Mark McCaughrean is Senior Scientific Advisor at the European Space Agency. He is responsible for communicating the scientific results from ESA's astronomy, heliophysics, planetary, and fundamental physics missions. His personal research involves observational studies of the formation of stars and their planetary systems using state-of-the-art ground- and space-based telescopes. He is an Interdisciplinary Scientist on the Science Working Group for the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope. He holds a PhD from the University of Edinburgh.