Mike Walsh received his B.Sc. with first-class honours in Biochemistry at University College Dublin, Ireland in 1974, and his Ph.D. in Protein Biochemistry in 1978, working on the structure-function relations of calmodulin, under the direction of Frits Stevens at the University of Manitoba. He carried out postdoctoral research first with Jacques Demaille at the Centre National de le Recherche Scientifique in Montpellier, France and then with David Hartshorne at the University of Arizona, working on myosin light chain kinase of cardiac and smooth muscle, respectively. He began his independent career in 1982 when appointed to the faculty at the University of Calgary and is now a Full Professor there in the Smooth Muscle Research Group and Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, Faculty of Medicine. Mike’s research is concerned with the molecular mechanisms involved in regulation of contraction and relaxation of smooth muscle, with emphasis on the vasculature and urethra. He is recipient of a Canada Research Chair (Tier 1) in Vascular Smooth Muscle Research and an Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research Scientist Award. Mike has received several awards during his career, including the Ayerst Award of the Canadian Biochemical Society (1990), the Steacie Prize of the National Research Council of Canada (1990) and an E.T.S. Walton Visiting Scientist Award from Science Foundation Ireland (2006). His research program is funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Heart & Stroke Foundation of Alberta, NWT & Nunavut.