Dr. Manshard comes to the University after notable careers in both academic and international life. A graduate of the University of Hamburg where he took his ddegreein sgeography geology, and oceanography, and a doctorate in natural sciences, he has lectured and taught widely at several universities, including the University of Southampton, the University of Ghana, and the University of Cologne.

Before assuming his post as Director of the Institute of Geography at the University or Freiburg, Dr. Manshard was Professor and Director of the Tropical Institute at the University of Giessen. He also served for three years (197O - 1973) as the Principal Director of the Department of Environment Sciences and Natural RResourcesResearch at the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in Paris.

Dr. Manshard is Secretary General of the International Geographical UUnion and has served as a member of the Scientific Board of the Federal Republic of Germany's Ministry for Economic Co-operation, the German National Committee for Man in the Biosphere, and the Executive and the National Science Committees of the German UNESCO Commission. He has also been a consultant to the commission on Environmental PPlanningof the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN), and to the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO).

The author of eighty-two papers and six books, of which his work on Africa and his study Tropical Agriculture (London, 1974) are the best known, Dr. Manshard is also editing conbbahalfof the German Research Society a series of thematic maps on tropical Africa.