Rate My Professor Robert Dunn

Robert Dunn is the Department Chair and Professor in the Geophysics and Tectonics group of the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. He holds a B.S. in Aerospace Engineering and Mechanics and a Ph.D. in Geophysics. Following his doctoral studies, he served as a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Geological Sciences at Brown University from 1999 to 2001. Dunn joined the University of Hawaiʻi faculty around 2002, was promoted to full professor in 2015, and recently assumed the role of department chair. His research focuses on mid-ocean ridges, hotspots, and subduction zones, elucidating mantle convection, magma ascent, and the dynamics of Earth's interior influencing surface features. Dunn specializes in submarine volcanism, employing seismic imaging, gravity mapping, and other geophysical techniques to probe crustal and mantle structures. He leads scientific teams on research vessel expeditions to collect data from key sites including the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, Reykjanes Ridge, Arctic Mohns Ridge, East Pacific Rise, Tonga-Lau subduction and back-arc systems, Iceland, and the Hawaii-Emperor Seamount Chain. Locally, he established and directs the Oʻahu Gravity Mapping Initiative, a student-led project mapping thousands of gravity points across Oʻahu.

Dunn has produced an extensive body of peer-reviewed publications in leading journals, advancing understanding of melt migration, crustal accretion, hydrothermal processes, and plate flexure. Notable works include 'The predictive accuracy of shoreline change rate methods and alongshore beach variation on Maui, Hawaii' (Genz et al., 2007, Journal of Coastal Research), 'Three-dimensional seismic structure and physical properties of the crust and shallow mantle beneath the East Pacific Rise at 9° 30'N' (Dunn et al., 2000, Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth), 'Three-dimensional seismic structure of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge (35° N): Evidence for focused melt supply and lower crustal dike injection' (Dunn et al., 2005, same journal), 'Skew of mantle upwelling beneath the East Pacific Rise governs segmentation' (Toomey et al., 2007, Nature), and 'Contrasting crustal production and rapid mantle transitions beneath back-arc ridges' (Dunn and Martinez, 2011, Nature). Recent contributions appear in Nature Communications, such as 'Seismic and gravity constraints on plate flexure and mantle rheology along the whole Hawaiian-Emperor seamount chain' (Watts et al., 2025) and 'Asymmetric magma plumbing system beneath Axial Seamount' (Yang et al., 2024). His scholarship has amassed over 2,300 citations. Dunn mentors students and researchers, secured NSF funding for projects like seismic imaging of volcanoes, and one paper received an Editor’s Highlight in Eos.