Bob White (geophysicist)


Robert White is Professor of Geophysics in the Earth Sciences department at Cambridge University and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1994. He is Director of the Faraday Institute for Science and Religion.

Biography

Bob White is also a Fellow of St Edmund's College, Cambridge, prior to which he was a student and Research Fellow at Emmanuel College, Cambridge. A Fellow of the Geological Society, and a member of the American Geophysical Union and several other professional bodies; he serves on numerous of their committees. He leads a research group investigating the Earth's dynamic crust. His most cited paper used geophysical evidence in conjunction with models of melt generation beneath rifts to show that the largest and most rapid effusions of volcanic rock on the earth, known as flood basalts, result from continental rifting above mantle plumes. He has organised fieldwork in many different countries and supervised 50 PhD students at the Department of Earth Sciences in Cambridge, many of whom are now prominent in academia, industry, government and education. His work at sea has taken him to the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans and his research group is currently investigating the internal structure of volcanoes in Iceland, New Zealand, the Faroes and the Atlantic margin. His scientific work is published in over 350 papers and articles.

Publications

Selected Scientific Publications