Diana Beresford-Kroeger


Diana Bernadette Beresford-Kroeger is an Irish botanist, medical biochemist and author, born in Islington, England and resides near Ottawa, Ontario, Canada..
She is known for her extraordinary ability to bring an understanding and appreciation of the scientific complexities of nature to the general public. "Diana Beresford-Kroeger is one of the rare individuals who can accomplish this outwardly simple but inwardly complex and difficult translation from the non-human to human realms," E.O. Wilson wrote in the forward to Arboretum America, a Philosophy of the Forest by Beresford-Kroeger.

Early life

Beresford-Kroeger was orphaned at a young age and raised in Ireland by a bachelor uncle who was a noted athlete, chemist, scholar and bibliophile. He nurtured her quest for knowledge and encouraged her to read and discuss everything from Irish poetry, world religions and philosophy to physics and quantum mechanics. She attended private schools in Ireland and England. Her summers were spent in the countryside in West Cork and Kerry.

Education

Beresford-Kroeger completed her undergraduate studies at University College Cork, graduating first in her year with a bachelor of science honours in botany and medical biochemistry. She completed a master of science degree at UCC in 1965. Her thesis was: Frost Resistance and Gibberellins in the Plant Kingdom.
She received a fellowship at the University of Connecticut to study nuclear radiation in biological systems and organic chemistry.
She completed a diploma in experimental surgery at the University of Ottawa’s department of surgery, while engaged in cardiovascular research. Beresford-Kroeger received a Ph.D. in Biology from Carleton University in 2019.  Her thesis was on Myocardial Ischemia and the use of non-typing artificial blood in hemodilution.

Early Work

Beresford-Kroeger worked as a research scientist at the University of Ottawa and then at the Canadian Department of Agriculture Electron Microscopy Centre, where she discovered cathodoluminescence in biological materials.
From 1973 to 1982, she conducted research at the University of Ottawa, physiology department in conjunction with the Ottawa Heart Institute, specializing in hemodynamics.

Later Work

In the early 1980s, Beresford-Kroeger embarked on a significant change in her life's work. It began with an expansion of her private research garden and arboretum: Carrigliath. Having identified an absence in the scientific community of the ability to present science to the public and the urgent need to address the degradation of nature, she began her career in writing, broadcasting and lecturing.
Flowing from her research and experience at Carrigliath, Beresford-Kroeger published over 200 articles in magazines, journals and newspapers in Canada, the United States and internationally. She also published five critically acclaimed books on nature and gardening.
She has served as a scientific advisor to a number of organizations, including the Irish Woodland League, Ecology Ottawa, Hidden Harvest of Ottawa, Canadian Organic Growers, Archangel Ancient Tree Archive and the Acadian Forest Research Centre and others.
Beresford-Kroeger has lectured widely across North America and Europe and has appeared on television and radio in Canada, the U.S., Europe and international short wave radio.
She completed her documentary, Call of the Forest: The Forgotten Wisdom of Trees, produced by Merit Motion Pictures, Edgeland Films, and Treespeak Films in 2016. An extensive educational app on tree planting in North America is available with her film.

Latest News

Beresford-Kroeger will be featured in the forthcoming PBS documentary , produced and directed by Ross Spears..
Her new book To Speak for The Trees, will be launched by Penguin Random House Canada on September 24, 2019. In production is the International Handbook of Forest Therapy, by the Cambridge Scholars Press.

Books