Sir Michael Atiyah is one of the great mathematicians of this century. He received the Fields Medal in 1966 for his work on what is now known as the Atiyah - Singer index theorem. This is a very deep result relating the number of solutions of a partial differential coration to the topology of the underlying problem. Atiyah has a large number of Australian Ph.D. student and has collaborative links with Australian mathematicians. He is currently president of the Royal Society, Master of Trinity College Cambridge and Director of the Isaac Newton Institute.