Prof Squire (66) ended a 32-year academic career at Otago this week and will complete some scientific studies in retirement.
He has served as deputy vice-chancellor, academic, since 2010.
During his Otago career, including as head of the Otago mathematics and statistics department (1996-2004), he has specialised in mathematical modelling in marine science, particularly the interaction between sea ice and ocean waves.
Until about the year 2000, his research had generally been regarded as "important but possibly a little too mathematical and obscure for mainstream polar science", he said.
He had been "making elaborate theories that were a better fit with reality", he added.
He had previously known about ocean wave and sea ice interactions and had talked about it for a couple of decades, but it had been only as the impacts of climate change had "materialised in satellite imagery" - such as the 60% loss of Arctic summer sea ice over the past 30 years- that people had begun looking for the contributing mechanisms.
The result was a "spectacular resurgence of interest" in the interaction of waves on sea ice.
And, as a specialist in the interaction of waves on sea ice, Prof Squire has since often been invited to give plenary speaking presentations at influential polar science conferences around the world.
People now had realised that ocean waves were a "primary contributor to the evolution and destruction of sea ice".
Born in Wembley, London, in England, Prof Squire was initially drawn to the University of Otago because of Otago's proximity to the Antarctic, given his "research interests in the dynamics of polar sea ice".
When Prof Squire arrived at Otago in 1987 to become professor of applied mathematics, he did so thinking that "if it didn't work out, we could always move back to Cambridge".
"I could never dream of how my career has progressed in the way it has, and where it has taken me."
After heading the mathematics and statistics department, he became Otago pro-vice-chancellor, sciences, (2004-2010), before becoming deputy vice-chancellor, academic.
He had sought new challenges over the years, but the main reason he had moved into the academic leadership positions was that he could also continue his research and teaching, which was "pivotal to who I am".
Prof Squire received the Polar Medal with Antarctic and Arctic Clasp, at a ceremony at Buckingham Palace in 1988.
Throughout his career he has made more than 25 field trips to polar regions, including many to the Antarctic, particularly in the Ross Sea, into McMurdo Sound from Scott Base.
He was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand in 1994 and made a Fellow of the New Zealand Mathematical Society in 1998.
In retirement, he would complete scientific projects he was already working on, including a major review on the interaction of waves on sea ice for the journal Annual Review of Fluid Mechanics.
After "a wonderfully fulfilling career" at Otago he would remain in Dunedin in retirement, would continue tramping, and get back into baking bread, he said.
A university spokeswoman said Associate Professor Pat Cragg, formerly of the Otago physiology department, had come out of retirement and had been appointed as the acting deputy vice-chancellor, academic, from April 15.
Expressions of interest in the role would be sought later in the year, the spokeswoman said.
