29/05/2026
ANU geophysicist Emeritus Professor Malcolm Sambridge has a knack for solving the unsolvable. His pioneering work developing mathematical models has helped solve some of the most significant earth science problems, including helping scientists learn more about Earth’s interior, which holds clues about the planet’s evolutionary history.
A self-professed “algorithm nerd”, Sambridge has transformed how earth scientists extract information from complex data. His contributions to the earth sciences over his 40-year career has seen him elected to The Royal Society, the oldest scientific academy in continuous existence.
Sambridge’s election as Fellow of the Society sees him join an exclusive club of renowned scientists including Stephen Hawking, Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, Albert Einstein and Dorothy Hodgkin.
“It’s overwhelming. I mean, I’m giddy as a schoolboy. I feel very honoured, but equally I feel humbled and astonished that this has happened,” Sambridge says.
Sambridge’s path to becoming one of the world’s most eminent scientists started with a fortuitous “sliding door” moment when he decided to uproot his life in the UK, where he was studying at the University of Cambridge, and relocate to Canberra in 1984 to study a PhD in seismic imaging at the ANU Research School of Earth Sciences.
Read more: quicklink.anu.edu.au/4sxq
Science & Medicine at ANU