Rob van der Hilst received his PhD in Geophysics from Utrecht University VET in 1990. After postdoctoral research at the University of Leeds (1990-1992) and the Australian National University (1992-1995), he joined the faculty of the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences (EAPS) at MIT in 1996. Van der Hilst was the Director of the Earth Resources Laboratory (ERL) from 2004 until 2012 when he was appointed as EAPS Department Head, serving in that role for 13 years. In addition to his work at MIT, Van der Hilst has been a Visiting Professor at the Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris since 1998. Van der Hilst was named a fellow of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) in 1997 and became a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2014. Before he was named the Schlumberger Professor in 2011, Van der Hilst held a Cecil and Ida Green Professorship and a Kerr-McGee Career Development Professorship. His work has garnered significant recognition, including the Doornbos Memorial Prize from the International Association of Seismology and Physics of the Earth’s Interior, AGU’s James B. Macelwane Medal, a Packard Fellowship, and a VICI Innovative Research Award from the Dutch National Science Foundation.