Team
Director
Line Rochefort has been a professor in the Department of Plant Sciences at Université Laval since 1991. She graduated in biology from Université Laval Laval (B.Sc.) with a specialization in plant ecology, from the University of Alberta (M.Sc.) and from the University of Cambridge, UK (Ph.D.). She has been a visiting researcher at Harvard University, USA, University of Helsinki, Finland, and Cornell University, USA. Line Rochefort is the leader in ecological peatland restoration in Canada and one of the world's pioneers in this field. In 2019, she was appointed as the Canadian National Focal Point for the Scientific and Technical Review Panel of the Ramsar Convention.
Line Rochefort founded the Peatland Ecology Research Group in 1992. She is the instigator of a new field of research in the peat industry in Canada, namely the development of peatland restoration techniques after peat extraction. Her professional and academic career has led her to visit and evaluate, as an expert, a wide range of wetland restoration projects in over 40 countries. Since 2010, her research interests have diversified to include restoration of other ecosystems in addition to horticultural peatlands, including fens, swamps, infrastructure-degraded peatlands, gravel pits and sand pits.
Freeman, Christopher Ph.D., Prof.

Professor, researcher, Bangor University
Research interest
Peatland Biogeochemistry
Prof Chris Freeman's work on the enzymology of soil, particularly in wetlands, has demonstrated a pivotal role for phenol oxidase in the regulation of wetland functioning (Nature 409, 149, 2001). This finding is also of significance for development of bioremediation strategies, and in predicting mobilisation of the peatland carbon store with climate change, where phenol oxidase can be a 'latch mechanism' holding very large carbon stores in place.
Brambell 4th floor
School of Biological SciencesBangor University
Deiniol Road, Bangor
Gwynedd LL57 2UW
UK
+44 1248 382527 extension : 2353
c.freeman@bangor.ac.uk