F.E. Weiss, 1934, Proceedings of the Linnean Society, 146: 144-146.