Four Lincoln University academics have been promoted to the position of Professor in 2024.

The appointments reflect the Professors’ demonstrable achievements in these key areas:

• Research and scholarship
• Teaching and facilitation of learning
• Service, leadership and engagement

The promotions take effect from 1 May.

They include….

• Jim Moir

Department of Soil and Physical Sciences

Jim’s research focuses on soil fertility, investigating nutrient cycling in grazed grasslands, including plant nutrition. His research expertise is in nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) cycling and soil pH (acidity) issues in soil/plant/animal systems. He aims to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of New Zealand’s grassland farming systems, towards the future sustainability of grazed grasslands.

He is currently collaborating with colleagues at Qinghai University in China on a key project which examines nutrient flows and sustainability issues in high-altitude Chinese and New Zealand grasslands. In China, the team works on the largest grassland plateau in the world, the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau, which is under high grazing pressure from farmers and therefore threatened by severe degradation. This plateau shares many common issues with New Zealand high country grasslands, and the project aims to increase knowledge of these systems to improve the quality and long-term sustainability of grazed grasslands.

Jim considers the future-proofing of the grazed grassland sector of New Zealand to be critically important to the economy, environment and to the country’s core business, and he has led many initiatives to develop Lincoln University’s teaching and research profile in this sector.

The other new professors are –

• James Ross

Department of Pest Management and Conservation

James Ross is currently an Associate Professor of Wildlife Management at Lincoln University. He is the Co-Director of the Centre of Wildlife Management and Conservation and the coordinator for the Masters of Pest Management – Vertebrate Stream. Outside of the University, he was previously a ‘Research Champion’ in the Biological Heritage National Science Challenge and is currently an advisor to the Department of Conservation’s Predator Free 2050 Innovation Group. He also sits on the Technical Advisory Groups for Taranaki Mounga and Zero Invasive Predators.

His work (in collaboration with others) has developed and registered several new toxins and humane kill traps in New Zealand. These vertebrate toxin registrations were the first globally in over 30 years and have since been adopted in Aotearoa and by many international agencies. He is recognised in his field for developing and testing new pest control and monitoring tools and is a science advisor for many ongoing pest control programmes.

• Wanglin Ma

Department of Global Value Chains and Trade

Wanglin Ma is an Associate Professor of Applied Economics, specialising in agricultural and development economics. His research applies advanced econometric models to explore practical issues, concentrating on boosting the economic performance of farms, enhancing farmers’ subjective wellbeing and household welfare, and fostering sustainable development in rural and agricultural sectors. Wanglin has published over 130 articles in peer-reviewed international journals, authored two book chapters and written three media articles, earning over 5,000 citations and achieving an H-index of 41 on Google Scholar. His outstanding work places him in the top 1.2% of economists (last 10 years’ publications) globally on the RePEc platform and among the top 200 agricultural economists worldwide. He is also ranked as one of the top three economists (Authors 10) in New Zealand. Wanglin’s research has been recognised for its policy impact, evidenced by citations in 65 policy documents globally. He has been honoured with multiple research-based awards.

• Emma J Stewart

Department of Tourism, Sport and Society

Emma’s research focuses on the human dimensions of environmental change and implications for the tourism sector, neighbouring communities, underlying resources and governance structures in climate-sensitive nature-based settings, including polar, coastal and high mountain environments. She is a leading international geographer in the field of nature-based tourism, in particular polar tourism, where she is globally recognised as the most prolific researcher of all time in the field.

As a human geographer seeking to understand the implications of bio-physical change for society, Emma collaborates with natural scientists, including sea-ice modellers, glaciologists, climate scientists and biologists. She is a core member of a UN World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Polar Prediction Project which initiates, develops and promotes cooperative international social science research to improve environmental services for the Polar Regions. Her research is cited as evidence in various Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports and she has advised the New Zealand government on managing Antarctic tourism.

Emma is currently Associate Dean (Research) of Lincoln University’s Faculty of Environment, Society and Design.

Source: Lincoln University