James Hammond is a Professor of Geophysics at Birkbeck, University of London. His research uses seismology to image inside the Earth. This ranges from imaging the crust and deeper mantle to understand the driving forces behind plate tectonics to studying the soil properties in the critical zone. A recent focus is on imaging and understanding how rocks melt and how this melt migrates and is stored in the Earth's crust and mantle. He conducts large field projects, working in the UK, East-Africa, Chile, China and the Korean Peninsula.

James has recently led projects to study Mount Paektu, a volcano that straddles the China-Democratic People's Republic of Korea border. This project, an example of how science and diplomacy can work together, led to the development of the Mount Paektu Research Centre of which James is Director. The Center focusses on developing new scientific collaboration with DPRK scientists on Paektu and other areas of environmental science.

James teaches geophysics and scientific computing and data modelling at undergraduate level. He is a Secretary (G) of the Royal Astronomical Society, UK Chair for the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics (IUGG) and Treasurer for the British Geophysical Association.