Professor Francis Nimmo FRS

Francis Nimmo was awarded his BA in Geological Sciences in 1993 and his PhD in 1996, both from Cambridge University. Following a Royal Society University Research Fellowship at University College London, he moved to the US and was appointed as an Assistant Professor at University of California, Santa Cruz in 2005. In 2020 he became a member of the US National Academy of Sciences and in 2022-23 he served on the Steering Committee of the Decadal Survey of Planetary Sciences and Astrobiology.

 

Professor Nimmo's interests are the structures and evolution of solid planets and moons. His work includes showing how bodies such as Pluto or Enceladus could have "shifted on their axis", how the presence or absence of plate tectonics on Mars, the Earth and Venus has controlled their magnetic field histories, and how gravity and topography measurements can be used to determine the internal structures of moons like Titan or Enceladus. He was a team member on the GRAIL, Cassini, New Horizons and InSight spacecraft and is on 4 instrument teams for the forthcoming Europa Clipper mission.

Professional position

  • Professor, Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, University Of California, Santa Cruz

Subject groups

  • Earth and Environmental Sciences

    Geophysics, Planetary science