Portrait of Steve Sparks

Seated portrait of Steve Sparks, taken in the limestone gorge of Burrington Combe.

Sir Steve Sparks, geologist and volcanologist, was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1988 and served on its Council from 1993 – 1994. His research interests are in volcanology and the applications of fluid mechanics in modelling geological flows and applying statistical methods to the assessment of natural hazards and their attendant risks. In addition to being a Fellow of the Royal Society, he is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Natural History Museum, and former Chair of the Advisory Committee for Mathematics Education (ACME).

In 2000, Sparks was awarded the Royal Society's Bakerian Medal and Lecture and in 2018 he received the Society's Royal Medal 'for his contributions to our understanding of volcanoes, including evaluating their risks and mitigating their hazards'. He was also recipient of the 2015 Vetlesen Prize, regarded as equivalent to the Nobel Prize for the earth sciences.