Peter L. Olson is an adjunct professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at the University of New Mexico. He earned a BA from the University of Colorado and a PhD from the University of California Berkeley. His research focuses on the dynamics of Earth and other planets. He co-authored a book on convection in planetary mantles and served on editorial boards of numerous scientific journals. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the US National Academy of Sciences, and received the Petrus Peregrinus Medal from the European Geosciences Union and the Inge Lehmann Medal from the American Geophysical Union.