Lord Martin Rees is a British cosmologist and astrophysicist. He has been the UK’s Astronomer Royal since 1995 and was Master of Trinity College, Cambridge from 2004 to 2012 and President of the Royal Society between 2005 and 2010. He has conducted extensive research on black holes, space astronomy and cosmology and writes and lectures widely to general audiences.

His books include Before the Beginning, Just Six Numbers: The Deep Forces That Shape the Universe, Gravity’s Fatal Attraction: Black Holes in the Universe, Our Final Hour: A Scientist’s Warning: How Terror, Error, and Environmental Disaster Threaten Humankind’s Future In This Century—On Earth and Beyond and From Here to Infinity: Scientific Horizons.