MANHATTAN, Kan. (AP) -- Kansas State University has hired a renowned North Carolina State University pharmacology expert to head its animal health and food safety center.

Jim Riviere, director of the Center for Chemical Toxicology Research and Pharmacokinetics at North Carolina State, will head the Manhattan school's Institute of Computational Comparable Medicine, which uses mathematical modeling to try to improve animal health and food safety.

Riviere, who will also be a distinguished professor in the the university's College of Veterinary Medicine, is the first member of the National Academy of Science to join the Kansas State faculty. He begins Aug. 1 at an annual salary of $260,000, The Topeka Capital-Journal reported (http://bit.ly/LJ9kAe ).

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

"It's great for the institution, it's great for Manhattan and it's great for the state of Kansas," Trewyn said. "It brings an excitement and knowledge that the university can leverage."

Riviere said he was attracted to Kansas State 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.

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

"It's a perfect environment for both of us," Jim Riviere said.