People

Principal Investigators

Name	Dr. Michelle Garneau
Email	garneau.michelle@uqam.ca

Dr. Michelle Garneau initiated the project and built the strong collaborations with the Quebec government and the two other partners over the past year. Dr. Garneau is a Full Professor at the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM), where she has successfully led several research projects using innovative methods to document the impact of climate variations on C sequestration through time and space. The research carried out by her group over the past 25 years contributed to the development of the Act respecting the conservation of wetlands and bodies of water by recognizing the importance of the carbon sequestration function in wetlands and their conservation for climate change mitigation. She has been asked to lead the Quebec wetland research and climate mitigation program that has resulted in the present project.

Name	Dr. Scott J. Davidson
Email	davidson.scott_j@uqam.ca

Dr. Scott J. Davidson is an Assistant Professor of Wetland Carbon Dynamics at the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM) and leads the Wetland Resilience Research Group. His research investigates how wetlands across Arctic, boreal, alpine, and temperate regions respond to climate change, land use, and disturbance, with a focus on carbon cycling and greenhouse gas emissions. Dr. Davidson’s work combines field measurements, remote sensing, and ecosystem modelling to understand the resilience of wetlands and their role in climate regulation. He has made key contributions to advancing knowledge of how wetland conservation and restoration support climate mitigation and has engaged in international efforts to build research networks and community science initiatives.

Name	Dr. Sara Helen Knox
Email	sara.knox@mcgill.ca

Dr. Sara Knox is an Assistant Professor in Geography at McGill University (and formerly held a Canada Research Chair in Eco-Meteorology at UBC). Her research investigates how wetland-atmosphere exchanges of GHG, water and energy fluxes respond to a changing climate and disturbance, and how we can modify wetland management practices for climate change adaptation and mitigation. Dr. Knox has made several important contributions to understanding the climatic role of conserving and restoring wetlands across North America, with a focus on restored peatlands, wetlands in the Prairie Pothole Region of Canada, and tidal wetlands. Dr. Knox also co-led the international FLUXNET-CH4 initiative, which is a global database of eddy covariance CH4 flux measurements.

Name	Dr. Oliver Sonnentag
Email	oliver.sonnentag@umontreal.ca

Dr. Oliver Sonnentag is an Assistant Professor and holds the Canada Research Chair in Atmospheric Biogeosciences in High Latitudes at the Université de Montréal. His research aims to understand changes in land surface-atmosphere interactions in response to increasing natural and anthropogenic pressures. He has established a transect of eddy covariance towers along a 2000-km permafrost and climate gradient across the boreal forest of northwestern Canada. He also uses remote sensing and modelling techniques to study changes in Arctic-boreal ecosystem composition, structure, and function. In addition, Sonnentag leads a training network to build local Indigenous capacity in the Northwest Territories for community-based monitoring of ecosystem changes, and is a co-investigator in NSERC CREATE LEAP, “training tomorrow’s LEAders in Permafrost thaw and northern research”.

Name	Dr. Vincent Maire
Email	Vincent.Maire@uqtr.ca

Dr. Vincent Maire is a Professor in Environmental Sciences at the Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières (UQTR). He formerly held a Junior Research Chair at UQTR in arctic functional ecology, focusing on the feedbacks of arctic vegetation changes on the dynamics of permafrost and soil functioning, including CO2 and CH4 fluxes. His research focuses on how properties and changes of vegetation and microbial communities modify soil cycling of C and nitrogen in arctic, temperate, dryland and wetland ecosystems. Since 2019, he has been involved in the Pole d’Expertise du Lac Saint-Pierre, which evaluates the role of agricultural disturbances on the functioning of the Lac Saint-Pierre shoreline. As part of this, he determined how agricultural disturbances have modified the sequestration of biomass and C into soils and the fluxes of CO2 and CH4 to the atmosphere.

Name	Dr. Alexandre Roy
Email	Alexandre.Roy@uqtr.ca

Dr. Alexandre Roy, is an Assistant Professor at Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières (UQTR) and UQTR Research Chair in Northern Remote Sensing. He has worked for more than twelve years in modeling and remote sensing of the cryosphere. Since 2014, in addition to a strong expertise in snow and freeze/thaw cycles monitoring, he has contributed to enhancing the understanding of the relationships between the cryosphere and C fluxes in high latitude environments. He works in close collaboration with various space agencies (NASA, Canadian Space Agency and European Space Agency) to improve surface key variables monitoring related to C fluxes such as soil moisture, soil temperature, surface freeze/thaw state and vegetation water content.

Name	Dr. Marc-André Bourgault
Email	Marc-Andre.Bourgault@ggr.ulaval.ca

Dr. Marc-André Bourgault is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography at Laval University. His area of expertise is data analysis and numerical modelling of wetland hydrology. His research investigates the hydrological and biogeochemical interactions in wetlands as well as their capacity to reduce flood risk and accumulate C. He is also involved in different agro- and hydro-climatological projects in collaboration with a broad group of researchers in which he analyzes climate simulation data and develops new indicators to quantify the risk of climate change on various socio-economic sectors. He is in charge of of a research axis in Réseau inondations intersectoriel du Québec (RIISQ), an active collaborator in centrEAU, and a research member of Institut en environnement, développement et société (Institut EDS).

Name	Dr. Paul A. del Giorgio
Email	del_giorgio.paul@uqam.ca

Dr. Paul A. del Giorgio is a Full Professor at Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM). He is an aquatic ecologist and biogeochemist. Since 2009 he has held the NSERC – HydroQuébec Research Chair in Carbon Biogeochemistry in Boreal Aquatic Systems (CarBBAS Chair) and has led one of the largest studies to date of greenhouse gas and C dynamics in rivers and lakes in the remote, water-rich boreal biome of Canada. His integrative aquatic research in the boreal biome has contributed to a radical re-evaluation of aquatic / terrestrial links and of the role of inland waters, including hydroelectric reservoirs, in the global C cycle. He has a strong record of developing fruitful partnerships with industry and other stake holders, including Hydro Québec and the Cree Nation of Eeyou Ischee in the James Bay, among others.

Name	Dr. Evelyne Thiffault
Email	Evelyne.Thiffault@sbf.ulaval.ca

Dr. Evelyne Thiffault is an Associate Professor in forest ecology and management at the department of wood and forest sciences at Université Laval and is a member of the Renewable Materials Research Centre. Her work focuses on land management and wood production for climate change mitigation. Her research program involves fundamental and applied studies of ecological processes related to C cycling between the ecosystems and the atmosphere as influenced by climate and forest management, along with work on the life-cycle of wood products and their role for meeting the needs of societies for materials and energy.

Technical, managerial and research team

Name	Rosemary Howard
Email	rosemary.howard@mcgill.ca

Dr. Rosie Howard is a data scientist for the CARBONIQUE project. She has worked as a Research Associate and leader in research and development strategies for over a decade, on a variety of research topics spanning numerical weather prediction and meteorology across multiple scales. Her focus shifted to climate science when she joined the EcoFlux Lab at McGill University in March 2024. Currently, she is working on standardizing eddy-covariance data from flux towers in Canadian wetlands, including CARBONIQUE sites, with the larger goal of evaluating the role of wetlands as a natural climate solution.

Name	David Trejo
Email	trejo_cancino.david_ulises@uqam.ca

As a Research Assistant at UQAM, David Trejo tackles vital tasks in the CARBONIQUE project. He contributes by installing, maintaining, and operating cutting-edge equipment to ensure accurate data collection. This role also involves calibrating scientific equipment and assisting with database maintenance, all to further our understanding of climate change.

Name	Laurent Lessard
Email	Laurent.Lessard2@uqtr.ca

Laurent works as a research professional at UQTR and is in charge of fieldwork coordination. Over the years, he has acquired extensive experience in fieldwork in remote regions in an Arctic context. He also maintains flux towers in Nunavik and contributes to research projects in Nunavik, Nunavut, and Western Canada. As part of the CARBONIQUE project, Laurent contributes to the installation and maintenance of flux towers and their instruments, as well as to drone vegetation surveys.

Name	Jean-Benoit Leblond Chouinard
Email	jean-benoit.leblond-chouinard.1@ulaval.ca

Jean-Benoit Leblond Chouinard works as a research assistant at Université Laval. In the context of the CARBONIQUE project, he is mainly in charge of installing and managing hydrological instruments. He also performs various data analysis and field-oriented tasks related to peatland hydrology.

Name	Martina Schlaipfer
Email	schlaipfer.martina@uqam.ca

Martina Schlaipfer is the scientific coordinator for the CARBONIQUE project. Before moving to Canada, she worked in projects related to the GHG exchange of disturbed and rewetted agricultural peatland soils in Germany for a decade. She has experience with both eddy covariance and chamber flux measurements as well as project management. More recently, she was also involved in science communication for the Peatland Science Centre at the Weihenstephan-Triesdorf University of Applied Sciences (HSWT).

Name	Léonie Perrier
Email	perrier.leonie@uqam.ca

Léonie Perrier manages field logistics, budgets, progress reports and provides student support for several research projects on carbon stock mapping, paleoecological reconstructions and carbon budgets in wetlands (Chaire de recherche québécoise portant sur l’étude du CARbone dans les milieux humides comme solution fondée sur la nature pour lutter contre le changement CLImatiQUE (CARCLIQUE)). CARBONIQUE is one of the many projects she contributes to.

Name	Michaela de Melo
Email	ladeira_de_melo.michaela@uqam.ca

Dr. Michaela de Melo is a biologist and research assistant at the Carbon Biogeochemistry Laboratory in Boreal Aquatic systems (UQÀM, Prof. Paul del Giorgio). Before moving to Canada, she completed a master’s degree on the metabolism of large Amazonian rivers and a doctorate on the microbial ecology and dynamics of dissolved organic matter in floodplain lakes in the Brazilian Amazon. As a postdoctoral fellow, she studied hydrology and river exports in eastern James Bay using autonomous high-frequency measurements. Michaela collaborates on several projects on the biogeochemistry of reservoirs, lakes and rivers in various environmental contexts.

Name	Hongxing He
Email	hongxing.he@mcgill.ca

Dr. Hongxing He is a Research Associate in the Department of Geography at McGill University. His research focuses on developing and applying process-based ecosystem models to simulate greenhouse gas (CO₂, CH₄, and N₂O) exchanges and dissolved organic carbon (DOC) dynamics, along with the environmental factors that regulate these processes across wetland ecosystems. His modelling aims to improve process-level understanding of wetland carbon cycling and to evaluate how changes in climate and management influence key components of the carbon budget within the CARBONIQUE project.

Name	Joyson Ahongshangbam
Email	joyson.ahongshangbam@mcgill.ca

Dr. Joyson Ahongshangbam is a Research Associate in the Department of Geography at McGill University. His research focuses on greenhouse gas (CO₂ and CH₄) and water fluxes across diverse ecosystems, including forests, urban vegetation, and wetlands, using eddy covariance, sap flow measurements, remote sensing, and ecosystem modeling. In the CARBONIQUE project, he aims to compare the net atmospheric carbon (C) and greenhouse gas (GHG) budgets across different wetland types and assess the environmental and biophysical drivers controlling vertical carbon and greenhouse gas fluxes.

Name	Zoran Nesic
Email	zoran.nesic@ubc.ca

Zoran Nesic is a senior research engineer at the University of British Columbia (UBS). He is responsible for management of numerous research and equipment design projects for various faculties and departments at UBC. He designs eddy covariance and soil respiration systems that are used at various North American universities as well as by other research institutions. His main research interests are (1) the design of automated measurement systems for long-term environmental measurements and (2) the standardization of measurement and data processing procedures to ensure high quality and reproducibility of research results.

Name	Olaf Kolle
Email	oeekolle@outlook.de

Olaf Kolle contributes intermittently as invited senior scientist at UQAM to the CARBONIQUE project with his expertise in field experiments and instrumentation. His main tasks are to design and implement the eddy flux towers overall (structure, lightning protection, instrumentation, data acquisition, remote access, safety measures) together with the other team members, who all contribute with their respective skills and experience. He also imparts knowledge to the new generation of researchers and technical staff.