George F. R. Ellis, FRS, is Professor Emeritus of Applied Mathematics at the University of Cape Town. He is a relativist and cosmologist who has worked on exact and perturbed cosmological models in general relativity theory and carefully studied observational limits in cosmology. He wrote The Large Scale Structure of Space Time with Steven Hawking. His more recent research relates to the philosophy of cosmology and the emergence of complexity. He has various honorary degrees, and was awarded the Star of South Africa Medal by President Nelson Mandela in 1999 and the Templeton Prize in 2004.