Michael Ondaatje is Pro Vice-Chancellor Arts and Academic Culture, and Professor of American History, at Australian Catholic University. Ondaatje is a prize-winning researcher and teacher and a regular commentator on US politics in the Australian and international media. He has been a Senior Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Oxford, and was recently selected by the US Embassy in Australia for the International Visitor Leadership Program, the premier professional exchange program of the US government. In 2012, the Australian Academy of the Humanities awarded Ondaatje the Max Crawford Medal, ‘Australia’s most prestigious award for achievement and promise in the humanities’.