Nicholas Arndt was awarded a Ph.D. from the University of Toronto in Canada in 1975. Following academic positions in the United States, Canada and Germany and at the Université de Rennes, France, he moved in 1999 to the Université de Grenoble where he is Professor of Petrology-Geochemistry. Professor Arndt's research interests include petrology and geochemistry of mafic and ultramafic rocks, magmatic ore deposits, and the early-Earth environment. He is Director of the European Science Foundation 'Archean Environment: the Habitat of Early Life' program and a founding editor of eEarth, an online journal of the European Geosciences Union.