Richard de Grijs obtained his PhD in Astrophysics from the University of Groningen (Netherlands) in 1997. He next held postdoctoral research positions at the Universities of Virginia (USA) and Cambridge (UK), before being appointed to a tenured post at the University of Sheffield (UK) in 2003. He joined the Kavli Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics at Peking University (China) in 2009 as a full professor. In March 2018 he took up an appointment as Associate Dean (International) at Macquarie University (Sydney, Australia). Richard served as scientific editor of The Astrophysical Journal (2006-2012), followed by an appointment of Deputy Editor of The Astrophysical Journal Letters (2012-2018). He received the 2012 Selby Award for excellence in science from the Australian Academy of Science, a 2013 Visiting Academy Professorship at Leiden University from the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, a 2017 Erskine Award from the University of Canterbury (New Zealand), and a 2017 Jan Michalski Award from the Swiss Jan Michalski Foundation. From 2017 to 2019, Richard served on the ORCID Board of Directors as researcher member.