Nick Timms is an Associate Professor in the School of Earth and Planetary Sciences, and Director of the Space Science and Technology. He is a geoscientist by training and has published extensively on a wide range of topics in Earth and planetary sciences. Nick is equally excited to be out in the field as he is analysing rocks and minerals in the lab, and he teaches structural and field geology at Curtin. Nick is fascinated by the extremes, such as ancient impact craters, rocks that deformed deep in the Earth, and decoding geological histories from the microstructure of minerals. Nick’s current focus is on lunar and solar system evolution from meteorites and samples returned from the Moon and asteroids by space missions. As a Sample Analysis Team member of NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission, Nick’s recent research on samples from asteroid Bennu reveals how planetary bodies form, evolve, and sometimes collide catastrophically.