Eleanor Jewell Byrnes Friends of Music Piano Scholarship
Robert Byrnes was born in Waterville, New York, and graduated from Amherst College in Massachusetts. He received a doctorate from Harvard University in 1947 after having served as a civilian employee of the military intelligence services during World War II. He worked for Rutgers University, the Russian Institute at Columbia University, the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, and the Office of National Estimates of the Central Intelligence Agency before joining the faculty of Indiana University.
At Indiana University, he served as the chairman of the history department, directed the International Affairs Center, founded the Russian and East European Institute, while advising many students who went on to become academics, diplomats, and public servants.
Byrnes and his wife, Eleanor Byrnes, resided in Bloomington, Indiana. Robert Byrnes passed away at age 79.
The Jacobs School of Music is honored to award the Eleanor Jewell Byrnes FoM Piano Scholarship to undergraduate students studying piano, with preference given to those from the state of Indiana.