Bryan Gaensler is Director of the Dunlap Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of Toronto, and holds a Canada Research Chair in Radio Astronomy. He received his PhD from the University of Sydney in 1999, and subsequently held positions at MIT, the Smithsonian Institution, Harvard University and the University of Sydney, before taking up his current role in 2015. Gaensler has authored more than 400 scientific papers on cosmic magnetism, neutron stars, supernovae and the interstellar medium, while his popular astronomy book "Extreme Cosmos" was published worldwide by Penguin in 2012 and has been translated into five languages. Gaensler has held Hubble, Clay, Sloan, Federation and Laureate Fellowships, was the 1999 Young Australian of the Year, was awarded the 2011 Pawsey Medal for outstanding research in physics, and in 2013 was elected as a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science.