Professor Roger Field of Christchurch has been appointed vice-chancellor of Lincoln University and will take up the position on April 1.
Prof Field has been the university's acting vice-chancellor since the retirement of Frank Wood on health grounds last October.
Born in Britain, Prof Field completed a joint honours degree in botany
and zoology at the University of Hull, followed by a PhD at Hull, studying the physiological mechanisms of herbicide and plant growth regulator translocation in plants.
He was promoted to senior lecturer at Lincoln in 1976, associate professor in 1984 and full professor in 1986.
His teaching included applied plant and crop physiology, physiological aspects of genetics and plant breeding, weed science and agronomy.
Prof Field moved into top university management at Lincoln in the mid-1990s, first as pro vice-chancellor and since 1998 as deputy vice-chancellor.
He was a founder member of the New Zealand Society of Plant Physiologists and is a past president.
He becomes Lincoln University's third vice-chancellor and 10th head since the institution was founded in 1878 as a school of agriculture.
- NZPA
