Herbert Huppert

Who is Herbert Huppert?

Herbert Eric Huppert is an Australian-born geophysicist living in Britain. He has been Professor of Theoretical Geophysics and Foundation Director, Institute of Theoretical Geophysics, Cambridge University, since 1989 and Fellow of King's College, Cambridge, since 1970.

He was born in Sydney, Australia and he received his early education at Sydney Boys High School. He graduated in Applied Mathematics from Sydney University with first class Honours, a University medal and the Baker Travelling Fellowship in 1964. He then completed a Ph.D. under John W. Miles at the University of California, San Diego, and came as an ICI Post-doctoral Fellow to DAMTP in Cambridge in 1968.

He has published using fluid-mechanical principles in applications to the Earth sciences: in meteorology, oceanography and geology. He was elected to the Royal Society in 1987. In 2005 he was the only non-American recipient of a prize from the United States National Academy of Sciences, being awarded the Arthur L. Day Prize Lectureship for contributions to the Earth sciences. He has been elected a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union and the American Physical Society.