Mary James is an educator par excellence, and has worked tirelessly and successfully to increase opportunities for women and minorities in the sciences. She has also done amazing experimental physics, like polarized electron beams at SLAC and building a particle accelerator at an undergraduate college. As Dean for Institutional Diversity at Reed College, she has helped guide the process of diversification of that institution. She is a Fellow of the American Physical Society for her work to increase diversity in physics in the US. She is a master of live, rational argumentation, and has a wicked sense of humour.