Robert ”Bob” Zeigler is an internationally respected plant pathologist with more than 30 years of experience in agricultural research in the developing world. He became director general of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in 2005.

IRRI headquarters, with more than 1,000 scientists and support staff, is in the Philippines, with offices in 13 other countries and activities in more than 25 others. IRRI focuses on sustaining, understanding, and using the genetic diversity of rice to improve rice productivity and the livelihood of rice farmers and consumers. There is also a major research emphasis on improving sustainable production practices and understanding the social and political context in which improved rice production systems operate.

As director general, Dr. Zeigler is the chief executive officer of IRRI, who directly manages and administers its affairs in accordance with the policies and decisions of the board of trustees. He also serves as a spokesperson on a wide range of issues that affect rice growers and consumers worldwide. He is the founding chairman of the board of the IRRI Fund Singapore, an incorporated nonprofit charitable organization established to raise the profile of rice research and generate funding for it.

He had previously worked at IRRI from 1992 to 1998 as a plant pathologist. During this period, he led the Rainfed Lowland Rice Research Program and then later the Irrigated Rice Research Program.

After completing undergraduate work in 1972, he joined the Peace Corps and spent 2 years as a science teacher in the Democratic Republic of Congo in Africa. He later joined the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) in Colombia as a visiting research associate to work on cassava diseases. Starting in 1982, he spent 3 years in Burundi to work as a technical adviser for that African nation's maize program at the Institut des Sciences Agronomiques du Burundi. He then returned to CIAT, eventually becoming head of the Rice Program. He became professor and head of the Department of Plant Pathology and director of the Plant Biotechnology Center at Kansas State University in the United States in 1999. Before returning to IRRI, he was the founding director of the Generation Challenge Program (GCP) of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) based in Mexico. There, he led the creation and implementation of the GCP, which involved taking a conceptual framework for understanding and applying genetic diversity to crop improvement and translating it into a functioning and vibrant program with management and governance structures and, most importantly, a comprehensive research program.

He earned degrees at Cornell University, Oregon State University, and the University of Illinois (High Honors). In 2007, he was also conferred a Doctor of Science (Honoris Causa) from Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel University of Agriculture and Technology, Modipuram, Uttar Pradesh, India. He is a member of the honor societies Sigma Xi (research) and Gamma Sigma Delta (agriculture) and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and American Phytopathological Society. Other recognitions include a medal “for the cause of agricultural development in Vietnam” (2007), the Global Innovator Award from Time (2007), the 2008 Outstanding Alumnus of Oregon State University’s College of Agriculture, and the E.C. Stakman Award from the University of Minnesota (2009).

He is the chairman of the board of directors of the Association of International Agricultural Research Centers (AIARC) until 2010. The AIARC, incorporated in the Commonwealth of Virginia, manages salary payments, retirement benefits (plan portfolios and investment programs); health and prescription drug benefits; life, accident, death, and disability insurance; and evacuation insurance for the more than 1,200 internationally recruited staff of the CGIAR centers.

He served as an expert resource person (quoted or broadcast) for major television networks (BBC, CNN, Bloomberg, NHK Japan, El Jazeera, Deutsch TV, Spanish National TV, Finnish National TV, Danish National TV), on various international radio programs, and in major international print media (The Economist, New York Times, Financial Times, Newsweek, Time, National Geographic).

He has authored and co-authored well over 100 refereed international journal articles, reports, and scientific papers and has delivered numerous invited lectures worldwide. He is married and has three grown children.