Geoffrey is a theoretical physicist whose primary interests have been in fundamental questions in physics, especially those concerning the elementary particles, their interactions and cosmological implications. West served as President for the Santa Fe Institute from 2005 through to 2009. Prior to joining the Santa Fe Institute he was the leader, and founder, of the high energy physics group at Los Alamos National Laboratory.
He is known for his work in describing the universal scaling laws that pervade biology from the molecular genomic scale up through mitochondria and cells to whole organisms and ecosystems.