Nicholas Paul Harberd (born 15 July 1956) is Sibthorpian Professor of

Plant Science Botany, also called , plant biology or phytology, is the science of plant life and a branch of biology. A botanist, plant scientist or phytologist is a scientist who specialises in this field. The term "botany" comes from the Ancient Greek wo ...

and former head of the Department of Plant Sciences (since 2022 part of the Department of Biology) at the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

, and Fellow of St John's College, Oxford.

Education

Harberd earned a

Bachelor of Arts Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four year ...

degree with Honours, a

Master of Arts A Master of Arts ( la, Magister Artium or ''Artium Magister''; abbreviated MA, M.A., AM, or A.M.) is the holder of a master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The degree is usually contrasted with that of Master of Science. Th ...

, and PhD in 1981, from the

University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a public collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209 and granted a royal charter by Henry III in 1231, Cambridge is the world's third oldest surviving university and one of its most pr ...

where he was a student of Christ's College, Cambridge.

Career and research

He was a scientist at the

Plant Breeding Institute The Plant Breeding Institute was an agricultural research organisation in Cambridge in the United Kingdom between 1912 and 1987. Founding The institute was established in 1912 as part of the School of Agriculture at the University of Cambridge. ...

Trumpington Trumpington is a village and parish to the south of Cambridge, England. The village is an electoral ward of the City of Cambridge and a ward of South Cambridgeshire District Council. The 2011 Census recorded the ward's population as 8,034. T ...

, Cambridge from 1982 to 1986, and the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

, from 1986 to 1988. He is head of the Harberd group, which was located at

John Innes Centre The John Innes Centre (JIC), located in Norwich, Norfolk, England, is an independent centre for research and training in plant and microbial science founded in 1910. It is a registered charity (No 223852) grant-aided by the Biotechnology and ...

, and has been at the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

since his appointment as

Sibthorpian Professor of Plant Sciences John Sibthorp (28 October 1758 – 8 February 1796) was an English botanist. Education Sibthorp graduated from the University of Oxford in 1777 where he was an undergraduate student at Lincoln College, Oxford. He subsequently studied med ...

in 2007. With

George Coupland George Michael Coupland FRS (born 20 December 1959, in Dumfries) is a Scottish plant scientist, and Research Scientist and Director of the Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research. Education Coupland earned a First Class Honours from U ...

, Liam Dolan, Alison Smith, Jonathan Jones, Cathie Martin, Robert Sablowski and Abigail Amey he is a co-author of the textbook ''Plant Biology''.

Awards and honours

Harberd was elected a

Fellow of the Royal Society Fellowship of the Royal Society (FRS, ForMemRS and HonFRS) is an award granted by the judges of the Royal Society of London to individuals who have made a "substantial contribution to the improvement of natural knowledge, including mathemat ...

(FRS) in 2009. His nomination reads:

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Harberd, Nicholas 1956 births Living people Alumni of Christ's College, Cambridge Fellows of St John's College, Oxford Academics of the University of East Anglia Fellows of the Royal Society British botanists Statutory Professors of the University of Oxford University of California, Berkeley staff