Malcolm S. Longair is Emeritus Jacksonian Professor of Natural Philosophy and Director of Development at the Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge. He has held many senior positions in physics and astronomy, and has served on and chaired many national and international committees, boards and panels, working with both NASA and the European Space Agency. He has received much recognition for his work, including a CBE in the millennium honours list for his services to astronomy and cosmology. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of London, the Royal Society of Edinburgh, the Academia Lincei and the Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Arte e Literatura.