Line Rochefort has been a full professor in the Department of Plant Ecology at Université Laval since 1992, and is a graduate of Université Laval (1984), the University of Alberta (1987) and Cambridge University in the UK (1992). She is one of the world's leading researchers in peatland ecology. Her interest in sphagnum mosses and other bryophytes developed while working as a summer botanist on the Quebec tundra (1980 to 1984) with the Centre d'études nordiques. Her trainers, Serge Payette and Robert Gauthier, then encouraged her to study with bryologist Dale H. Vitt at the University of Alberta, where she studied the effects of acid rain on peatlands. During a year of study and research in Finland, she became familiar with northern European methods of teaching bryology in the field with Harri Vasander and Jukka Laine. Sphagnum mosses are one of the key components of peat bogs, and Line Rochefort is passionate about studying their biology, identification and the particularities of each species, not only in Quebec, but also elsewhere in North America. Line Rochefort has pioneered a new field of research in plant ecology, namely the development of techniques for restoring peatlands following anthropogenic disturbance.
