Professor Martin Rees is president of the Royal Society and a member of the House of Lords. He is Master of Trinity College at the University of Cambridge and holds the honorary title of Astronomer Royal. He has won many international awards for his researches, and is an honorary member of the Royal Academy of Engineering, the US National Academy of Sciences, the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Indian Academy of Sciences and TWAS. He is currently on the Board of Trustees of the Science Museum, the Gates Cambridge Trust and the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study and has served on many bodies connected with education, space research, arms control and international collaboration in science.

He has written over 500 research papers, eight books for a general readership and many general articles. He broadcasts and lectures widely and has held visiting professorships at many universities around the world.