Robert Hilton

Biography

Robert Hilton is Associate Professor (Reader) in the Department of Geography.I completed my PhD at the Department of Earth Sciences, University of Cambridge on 'Erosion of organic carbon from active mountain belts' (May 2009). Prior to this I had completed my BA/MSci in Natural Sciences (Geological Sciences) at the University of Cambridge (June 2004). In 2008 I moved to Paris, where I worked as a Post-doctoral Research Associate at L'Institut de Physique du Globe (IPG) in the Laboratoire de Géochimie et Cosmochimie. Since October 2009, I've been at Durham University, where I was promoted to Reader in October 2015, with a return to IPG in Paris (2012) as Professeur Invité. I serve as Associate Editor at Earth Surface Dynamics (from 2013) and Chemical Geology (from 2015) and am a regular reviewer for a wide range of international journals. In 2014, I was presented with the Outstanding Young Scientist Award of the European Geosciences Union (EGU) in recognition of my ‘innovative contributions to the identification of the role of mountain belts in the global organic carbon cycle’.

Research Interest

I research how erosion and weathering processes at Earth’s surface act to transfer carbon dioxide between the atmosphere and long-term, geological storage in sedimentary deposits. I seek to better understand the feedbacks between these carbon transfers and the climate system, and thus how Earth surface processes may damp (or amplify) climate change through the carbon cycle.