Professor Field's international reputation rests largely on his work with novel reagents containing coordinatively unsaturated transition metals. These reagents react with unactivated C-H bonds and hence these reactions are of great fundamental interest. There is also industrial potential, especially as Field has devised a catalytic cycle based on one of his reactions. Field is also well-known for extensive work in NMR spectroscopy which includes novel studies on heteronuclear coherence transfer and multiple quantum NMR. Professor Field has been awarded the inaugural Organic Chemistry Medal of the Royal Australian Chemical Institute in 1992 (shared with Professor A L J Beckwith FAA FRS) in recognition of his contributions to research in Chemistry.