Roberta Lee Farrell CNZM FRSNZ is Emeritus Professor at the University of Waikato, New Zealand and a researcher of international renown in the fields of wood degradation, bioremediation, mycology and enzymology. Farrell started her career as a biotechnologist in the USA, as Associate Director of Research - Industrial Enzymes with Repligen Corporation in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She then became Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of Sandoz Chemicals Biotech Research Corporation and Repligen Sandoz Research Corporation. In 1995 she took a sabbatical PAPRO, Forest Research Institute in Rotorua, New Zealand and shortly after she emigrated and became a professor at Waikato University. Since 2013, Farrell has been an Emeritus Professor at the University of Waikato in Hamilton, New Zealand. She also was an Adjunct Professor at North Carolina State University from 2008 until 2013. Farrell is recognized as an expert in cold-tolerant fungi and in the microbes and enzymes that affect wood; her work has had substantial impact in the biochemistry and biotechnology fields, specifically in the areas of enzymes, fungal ecology, bio-control, and cellulose.  

 Fields of wood degradation, bioremediation, mycology and enzymology.