Kennett Symposium, Canberra 7–9 May, 2023¶
Brian L.N. Kennett AO FRS FAA ¶
Brian Kennett graduated from Cambridge University with a First-Class degree in Theoretical Physics in 1969 and followed this with Honours with Distinction on the Mathematical Tripos Part III (now M. Math). He started research in Theoretical Seismology under the supervision of Dr E.R. Lapwood in the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics and gained the Smith’s Prize for his research in 1972. He was elected to a Research Fellowship at Emmanuel College in 1972, and gained his Ph.D. for work on seismic wave scattering and diffraction in 1973.
With the aid of a Lindemann Fellowship he spent a year in San Diego working with Prof. Freeman Gilbert and on his return to Cambridge took up a position in the Marine Geophysics group at the Department of Geodesy and Geophysics with Dr D.H. Matthews. He was appointed to a University Lectureship in the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics in 1976. He was awarded the Adams Prize from Cambridge University in 1981 for an essay on “Seismic Wave Propagation in Stratified Media”, and expanded this essay into his first book whilst on sabbatical at the University of Colorado, Boulder. The book was published by Cambridge University Press in 1983. Brian moved to the Australian National University in 1984 to take up a Professorial Fellowship in Seismology at the Research School of Earth Sciences (RSES). He was Interim Director of RSES in 1993, and subsequently Chair of the Board of the Institute of Advanced Studies and Pro-Vice- Chancellor from 1994-1997. From 2006-2010 he served as Director of RSES. He retired from his Distinguished Professorship in 2010, returning on a part-time position from external funds until 2016. He was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia in 2019.
His work has the main theme of the development of interpretational techniques for seismic records, with the object of extracting detailed information about the nature of the seismic velocity distribution within the Earth, and the character of seismic sources. He has worked over a very wide range of topics in seismology and is particularly well known for his efforts in the development of reference Earth models for body waves iasp91 and ak135, which are now international standards for earthquake location.
Brian Kennett’s work has been recognised internationally in many ways: Fellow of the American Geophysical Union (1988), Fellow of the Australian Academy of Sciences (1994), Fellow of the Royal Society of London (2005), Humboldt Research Award (2004). He has also received a number of medals for his work: Jaeger Medal (2005) and Flinders Medal (2011) from the Australian Academy of Sciences, Murchison Medal (2006) from the Geological Society of London, Gutenberg Medal (2007) from the European Geosciences Union, Gold Medal for Geophysics (2008) from the Royal Astronomical Society, Inge Lehmann Medal (2017) from the American Geophysical Union, Harry Fielding Reid Medal (2023) from the Seismological Society of America.
