Professor Milton Wainwright was born in 1950 into a coal mining family in the village of Fitzwilliam near Wakefield in Yorkshire, England. He obtained his first degree and his PhD in mycology from the University of Nottingham. He was then awarded a Postdoctoral Fellowship from the National Research Council, Canada and spent a short period working at the Central Soil Research Institute in Ottawa. In 1975, he was appointed lecturer in Sheffield University’s Department of Microbiology and he has worked at the university ever since. His is now a member of the Department of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology.

Professor Wainwright has researched and published widely on environmental microbiology and the history and philosophy of science. He is an Honorary Professor at the University of Cardiff, UK and holds three other honorary chairs from universities around the world. He is also a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society (FRAS). His current research is largely devoted to astrobiology, particularly the theory of panspermia.

His website is: miltonwainwright.com