David Vaughan is Research Professor of Mineralogy at the University of Manchester and Founding Director of the Williamson Research Centre for Molecular Environmental Science at that University. He has held a Chair at Manchester since 1988. Professor Vaughan was educated at the Universities of London (BSc, MSc) and Oxford (DPhil, DSc). He has published more than 250 articles and a dozen books on topics in mineralogy and geochemistry. Awards he has received include the Schlumberger Medal of the Mineralogical Society (GB) and the Geochemistry Award of the Royal Society of Chemistry. He is currently the President of the Mineralogical Society of America (MSA) and is the only scientist to have served as President of the MSA, of the Mineralogical Society of Great Britain and Ireland, and of the European Mineralogical Union. In 1989, the mineral vaughanite, from a gold mine in Ontario, was named in his honour by Canadian scientists.