It is a great honor for the American Political Science Association to have Robert Axelrod as our current president. Axelrod combines a devotion to rigorous science as well as a deep concern with policy issues, particularly those of international peace and the threat of nuclear war. His fascination and distress about threats to peace is a major source of the fantastic energy he has brought to his work. Simultaneously, his insistence on rigorous exploration on the processes that enhance cooperation in complex settings has ensured that his theoretical breakthroughs have been widely recognized across the social sciences as well as in biology and computer sciences.I wish to thank Michael Cohen, Robert Keohane, Rick Riolo, Robert Putnam, Carl Simon, and Leigh Tesfatsion for their input and comments on this biographical essay and Nicole Todd and Patty Lezotte for their help in preparing this essay.