Michael Rowan-Robinson is Emeritus Professor of Astrophysics and Distinguished Research Fellow at Imperial College London.  He worked on cosmology, infrared astronomy, and on radiative transfer in dusty atmospheres.  He was involved with the IRAS, ISO, Spitzer, Akari, Herschel and Planck space astronomy missions.  He was President of the Royal Astronomical Society in 2006-8 and was the first recipient of the Hoyle Medal of the Institute of Physics, in 2007.  He has written textbooks on ‘Cosmology’ and ‘The Cosmological Distance Ladder, and popular astronomy books including ‘Cosmic Landscape’,  ‘Ripples in the Cosmos’, ‘Our Universe’, ‘Nine Numbers’, and ‘Night Vision, the infrared universe’.  He lives in Southwold, Suffolk, which is also where he grew up, runs the Southwold Arts Centre, and was Mayor of Southwold in 2018-19.