Rate My Professor Phil Cummins

Professor Phil Cummins is an Adjunct Professor in the Research School of Earth Sciences at the Australian National University. He earned his PhD in Geophysics from the University of California, Berkeley in 1988. After completing postdoctoral and research fellowships at ANU until 1996, he led a geodynamics research unit at the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology. In 2001, he joined Geoscience Australia to lead earthquake and tsunami hazard research. In 2011, he accepted a joint appointment between Geoscience Australia and ANU as Professor of Natural Hazards, and he continues to contribute to both institutions.

Cummins specializes in earthquakes and tsunamis, focusing on earthquake source mechanisms, seismic wave propagation and attenuation, tsunami generation and propagation, and their effects on society, particularly in the Asia-Pacific region. His academic interests include rapid estimation of earthquake slip distributions and sea surface displacement for tsunami warnings, sedimentary basin effects on seismic amplification (especially in Indonesia), crustal strain accumulation to characterize earthquake potential, and improvements to tsunami warning systems. He has supervised projects such as finite fault inversion using W-phase data, time-reverse imaging of tsunami sources, transdimensional Bayesian finite fault inversion, and geohazards assessment. Through his roles, he supports developing countries in the region to improve earthquake and tsunami hazard assessment. In 2022, he received the Australian Public Service Medal for outstanding scientific leadership in pioneering research programs reducing risks from earthquakes and tsunamis in Australia and the Asia-Pacific. Key publications include 'Splay fault branching along the Nankai subduction zone' (Science, 2002), 'The potential for giant tsunamigenic earthquakes in the northern Bay of Bengal' (Nature, 2007), 'Development of the 2017 national seismic hazard maps of Indonesia' (Earthquake Spectra, 2020), and editor of 'Geohazards in Indonesia: Earth Science for Disaster Risk Reduction' (Geological Society Special Publication 441, 2017).