Herbert Huppert, raised in Sydney, Australia, completed his Ph.D. at UCSD in 1968 and then went to Cambridge University to become the Foundation Director of the Institute of Theoretical Geophysics in 1989. He has worked extensively on applications of fluid mechanics to the atmosphere, ocean and ‘solid’ Earth. He first contributed to the theory of nonlinear topographic lee waves, the melting of large icebergs and effects of rotation on fluid motions. He initiated and developed the field of geological fluid mechanics, explaining eruptive styles of volcanoes and their influence on weather, the formation of the world’s nickel deposits, and the run out and subsequent deposits of lava flows, pyroclastic surges and turbidity currents. Some of his recent research has been devoted towards understanding the sequestration of carbon dioxide and the input and output of fluid flows in arrays of fractures within the Earth.