Dr Hamish Campbell is a Wellington-based research scientist employed by GNS Science in Avalon, Lower Hutt. He is a New Zealander educated at Otago, Auckland and Cambridge universities. He has been a professional geologist since 1978 and his main research interests have focused on the older rocks and fossils of New Zealand. However, he is best known as 'the geologist at Te Papa' and has been since the museum opened in 1998, where he is partly responsible for the
'Awesome Forces' exhibition. In 2005 he was involved in setting up the
'Volcanoes' exhibition at Auckland War Memorial Museum. As a museum geologist, he has become accustomed to communicating science to the public.