Gerhard Hensler is professor at the department of astrophysics (observatory) of university of Vienna, Austria. He has served as department head and dean at his current institution and, before that, when he was based in Germany, as president of the German Astronomical Society; he is the host of the next XXXth General Assembly of the International Astronomical Union in Vienna in August 2018. His main research interests are chemical and chemodynamical evolution of the interstellar medium and galaxies and computational astrophysics. He is currently visiting professor at NAOJ in Tokyo.