Suzanne Simard
Forest ecologist and professor
Suzanne Simard is a Canadian forest ecologist who studies how trees connect and share resources through underground fungal networks. She is the author of Finding the Mother Tree.
1 summary 21 min of listening
Canadian Born 1960 in British Columbia, Canada
About Suzanne Simard
Simard holds a professorship at the University of British Columbia, where she works in forest and conservation sciences. She grew up in the Monashee Mountains of British Columbia and earned her PhD in Forest Sciences at Oregon State University. Before her university post, she did research for the British Columbia Ministry of Forests. Her research looks at how fungi and roots link trees, letting carbon, water, nutrients and defense signals pass between them. Tracking carbon with isotopes, she showed that birch and Douglas fir share it. She also describes hub trees, or Mother Trees, as large and well connected members of a forest. Simard has published more than 200 peer-reviewed articles. She has also shared her work with a wider audience through documentary films and a TED talk titled "How trees talk to one another".