
MATTHEW J PANKHURST
Earth Scientist & Inventor
PROFESSIONAL BIO
An international early career across enterprise, industry, academia and government institutes
I started my Earth Science career in Australia. I was awarded undergraduate degrees from Monash University (Melbourne), worked for Rio Tinto Exploration (based in Perth), and conducted my PhD research at Macquarie University (Sydney). During this time I also set up Gaiaxiom Pty. Ltd., a nimble exploration services company.
I moved to the UK to take on a post-doctoral position at the University of Leeds, and subsequently won a AXA Research Fund Fellowship. Afterwards I worked for the Diamond Light Source - Manchester University collaboration in Oxfordshire. I have been working in Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain, since 2017, where I have set up a new isotopic analysis laboratory. I was responsible for petrological research at ITER, and was affilated with the Volcanological Institute of the Canaries (INVOLCAN).
I was awarded an Innofounder grant from the Danish Innovation Fund in early 2024 to learn how to commercialise a concept I invented for obtaining higher data value from physical samples. You can learn more about this concept here. I continue to collaborate with a range of universities and institutes including National Geological Surveys, NASA, and companies including Bruker, Carl Zeiss, Tescan and Xnovo.
