Our People

Professor Joe Cartwright

Professor Joe Cartwright

  • Senior Research Fellow
  • Professor of Earth Sciences

Joe Cartwright was appointed as the Professor of Earth Sciences in October 2012. He leads the newly established Shell Geoscience Laboratory at the Department of Earth Sciences, which forms part of a major initiative in energy resources in the Department and more widely in the University.

Joe was formerly Director of the 3DLab and Research Professor in Geophysics at Cardiff University, where his main role was to build research partnerships with the petroleum industry and undertake fundamental research into the movement and entrapment of petroleum in the Earth’s crust. Previously, he was a senior lecturer at Imperial College London.

In his quest for a better understanding of how oil and gas form and accumulate, he has led field campaigns in SE Asia, Southern Africa and North America, building on formative experience gained immediately after graduating from Jesus College when he worked for a time with Shell as an exploration seismologist. His DPhil was at Wolfson, on continental rifting.

Joe’s research interests encompass the study of a diverse range of processes that influence petroleum habitats, and include: the propagation of faults, interactions between faulting and sedimentation, diagenesis, fluid flow and soft sediment deformation. As a proud Welshman, his external interests unsurprisingly centre on choral singing, but he also paints, walks the hills of his homeland and plays village cricket.