P. A. Allen

Philip Allen was born in Bath, Somerset, England in 1953, and graduated in geology from the University of Wales, Aberystwyth in 1974. After two years in the oil industry he studied for a doctorate at Cambridge University supervised by Dr Peter Friend, then moved to a postdoctoral position in the University of Bern, Switzerland where he worked with Professor Albert Matter. He held lectureships in Cardiff University and Oxford University before taking the Chair of Geology and Mineralogy at Trinity College Dublin, followed by professorships at ETH Zürich and Imperial College London. He is the author of three editions of Basin Analysis: Principles and Applications (1990, 2005 and 2013) with his twin brother John, Earth Surface Processes published in 1997, and Earth Dramas: Ancient Mysteries and Modern Controversies published in 2014. He has published over 100 scientific papers in the fields of sedimentology, stratigraphy, basin analysis and Earth surface processes.Philip Allen served as Senior Proctor of Oxford University in 2004. He was given a Royal Society-Wolfson research merit award for 2006-2011 held at Imperial College, and the Lyell Medal of the Geological Society of London in 2007. He served as Science secretary of the Geological Society 2009-2012.