1906-1969

American Geologist

Born in New York in 1906, Harry Hammond Hess was considered a "very promising student" even in his high school years. He had no difficulty gaining acceptance into the electrical engineering major group at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. However, after two years, he elected to change his major to geology and received his B.S. in that field in 1927.

Prior to his graduate studies at Princeton University, Hess spent two years in south central Africa (formerly Rhodesia) working as an exploration geologist. He returned to America and earned his doctorate at Princeton. This led to a year of teaching at Rutgers University and another year as a research associate at the Geophysical Laboratory in Washington, D.C. He then rejoined the faculty at Princeton, where he remained for the balance of his career.

His academic career was interrupted by World...