Nicholas Paul HarberdFRS (born 15 July 1956)^[3] isSibthorpian Professor ofPlant Science and former head of theDepartment of Plant Sciences (since 2022 part of theDepartment of Biology) at theUniversity of Oxford, and Fellow ofSt John's College, Oxford.^[4][5][1][6]

Harberd earned aBachelor of Arts degree with Honours, aMaster of Arts, andPhD in 1981, from theUniversity of Cambridge where he was a student ofChrist's College, Cambridge.

He was a scientist at thePlant Breeding Institute,Trumpington, Cambridge from 1982 to 1986, and theUniversity of California, Berkeley, from 1986 to 1988.

He is head of the Harberd group, which was located atJohn Innes Centre, and has been at theUniversity of Oxford^[7] since his appointment asSibthorpian Professor of Plant Sciences in 2007.^{[2][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15]}

WithGeorge Coupland,Liam Dolan,Alison Smith,Jonathan Jones,Cathie Martin, Robert Sablowski and Abigail Amey he is a co-author of the textbookPlant Biology.^[16]

Harberd was elected aFellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2009.^[8] His nomination reads:

Nick Harberd has made pioneering contributions to the solution of a fundamental problem in biology – the molecular mechanisms via which plant hormones control growth. He showed that the hormonegibberellin promotes growth by counteracting a family of nuclear growth-repressing proteins, and that this provides a key mechanism for adaptive regulation of growth in response to environmental change. He also showed how this mechanism underlies the action of genes responsible for the increase in yield of wheat varieties during the 'green revolution'. His discoveries have thus provided many important and original contributions to developmental, evolutionary and agricultural science.^[17]

• 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

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• EngvarB from August 2017
• Use dmy dates from August 2017
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