Stuart Kauffman was educated at Dartmouth College, Oxford and University of California Medical School, receiving his M.D in 1968. At that time he developed Random Boolean Networks as a first model of complex genetic regulatory networks, and proposed that cell types correspond to dynamical attractors in such networks. In 1971 he proposed that molecular reproduction arises due to the spontaneous formation of collectively autocatalytic set. He has published five books: The Origins of Order, At Home in the Universe, Investigations, Reinventing the Sacred, and Humanity in a Creative Universe. His honors include a MacArthur Fellowship, the Gold Medal of the Accademia dei Lincei, and a fellowship of the Royal Society of Canada.