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Professor Michael Andrew "Mike" Dopita was an Australian astronomer and Professor at the Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Australian National University, where he worked between 1975 and 2018. Mike was the 1983 winner of the Pawsey Medal. He was elected as a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science, and served as Treasurer of the Academy for some years. Professor Dopita served as President, Division VI, International Astronomical Union, from 1994 to 1997. He was a council member of the Astronomical Society of Australia between 1993 and 1996 and was subsequntly a Fellow of that society. Mike was an Inaugural Federation Fellow of the Australian Research Council, and Editor-in-Chief of the journal Astrophysics and Space Science. In 2003, with Dr. Ralph Sutherland, he wrote Astrophysics of the Diffuse Universe, a textbook offering a comprehensive introduction to the physics of Interstellar Matter

Mike’s interests were extensive, and included Interstellar Physics, Active Galactic Nuclei, Galaxy Formation, and Star Formation.