Dr Hank Weiss comes to Otago from the University of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania, where he was director of that university's Centre for Injury Research and Control from 2002 to 2008.
Dr Weiss will next week succeed Prof John Langley as Otago IPRU director.
Prof Langley is an award-winning injury prevention researcher.
He became the founding director of the IPRU in 1990 and has headed it for the past 19 years.
Prof Langley will continue his research, part-time, at the unit.
Dr Weiss has had more than 26 years of experience in injury prevention, his research having focused on many topics, including domestic violence, poisonings, farm injuries, falls involving the elderly, transport and recreational injuries.
He was recently awarded the 2009 Alex Kelter Visionary Award from the State and Territorial Injury Prevention Directors Association, a US-based organisation which seeks to reduce death and disability associated with injury and violence.
Otago University pro-vice-chancellor of health sciences Prof Don Roberton said Dr Weiss brought talent, skills and knowledge that would be hugely beneficial to the IPRU and the university as a whole.
"It is also a reflection of the unit's international reputation for research excellence, built so strongly during the leadership of Prof John Langley, that we have managed to draw a person of the calibre of Dr Weiss," Prof Roberton says.
Vice-chancellor Professor Sir David Skegg said the work of the IPRU helped prevent injury and loss of life, and he was confident that Dr Weiss would be able to build on the "outstanding international reputation of this research group".
Dr Weiss said that this was a "wonderful opportunity to join a world-class Injury Prevention Research Unit with an incredibly productive faculty and staff, which has been left in a strong position thanks to the efforts of Prof Langley".
Dr Weiss is keen to continue his work on road crash injury-prevention in New Zealand. "I also want to use my experience in measuring and preventing traumatic brain injury, one of the most devastating of all injuries, in the New Zealand setting," he said.
