Mike Meadows is a Physical Geographer who has been at the University of Cape Town since 1983. Originally hailing from Liverpool, UK, Mike obtained his BSc Honors at the University of Sussex and his PhD the Department of Geography at the University of Cambridge. Promoted to Professor in 2003, he was been Head of Department from 2001 to 2017. He fulfils a wide variety of administrative roles within the Department, Faculty and in the University as a whole, and is the on-site Director for a semester study abroad programme run in collaboration with three US Colleges (Macalester, Pomona, Swarthmore). He is also Distinguished Professor in the School of Geographical Sciences at East China Normal University. Mike's external portfolio of responsibilities include being the Secretary-General and Treasurer of the International Geographical Union (from 2010-2018), but he is also Past President of the Society of South African Geographers (of which he is a Fellow) and of the Southern African Quaternary Association (SASQUA). He is an elected Fellow of the Royal Society of South Africa, the Royal Geographical Society, the University of Cape Town and the African Academy of Sciences, and is on the editorial board of several high profile international journals.