Francis Nimmo is a Planetary Science Associate Professor at the University of California Santa Cruz. Nimmo attended Wolverhampton Grammar School and received his Bachelor of Arts degree in Geological Sciences from Cambridge University in 1993 and completed his Ph.D.

Ph.D.

A Ph.D. is a Doctor of Philosophy, an academic degree.Ph.D. may also refer to:* Ph.D. , a 1980s British group*Piled Higher and Deeper, a web comic strip*PhD: Phantasy Degree, a Korean comic series* PhD Docbook renderer, an XML renderer...

 on Volcanism and Tectonics on Venus

Venus

Venus is the second planet from the Sun, orbiting it every 224.7 Earth days. The planet is named after Venus, the Roman goddess of love and beauty. After the Moon, it is the brightest natural object in the night sky, reaching an apparent magnitude of −4.6, bright enough to cast shadows...

 from Cambridge in 1996.

His research focuses on the origin and evolution of solid body surfaces and interiors from observations and geophysical modelling. Some of his research achievements include his showing that a giant impact could have generated the Martian

Mars

Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun in the Solar System. The planet is named after the Roman god of war, Mars. It is often described as the "Red Planet", as the iron oxide prevalent on its surface gives it a reddish appearance...

 hemispheric dichotomy

Dichotomy

A dichotomy is any splitting of a whole into exactly two non-overlapping parts, meaning it is a procedure in which a whole is divided into two parts...

, identification of shear-heating as an important process on Enceladus

Enceladus (moon)

Enceladus is the sixth-largest of the moons of Saturn. It was discovered in 1789 by William Herschel. Until the two Voyager spacecraft passed near it in the early 1980s very little was known about this small moon besides the identification of water ice on its surface...

, Europa

Europa (moon)

Europa Slightly smaller than Earth's Moon, Europa is primarily made of silicate rock and probably has an iron core. It has a tenuous atmosphere composed primarily of oxygen. Its surface is composed of ice and is one of the smoothest in the Solar System. This surface is striated by cracks and...

 and Triton

Triton (moon)

Triton is the largest moon of the planet Neptune, discovered on October 10, 1846, by English astronomer William Lassell. It is the only large moon in the Solar System with a retrograde orbit, which is an orbit in the opposite direction to its planet's rotation. At 2,700 km in diameter, it is...

 and the explanation of the link between plate tectonics and dynamo activity on Mars and Venus. Nimmo received the Harold C. Urey Prize and the James B. Macelwane Medal

James B. Macelwane Medal

A medal awarded annually by the American Geophysical Union "to be awarded annually for significant contributions by outstanding young scientists." It is named after James B. Macelwane, a Jesuit priest and one of the pioneers of seismology...

in 2007.

Nimmo's UCSC Webpage http://es.ucsc.edu/~fnimmo/