Sir Michael Atiyah is an Honorary Professor at Edinburgh University. He was previously a professor at Oxford and at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. In the 1990's he was Master of Trinity Cambridge, Director of the Isaac Newton Institute and President of the Royal Society. He was knighted in 1983 and made a member of the Order of Merit in 1992.

He was awarded the Fields Medal in1966 and the Abel Prize in 2004. He is a foreign member of around 20 national academies and has over 30 honorary degrees. In 2005 he became President of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.

His main work has been in geometry and topology and their relation to analysis. This involved, in particular, the development of K-theory and index theory and their connections with physics. In recent years he has been a strong advocate of collaboration between mathematicians and physicists.