Brian Kennett facts for kids

Brian Leslie Norman Kennett was born on May 7, 1948, in Croydon, England. He is a very smart scientist who studies physics and seismology. Seismology is the study of earthquakes and how the Earth's inside works.

Professor Kennett is now a professor emeritus at the Australian National University. This means he used to teach there for many years and is now retired, but still connected to the university.

Studying and Working

Brian Kennett went to the University of Cambridge in England. He studied Theoretical Physics and graduated in 1969. He then earned his Ph.D. in theoretical seismology in 1973.

After his studies, he worked as a researcher at Cambridge. He also spent some time at the University of California, San Diego in the United States.

In 1984, Professor Kennett moved to Australia. He joined the Research School of Earth Sciences at the Australian National University (ANU). There, he started important programs to study earthquakes. He helped set up ways to observe earthquakes and understand them better.

He also visited other universities around the world, like the University of Tokyo in Japan and the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich in Germany. From 2006 to 2010, he was the director of the Earth Sciences school at ANU.

Important Discoveries

Professor Kennett has made big contributions to understanding what the Earth is made of deep inside. He studied how seismic waves travel through the Earth. Seismic waves are like ripples that spread out from an earthquake.

He developed special models, like the IASP91 and AK135 models. These models help scientists figure out where an earthquake started, which is called its epicenter. His work helps us understand the Earth's mantle, which is the thick layer between the Earth's crust and its core.

He also helped create ways to use seismograms (the wavy lines that show earthquake recordings) to map the Earth's inside. This is a bit like using X-rays to see inside your body, but for the Earth!

Awards and Honours

Professor Kennett has received many awards for his important work. Here are some of them:

• 1972 Smith Prize from the University of Cambridge
• 1981 Adams Prize from the University of Cambridge
• 1994 Became a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science
• 2004 Humboldt Prize
• 2005 Jaeger Medal from the Australian Academy of Science
• 2005 Became a Fellow of the Royal Society (a very old and famous science group in London)
• 2006 Murchison Medal
• 2007 Beno Gutenberg Medal
• 2008 Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society for Geophysics
• 2011 Matthew Flinders Medal and Lecture
• 2017 Inge Lehmann Medal