Herbert Huppert

Herbert Eric Huppert (born 26 November 1943) 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 and received his early education in Sydney, Australia. 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. at the University of California, San Diego, and came as an ICI Post-doctoral Fellow to DAMTP in Cambridge in 1968.

He has published widely 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 both the American Geophysical Union and the American Physical Society. He was a member of the editorial board, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society (series A), 1994-99, and has been on the Council of the Royal Society. He was also Chairman of a Royal Society Working Group on bioterrorism, which produced a Report entitled 'Making the UK Safer', launched 21 April 2004.