| Introduction : | Robert Kennicutt is Laureate Professor at the University of Arizona and University Distinguished Professor at Texas A&M University. Kennicutt earned his PhD degree from the University of Washington, and has also held faculty positions at the University of Minnesota and the University of Cambridge. He has served as Editor-in-Chief of The Astrophysical Journal (1999-2006), and currently is Co-Editor of the Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics. Kennicutt’s research focusses on observational extragalactic astronomy and cosmology, including the structure and evolution of galaxies, star formation in galaxies, and the extragalactic distance scale. Awards for his work include the Gruber Cosmology Prize, the AAS/AIP Dannie Heineman Prize in Astrophysics, and the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and is a Fellow of the Royal Society. Together with Fiona Harrison he Co-Chaired the Astro2020 Decadal Survey of Astronomy and Astrophysics. |