Rate My Professor Nigel Perry

Professor Nigel Perry holds a BSc from the University of Bristol and a PhD in Organic Chemistry from the University of Otago. He is a Professor in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Otago, where he has held his position since 2016, and serves as Bioactives Leader at the Bioeconomy Science Institute, formerly Plant & Food Research. His research focuses on natural products chemistry, including the discovery of new compounds from New Zealand native plants, animals, and microorganisms through isolation guided by biological assays and structure identification using NMR spectroscopy and molecular modelling. Additional areas include the study of food bioactives using techniques such as NMR, LC, GC, MS, and Raman microscopy, as well as synthetic organic chemistry to explore structure-activity relationships.

Perry collaborates with Māori communities, including Ngāi Tahu and other iwi, on projects involving taonga species. He has supervised numerous postgraduate students and maintains affiliations across University of Otago departments such as Botany and Marine Science. In 2021, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society Te Apārangi in recognition of his contributions to new knowledge on natural products.