Mick retired from a 25-year career with the United Nations - and 30 years living in East Africa - to come to Ottawa. Originally hailing from southeastern Australia, Mick obviously has rocks in his head, being the only Australian ever to have voluntarily retired to Ontario, least of all from equatorial Africa. Mick has a genetic predisposition for space-nerdiness. He grew up under the unparalleled skies of the southern hemisphere and, according to his mother, was an 8 year-old lecturing friends and neighbours about things astronomical on balmy summer nights. He also woke up his mother at 4 in the morning to see Halley's comet in 1986, and dragged his parents to places like Parkes and Siding Springs, Greenwich and Jodrell Bank. He has lived and breathed space stuff ever since, having studied cosmology and astrophysics during his degree course and maintains keen interest in current developments and debates. Mick prefers cats to dogs but has cared for plenty of both.