Rate My Professor Claire Nichols

Professor Claire Nichols is Associate Professor of the Geology of Planetary Processes in the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Oxford and Tutorial Fellow at St Edmund Hall. She completed an MSci in Natural Sciences at Newnham College, University of Cambridge, followed by a PhD in Earth Sciences at Jesus College, University of Cambridge. Prior to her appointment at Oxford in 2020, she held a Simons Collaboration on the Origins of Life Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she conducted research on lunar samples from the Apollo missions and led fieldwork in Greenland to study evidence of Earth’s earliest magnetic field.

Her research focuses on using paleomagnetism and rock magnetism to investigate planetary formation, the environment of early Earth, and planetary habitability, with particular emphasis on meteorites, lunar magnetism, banded iron formations, and ancient magnetic fields. She teaches courses in igneous and metamorphic petrology, structural geology, planetary science, and rock and paleomagnetism. Professor Nichols has received awards including the MPLS Award for Outstanding Research Supervision and the Mineralogical Society Distinguished Lectureship. She serves on editorial boards and committees in her field and has authored numerous publications on topics such as the lunar dynamo and meteorite magnetism.