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Dr. M. Asplund is a leading figure in Galactic Archaeology, using stellar spectroscopy to unravel the formation and evolutionary history of the Milky Way. Their most impactful work centers on the development and scientific exploitation of the High Efficiency and Resolution Multi-Element Spectrograph (HERMES) at the Anglo-Australian Telescope. Asplund’s contributions were instrumental in bringing HERMES from concept to first light, as detailed in their highly cited 2015 paper (93 citations), which presented the instrument’s initial performance and its revolutionary capacity for multi-object, high-resolution spectroscopy. This work directly enabled the GALAH (Galactic Archaeology with HERMES) survey, a landmark project designed to chemically tag millions of stars. By orchestrating the integration of HERMES (2012, 17 citations), Asplund helped create a facility that allows researchers to reconstruct the Milky Way’s merger history and chemical enrichment timeline with unprecedented detail. Their legacy is a powerful instrument that has transformed our understanding of galaxy formation, placing Asplund at the heart of one of modern astronomy’s most ambitious observational endeavors.