David J. Wales received his BA degree from Cambridge University in 1985 and his PhD in 1988 under the supervision of Prof. A. J. Stone. He was awarded the ScD degree in 2004.  He spent 1989 as a Lindemann Trust Fellow at the University of Chicago, working with Prof. R. S. Berry. He returned to a Research Fellowship at Downing College Cambridge in 1990, was a Lloyd’s of London  Tercentenary Fellow in 1991, and a Royal Society University Research Fellow from 1991 to 1998.  In 1998 he was appointed to a Lectureship in Cambridge and is now Professor of Chemical Physics