Richard A Dixon (MA, DPhil, DSc, Oxford) is Distinguished Research Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of North Texas, Denton, and Faculty Fellow of the Hagler Institute of Advanced Study and Timothy C. Hall-Heep Distinguished Faculty Chair at Texas A and M University, College Station, Texas.  For over 30 years he has been a world leader in the field of plant specialized metabolism, using multidisciplinary approaches to decipher the biosynthetic and regulatory pathways leading to lignin and bioactive flavonoids, and driving the field of metabolic engineering for development of more nutritious forages and bioenergy crops with enhanced traits for biorefining. His papers have been cited over 66,000 times. He is a Member of the US National Academy of Sciences (Plant and Soil Sciences Section, elected 2007), a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors, and a Fellow of the American Society of Plant Biologists.