John Norris is one of Australia’s most influential astronomers on the world scene. His research has forced major revisions of several basic concepts. He changed our concept of how the Galaxy formed. His discovery of the most metal-deficient stars has greatly illuminated the complexity of chemical evolution in the early Universe. His work on globular cluster chemistry opened up major new areas of research and initiated some very significant changes in the current theory of stellar evolution. His studies of the lithium abundance in the oldest stars put a strong upper limit on the baryon content of the universe.