Richard Battson Walker was born on October 24, 1916 in western Illinois. He earned his Bachelor of Science in Botany at the University of Illinois in 1938 and his PhD at the University of California, Berkeley in 1948. At Berkeley, he shared a lab with fellow botany graduate student Helen Bramsch, whom he married in 1940. Walker's graduate studies were interrupted by the Second Word War, when he served as an artillery officer in the US Army in Venezuela and Panama until 1945, when he left the service with the rank of Lt. Colonel. After completing his PhD, Walker was hired into the Botany Department at the University of Washington, where he spent the remainder of his career. He served as Chair of the Department from 1962 to 1971. As Chair, Walker supported the development of undergraduate biology courses and an interdisciplinary biology major. He served as Director of the Biology Undergraduate Program from 1975 to 1982, and was also an adjunct professor in forestry, from 1977 to 1985. Walker's research was interdisciplinary in nature, encompassing areas of plant physiology, nutrition, ecology, and adaptation. His thesis research was on the uptake of minerals from serpentine soils. Between 1958 and 1986, Walker participated in 6 expeditions to the Marshall Islands to study uptake into plants of radioisotopes generated by the hydrogen bomb tests conducted there by the United States. Walker was subject to mandatory retirement at age 70, but remained active in research and continued to be a contributing member of the Botany Department until his death at the age of 93 on March 10, 2010.