Ross Griffiths. Source: https://earthsciences.anu.edu.au/people/professor-ross-griffiths-faa
Australian National University. Photo: Dave Snowden, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:University_House_ANU_Canberra_(2948649223).jpg)
University of Cambridge. Photo: Diliff, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:St_John%27s_College_Second_Court,_Cambridge,_UK_-_Diliff.jpg)
Australian National University. Photo: Dave Snowden, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:University_House_ANU_Canberra_(2948649223).jpg)
University of Cambridge. Photo: Diliff, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:St_John%27s_College_Second_Court,_Cambridge,_UK_-_Diliff.jpg)
Ross William Griffiths was born on January 28, 1954, in Manilla, New South Wales, Australia, the son of Edward Dempster Griffiths and Eva Mary (Boman) Griffiths. Manilla is a rural town in north-western New South Wales, and his early life there preceded the university training in Canberra that led him into fluid dynamics research.
Griffiths received a Bachelor of Science with honours from the Australian National University in Canberra in 1975. His doctoral studies in geophysical fluid dynamics at the same university ran from 1976 to 1979, and he received the Doctor of Philosophy degree in 1979.
The Australian National University was established by an act of the Australian Parliament in 1946 as a research-intensive institution, and its postgraduate research schools shaped its character from the outset. Geophysical fluid dynamics developed as a specialist field there when Stewart Turner, who had worked at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, returned to Australia in 1975 as Foundation Professor of Geophysical Fluid Dynamics and established a new group within the Research School of Earth Sciences. Griffiths's doctoral training took place within this emerging research tradition, which combined laboratory experiments with theoretical analysis of flows in the oceans, atmosphere and Earth's interior.
After completing his doctorate, Griffiths worked abroad. From 1979 to 1981 he was a research associate at the University of Cambridge in England, one of the oldest universities in the English-speaking world, with a long tradition in applied mathematics and the physical sciences. In 1980 he held a postdoctoral fellowship in the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Summer Program at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, a summer program that drew researchers from many countries to study rotating and stratified fluid flows.
In 1982 he was a research associate at the Institute of Mechanics of the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) and the University of Grenoble. CNRS is France's national research organisation, and Grenoble had a strong reputation in mechanics and fluid research during this period.
Griffiths returned to Australia in 1983 as a research fellow at the Research School of Earth Sciences, Australian National University, serving as a fellow from 1986 to 1992 and as a senior fellow from 1992. In 1995 he assumed leadership of the geophysical fluid dynamics group. He oversaw the construction of a new laboratory in the Jaeger 7 building, which became the group's modern facility in 2001. He retired at the end of 2014 and was succeeded by Andy Hogg, and the ANU later conferred emeritus status on him.
His editorial service included the role of associate editor of the Journal of Fluid Mechanics, published by Cambridge University Press, from 2007 to 2017. ANU describes this journal as the most respected research journal in its field. In 2016 and 2017 he held a visiting professorship at the Institut National Polytechnique de Grenoble, now part of the University of Grenoble Alpes.
Applied experimental fluid dynamics to oceanic and volcanic processes, combining laboratory experiments with theoretical analysis of flows in the oceans and in the Earth's interior. His review The Dynamics of Lava Flows, published in the Annual Review of Fluid Mechanics in 2000, is among his most cited works.
Co-authored with G. O. Hughes the 2008 review Horizontal Convection in the Annual Review of Fluid Mechanics, a survey of buoyancy-driven flows that help explain the deep ocean overturning circulation, which transports heat from low to high latitudes.
The dynamics of lava flows
(Review article in the Annual Review of Fluid Mechanics th...)
2000Gravity currents in rotating systems
(Review article in the Annual Review of Fluid Mechanics on...)
1986Morphology, eruption rates, and rheology of lava domes: Insights from laboratory models
(Published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid E...)
1998Interaction of mantle plume heads with the Earth's surface and onset of small-scale convection
(Published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid E...)
1991Horizontal convection
(Review article in the Annual Review of Fluid Mechanics, c...)
2008Effects of surface cooling on the advance of lava flows and domes
(Published in the Journal of Fluid Mechanics, co-authored ...)
1993
Griffiths was a member of the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society, an independent learned society founded in 1987 as the successor to the Australian branch of the Royal Meteorological Society. The society supports the study of meteorology, oceanography and related sciences through publications, meetings, grants and prizes, and it represents its members' views to government and the public. He was also a fellow of the Royal Meteorological Society, a British learned society founded in 1850 that promotes the study of the atmosphere and weather.
His other memberships included the Australian Academy of Science, the national academy that elects distinguished Australian scientists as fellows, and the American Physical Society, a large professional body for physicists. He was also a member of the American Geophysical Union, an international scientific association for the Earth and space sciences. The Australasian Fluid Mechanics Society, founded to serve researchers in fluid mechanics in the region, named him one of its first fellows in 2011.
Fellow
Australian Institute of Physics , Australia
1991
Fellow
Royal Meteorological Society , United Kingdom
Member; elected Fellow in 2001
American Geophysical Union , United States
Member
Australian Marine Sciences Association , Australia
Member
Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society , Australia
Fellow
Australian Academy of Science , Australia
2001 - present
Elected Fellow
American Physical Society , United States
2014 - present
Inaugural Fellow
Australasian Fluid Mechanics Society , Australia
2011 - present
Griffiths married Candida Jane Philip Griffiths on April 19, 1957. The couple had two daughters, Llewela Tegan and Cordelia Tanwen. His parents, Edward Dempster Griffiths and Eva Mary (Boman) Griffiths, are also documented in his family background.
