Leading academic in key research management role

MEDIA RELEASE

17 July 2006

Leading academic takes key research management role

Leading New Zealand biologist and tuatara expert, Professor Charles Daugherty, has been appointed as Assistant Vice-Chancellor (Research) at Victoria University of Wellington.

In this new role, Professor Daugherty will have responsibility for the team of Portfolio Managers in the Office of Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research), Professor Neil Quigley, and will lead initiatives to improve the University’s external research income.

Professor Quigley welcomed Professor Daugherty to his new role.

“Victoria University has set itself a strategic objective of achieving $40 million in external research income by 2010 and by last year we reached the $22 million mark. I’m confident that with Professor Daugherty’s standing as a leading researcher and his knowledge of the University and of New Zealand research funding system, that he is the perfect choice to ensure we meet that target in double quick time.”

Professor Quigley said the appointment was part of an ongoing process to further enhance Victoria’s research profile. This included the restructuring of the University’s subsidiary company, Victoria Link Limited, to focus on commercialisation and the management of intellectual property and the establishment of the Office of Research & Postgraduate Studies.

Professor Daugherty, who was last year made an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit and holds a PhD in zoology from the University of Montana, is a well respected member of New Zealand’s scientific community. A Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand, Professor Daugherty convenes the Ecology, Evolution and Behaviour Panel of the Royal Society’s Marsden Fund Council.

Professor Daugherty’s research interests are in the evolutionary and population biology of vertebrates, conservation genetics, and ecological restoration. He is particularly well known for his work on New Zealand’s native and endangered reptile, the tuatara.

Until recently, Professor Daugherty was Head of the School of Biological Sciences at Victoria and Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Science. During his tenure as Head of School, the School has picked up several major research grants, established three applied research centres and an innovative suite of qualifications in biomedical science while overseeing a significant rise in enrolments.

ENDS

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