About Rick

Richard J. O’Connell was born in Helena, Montana, the son of a ranching family. He earned his BS in Physics, his MS in Geology, and his PhD in Geophysics, all at Caltech. After postdoctoral work at Caltech and UCLA, O’Connell joined the faculty at Harvard, where he has mentored a succession of unusually successful undergraduates, graduate students, and postdoctoral fellows, as well as engaging in cutting edge research with senior colleagues. O’Connell’s research is focused on understanding dynamic processes in planetary interiors, their coupled thermo-chemical evolution, and their relation to geological events on the surface. For his seminal work in geodynamics and material properties, O’Connell has been awarded the Inge Lehmann Medal of the American Geophysical Union, the Arthur L. Day Medal of the Geological Society of America, and the Augustus Love Medal of the European Geosciences Union. He is a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union, the American Association of the Advancement
of Sciences, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.