MANHATTAN, Kan. — Jim Riviere, director of the Center for Chemical Toxicology Research and Pharmacokinetics at North Carolina State Univ., has been hired by Kansas State Univ. to head that school's Institute of Computational Comparable Medicine in Manhattan, which uses mathematical modeling to try to improve animal health and food safety.

Riviere, who will also be a distinguished professor in the university's College of Veterinary Medicine, is the first member of the National Academy of Science to join the Kansas State faculty, according to The Associated Press. He begins Aug. 1 at an annual salary of $260,000, The Topeka Capital-Journal reported.

KSU also hired Riviere's wife, Nancy Monteiro-Riviere, a leading nanotoxicologist and professor of investigative dermatology and toxicology at North Carolina State Univ.’s Center for Chemical Toxicology Research and Pharmacokinetics. She will be a distinguished professor in KSU’s Department of Anatomy and Physiology in the College of Veterinary Medicine and will make $180,000 per year.

The National Academy "is the highest recognition in scientific ranks" and the university also hopes to get current faculty elected to the National Academy, said Ron Trewyn, vice president of research at Kansas State.

According to Riviere, he was attracted to KSU, in part, by its reputation as a leading veterinary school for animal health and food science and the support the veterinary school receives from the university and the state.