Lee Smolin is a theoretical physicist who has been since 2001 a founding and senior faculty member at Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics. Fellow of the American Physical Society and of the Royal Society of Canada, Smolin was awarded the Klopsteg Memorial Award from the American Association of Physics Teachers and in 2008 was voted 21st on a list of the 100 most influential public intellectuals by Prospect and Foreign Policy Magazines. He was again on that list in 2015. He andMarina Cortes were also awarded the Inaugural Buchalter Cosmology Prize. He is the author of more than 150 scientific papers and numerous essays and writings for the public on science, as well as four books.