Hiroo Kanamori

Hiroo Kanamori (Japanese金森 博 雄, Hiroo Kanamori, born October 17, 1936 in the prefecture of Tokyo) is a Japanese geophysicist specializing in seismology.

Biography

Hiroo Kanamori studied at Tokyo University, where in 1964 he received his doctorate. Until 1970 he worked as an associate professor at Tokyo University, where he studied briefly also at the California Institute of Technology ( 1965-66 ) and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1969). From 1970 to 1972 he was professor at the Earthquake Research Institute, University of Tokyo. He then moved to the California Institute of Technology, where he is a professor until today.

Work

His most cited scientific publication, in Hiroo Kanamori 1977 on the seismic moment, based on the moment magnitude scale, which he developed together with Tom Hanks as a new unit of measure and proposed to replace the Richter scale.

Awards

In 2007 he received the Kyoto Prize.