Diana Beresford-Kroeger

Diana Bernadette Beresford-Kroeger (born July 25, 1944) is an Irish botanist, medical biochemist and author, born in Islington, England and resides near Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. (citizenship: Canadian, Irish, English). 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.

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.

Beresford-Kroeger completed her undergraduate studies at University College Cork (UCC), graduating first in her year (1963) 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. Beresford-Kroeger pursued her doctoral studies at Carleton University. Her thesis was The Importance of Indole Metabolism in Plants and Its Significance in the Human System. She completed a diploma in experimental surgery at Ottawa University’s department of surgery, while engaged in cardiovascular research(1973).

Beresford-Kroeger worked as a research scientist at Ottawa University and then at the Canadian Department of Agriculture Electron Microscopy Centre, where she discovered cathodoluminescence in biological materials (1972).

From 1973 to 1982, she conducted research at the University of Ottawa, physiology department in conjunction with the Ottawa Heart Institute, specializing in hemodynamics.

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.

She 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.

Beresford-Kroeger is currently working on a documentary produced by Merit Motion Pictures and Edgeland Films Inc., scheduled for release in 2015. Beresford-Kroeger will be featured in the forthcoming PBS documentary The Truth About Trees, produced and directed by Ross Spears.

She was also the subject of an episode of Recreating Eden, a multi-award winning international gardening series produced by Merit Motion Pictures, released in 2011.

• The Sweetness of a Simple Life: Tips for Healthier, Happier and Kinder Living Gleaned from the Wisdom and Science of Nature, Random House LLC, 2013 ISBN 978-0-345-81295-7
• The Global Forest: Forty Ways Trees Can Save Us, Viking Penguin 2010 ISBN 0-14-312016-6
• Arboretum Borealis: A Lifeline of the Planet, University of Michigan Press, 2010 ISBN 978-0-472-05114-4
• A Garden for Life: The Natural Approach to Designing, Planting, and Maintaining a North Temperate Garden, University of Michigan Press, 2004, previously published as Bioplanning a North Temperate Garden, Quarry Press, 1999 ISBN 978-0-472-03012-5
• Time Will Tell: Stories of the Rideau Valley, Quarry Press, 2004 ISBN 978-1-55082-343-1
• Arboretum America: A Philosophy of the Forest, University of Michigan Press, 2003 ISBN 978-0-472-06851-7

• 2010: Elected Fellow by Wings WorldQuest, an international organization "dedicated to recognizing and supporting visionary women"
• 2011: Selected by the Utne Reader as one of their Utne reader Visionaries for 2011
• 2013: Elected to the College of Fellows of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society