Simon Cotton obtained his BSc and PhD in the Chemistry department of Imperial College London, followed by research and teaching appointments at Queen Mary College, London, and the University of East Anglia. He subsequently taught chemistry in both state and independent schools for over 30 years, then in 2011 he became an honorary senior lecturer in Chemistry at the University of Birmingham, where for five years he taught inorganic and organic chemistry. He has published research on the chemistry of iron, cobalt, scandium, yttrium and the lanthanide elements.

His "Soundbite Molecules" feature ran as a regular column in the magazine Education in Chemistry from 1996 to 2012, reaching every secondary school in the UK. He has written over 100 "Molecules of the Month" articles, which are featured online at http://www.chm.bris.ac.uk/motm/motm.htm and recognised globally. Additionally, he has delivered over forty "Chemistry in Its Element" podcasts for the Royal Society of Chemistry's Chemistry World website at http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/.

In 2005 he shared the Royal Society of Chemistry Schools Education Award and in 2014 was awarded the British Empire Medal for his work in chemistry and education.

He was editor of "Lanthanide and Actinide Compounds" for the Dictionary of Organometallic Compounds and the Dictionary of Inorganic Compounds between 1984 and 1997. He wrote the account of lanthanide coordination chemistry for the second edition of Comprehensive Coordination Chemistry and the accounts of lanthanide inorganic and coordination chemistry for the first and second editions of the Encyclopedia of Inorganic Chemistry.

This is his ninth book; his previous books are

D. J. Cardin, S. A. Cotton, M. Green, and J. A. Labinger, Organometallic Compounds of the Lanthanides, Actinides and Early Transition Metals, 1985.

S. A. Cotton, Building The Late Mediaeval Suffolk Parish Church, 2019.

S. A. Cotton, Chemistry of Precious Metals, 1997.

S. A. Cotton, Every Molecule Tells a Story, CRC Press, Boca Raton, Fl., 2012.

S. A. Cotton, Lanthanide and Actinide Chemistry, 2006.

S. A. Cotton, Lanthanides and Actinides, 1991.

P. May and S. A. Cotton, Molecules That Amaze Us, CRC Press, Boca Raton, Fl., 2015.

S. A. Cotton and F. A. Hart, The Heavy Transition Elements, 1975.