Harry Hammond Hess

Harry Hammond Hess
Harry Hess commanding the USS Cape Johnson.
Born	May 24, 1906 New York City
Died	August 25, 1969 (age 63) Woods Hole, Massachusetts
Nationality	United States
Fields	Geology
Alma mater	Princeton University
Doctoral advisor	Arthur Francis Buddington
Doctoral students	Eugene Merle Shoemaker John Tuzo Wilson Ronald Oxburgh
Influences	F. A. Vening-Meinesz
Notable awards	Penrose Medal (1966)

Harry Hammond Hess (May 24, 1906 – August 25, 1969) was a geologist and a United States Navy officer in World War II.

Considered one of the "founding fathers" of the unifying theory of plate tectonics, Rear Admiral Harry Hammond Hess was born on May 24, 1906 in New York City. He is best known for his theories on sea floor spreading, specifically work on relationships between island arcs, seafloor gravity anomalies, and serpentinized peridotite, suggesting that the convection of the Earth's mantle was the driving force behind this process. This work provided a conceptual base for the development of the theory of plate tectonics.

Harry Hess taught for one year (1932–1933) at Rutgers University in New Jersey and spent a year as a research associate at the Geophysical Laboratory of Washington, D. C., before joining the faculty of Princeton University in 1934. Hess remained at Princeton for the rest of his career and served as Geology Department Chairman from 1950 to 1966. He was a visiting professor at the University of Cape Town, South Africa (1949–1950), and the University of Cambridge, England (1965).