Education
Robson received his Bachelor in religious studies from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 1987, and thereafter studied in China, Japan, and Taiwan for several years before pursuing his Doctor of Philosophy at Stanford University.
Career
He is engaged in a long-term collaborative research project with the École française d"Extrême-Orient studying a large collection of local religious statuary from Hunan province. After completing his doctorate in 2002, he worked at Williams College from 2002–2004, and University of Michigan from 2004–2008, where he received tenure in 2008. Robson became a Harvard faculty in 2008 and was promoted to full professor in 2012.