When UBC Faculty of Forestry professor Suzanne Simard first heard she had been named one of TIME Magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world for 2024, she didn’t believe it was real. A couple of days later however the forest ecologist from humble B.C. beginnings realized the distinction was the real thing and her name had been added to a list that included luminaries like actor and advocate Michael J. Fox, fellow Canadian scientist and professor Yoshua Bengio, and Brazilian environment and climate change leader Marina Silva, to name a few.

Earlier this year, researchers in mycorrhizal ecology and various other disciplines from the University of Tartu in Estonia defied the constraints of vast distances by inviting UBC Faculty of Forestry’s Dr. Suzanne Simard to speak to their community. Dr. Simard was encouraged to share insights from her extensive body of research, past and present, and serve as an opponent in a Ph.D. defense of Sanni Färkkilä.