Alamos National Laboratory, New Mexico. After completing his Ph.D., Sims was awarded the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) Postdoctoral Scholar Fellow from 1995-1997. He was then hired onto the WHOI scientific staff in 1997 where he remained as a tenured Research Scientist until 2009. In 2009 Sims moved to the Department of Geology and Geophysics of the University of Wyoming, where he is now a Full Professor. Sims was a Visiting CNRS Fellow at the Institut Universitaire Européen de la Mer (IUEM), France in 2002. In 2016, Sims became a US Fulbright scholar and a Visiting Professor at the Instituto de Geofisico, Escuela Politécnica Nacional, Quito Ecuador. In his current role at the University of Wyoming, Sims is involved in a variety of research projects, graduate and undergraduate teaching, and the supervision of graduate students. Sims is the University of Wyoming Organizational Lead for the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory. Sims has received various academic accolades for his research and public engagement. Additionally, Sims worked as a professional climbing instructor and high-altitude mountaineering guide for 23 years (1975-1998) including in Antarctica, Alaska, Mexico and Peru. During this period, he pioneered many difficult first ascents around the world. Field work Sims’ field work, primarily funded by the National Geographic Society and the National Science Foundation (NSF), has crossed the globe from the bottom of the Earth's oceans to the top of its highest volcanoes. Highlights of Sims’ field research include: Antarctica Sims has been to Antarctica fourteen times since 1989. He has worked both as a guide for science parties funded by the NSF and NASA (including as a guide and rigger for the NASA Dante Rover project), and also as a principal investigator funded by the NSF to conduct research on the volcanoes of Ross Island and Mt Morning. In particular, Sims has worked and published extensively on Mt Erebus, the world's southernmost active volcano, including descending into its active crater numerous times to collect recently erupted lava bombs from its persistent lava lake. Sims’ most recent expeditions (2012–2017) have been to study the volcanoes Mt Bird, Mt Terror and Hut Point on Ross Island and also the volcanic cones on Mt Discovery. Democratic Republic of the Congo Sims’ expeditions to the Democratic Republic of the Congo were funded by the National Geographic Society to film two documentaries and by NSF for research related to volcano hazard assessment. In his research pursuits,