Michael Selby

Michael John Selby (13 January 1936 – 21 January 2018) was a New Zealand geomorphologist, academic, and university administrator. Mount Selby in Antarctica's Britannia Range is named for him.

Biography Born in Luton, Bedfordshire, England, on 13 January 1936, Selby studied at Keble College, Oxford, gaining a BA(Hons), MA, and DipEd.

Selby came to New Zealand on the RMS Rangitata in 1960, and was appointed as a junior lecturer at the Waikato branch of the University of Auckland. On the establishment of the University of Waikato in 1964, he joined the new Department of Geography, and then the Department of Earth Sciences when it was formed in 1970. The following year, he completed a DPhil: the title of his doctoral thesis was Runoff, infiltration and soil erodibility studies in the Otutira catchment. He was later awarded a Doctor of Science degree from the University of Oxford on the basis of his research linking concepts in geomorphology with quantitative measurements in engineering geology. The 1978–79 trip to the Britannia Range–Darwin Glacier region was led by Selby, and mapped exposures in the McCraw Glacier area, and discovered iron meteorites on Derrick Peak.

Honours and honorific eponym In the 2005 New Year Honours, Selby was appointed an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to education.

A peak in the Britannia Range in Antarctica was named Mount Selby, in honour of Selby, by the New Zealand Antarctic Placenames Committee.

Selected works