Robert (Bob) Stephen White (born 12 December 1952) is Emeritus Professor of Geophysics in the Earth Sciences department at Cambridge University and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1994.
A Fellow of the Geological Society, and a member of the American Geophysical Union and several other professional bodies; he serves on numerous of their committees.
He leads a research group investigating the Earth's dynamic crust.
His most cited paper (White & McKenzie 1989) used geophysical evidence in conjunction with models of melt generation beneath rifts to show that the largest and most rapid effusions of volcanic rock on the earth, known as flood basalts, result from continental rifting above mantle plumes.
He has organised fieldwork in many different countries and supervised 50 PhD students at the Department of Earth Sciences in Cambridge, many of whom are now prominent in academia, industry, government and education.