Chris Hawkesworth currently holds Emeritus positions at the Universities of Bristol and St Andrews. Previously he was Deputy Principal and Vice-Principal for Research, and Wardlaw Professor of Earth Sciences at the University of St Andrews (2009–2014), and before St Andrews he was Professor of Earth Sciences at Bristol and the Open University. Hawkesworth’s research uses isotopes and trace elements to study natural processes including those involved in the generation of magmas, the formation and evolution of the continental crust, the development of base metal deposits and environmental changes throughout time. He is particularly interested in constraining rates of natural processes from the geological record.

Hawkesworth was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2002, and his research has been recognized with awards including the Schlumberger Medal of the Mineralogical Society in 2002, the Wollaston Medal of the Geological Society in 2012, and the Bunsen Medal of the European Sciences Union in 2014. He has served on the governing bodies of the Universities of Bristol and St Andrews, and of a number of learned societies. He has chaired a Scientific Advisory Board for the Max Planck Society, review panels in Australia and South Africa, and served on the Scottish Funding Council Research & Knowledge Exchange Committee. He currently chairs the National Geological Screening Independent Review Panel for Radioactive Waste Disposal.