Rate My Professor Hrvoje Tkalčić

Professor Hrvoje Tkalčić is the Head of Geophysics and Director of the Warramunga Seismic & Infrasound Facility in the Research School of Earth Sciences at the Australian National University. He obtained his PhD in Geophysics from the University of California, Berkeley in 2001, supervised by Professor Barbara Romanowicz, with a thesis titled "Studying the Deep Earth Structure Using Core Sensitive Phases." Earlier, he earned a Diploma of Engineering in Physics, specializing in Geophysics with Meteorology, from the University of Zagreb in 1997. Tkalčić's professional journey includes postdoctoral research fellowships at the University of California, Berkeley's Seismological Laboratory, the Scripps Institution of Geophysics and Planetary Physics at UC San Diego, and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's Seismology Group, as well as a permanent appointment as Research Geophysicist at Multimax, Inc. Upon joining ANU in 2007 as a Fellow in Seismology, he progressed to Associate Professor in 2013, Professor (E1) in 2019, and Professor (E2) in 2023. He previously headed the Seismology and Mathematical Geophysics group from 2017 to 2021 and continues to coordinate degrees in Earth and Marine Sciences for ANU's Bachelor of Philosophy program.

Tkalčić specializes in global observational seismology, with a focus on deep Earth structure and dynamics using seismic and correlation wavefields, encompassing the inner and outer core, lowermost mantle, core-mantle interactions, lithospheric imaging, physics of seismic sources, instrument deployment in remote areas, and planetary seismology. He authored the authoritative book The Earth’s Inner Core: Revealed by Observational Seismology (Cambridge University Press, 2017) and When Worlds Quake: The quest to understand the interiors of Earth and beyond (Princeton University Press, 2026), in addition to over 120 peer-reviewed articles. Key publications include "An estimate of shear-wave speed in the Earth's inner core" (Nature Communications, 2023), "Seismic insights into Earth's core" (Nature Communications, 2023), and "Scanning for planetary cores with single-receiver intersource correlations" (Nature Astronomy, 2022). His pioneering work has been recognized with election as Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science (2024), Fellow of the American Geophysical Union (2020), the Price Medal from the Royal Astronomical Society (2022), Australian Laureate Fellowship (2025), and multiple ANU awards for excellence in supervision, including the Vice-Chancellor’s Award (2022).