Valerie Shrimplin was awarded her PhD for her research entitled Sun Symbolism and Cosmology in Michelangelo’s Last Judgment on the influence of Copernican heliocentricity on Michelangelo’s frescoes in the Sistine Chapel (published as a monograph in 2000). She holds the title of Honorary Senior Research Associate at Gresham College London, and has lectured and published widely on the influence of astronomy and cosmology on art and architecture, particularly of the Byzantine, medieval and Renaissance periods. She is currently the Chair of the series of Conferences on the Inspiration of Astronomical Phenomena. See www.valerieshrimplin.com