Dr. Colin Laroque (PhD) listens to what the trees tell him.

Laroque, a professor in USask’s College of Agriculture and Bioresources and the head of the Department of Soil Sciences, is an expert dendrochronologist. Or, in other words, he is an expert in “tree-ring analysis,” which allows him to read the rings of trees to get a better understanding of the environment over years, decades and centuries.

In recent years, the number of wildfires in Canada and around the world have increased, with more area being burned and more effort being put into dealing with them. As Laroque puts it, the environment is changing, but those changes take long periods of time before they can be understood as trends or a “new normal.”

For Laroque, the questions are not whether or not this more regular and severe wildfire season is here to stay, but whether or not we’ve reached the apex of what this “new normal” looks like for wildfires.

On this episode of the USask Signature Series podcast, we answer the question “What will increasing wildfires do to our environment, and is there anything we can do about it?”

• Host: Matt Olson
• Producers: Matt Olson and Leslie-Ann Schlosser
• Editor: Matt Olson
• Graphics and Marketing: USask Research Profile and Impact office
• Original Music created by Silas Friesen

Questions? Email research.communications@usask.ca
Check out USask research on Instagram, X/Twitter, LinkedIn and on the University of Saskatchewan's web pages!

Public health is something that has an impact on all of us - but over recent years, public health has been thrust into a bigger spotlight.

Trust in science, academia and public health is critical to maintain strong public health for the future. We explore how trust in public health has changed, especially in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, and what can be done to address those changes, on this episode of the USask Signature Series podcast.

Guests this episode:

• Dr. Thilina Bandara (PhD)
• Dr. Nazeem Muhajarine (PhD)
• Dr. Cory Neudorf (MD)

• Host: Matt Olson
• Producers: Matt Olson and Leslie-Ann Schlosser
• Editor: Matt Olson
• Graphics and Marketing: USask Research Profile and Impact office
• Original Music created by Silas Friesen

Questions? Email research.communications@usask.ca
Check out USask research on Instagram, X/Twitter, LinkedIn and on the University of Saskatchewan's web pages!

How often do you think about the environment you live in?

Our houses, our towns, our cities, our communities - we have surrounded ourselves with our "built environment."

But as populations grow and move, the we have to ask ourselves: how do we make sure our built environment is healthy, safe and sustainable for us and for future generations?

We explore a few of the facets of a sustainable built environment in this episode of the USask Signature Series Podcast.

Guests:

• Dr. Wanda Martin (PhD)
• Dr. Daniel Fuller (PhD)

• Host: Matt Olson
• Producers: Matt Olson and Leslie-Ann Schlosser
• Editor: Matt Olson
• Graphics and Marketing: USask Research Profile and Impact office
• Original Music created by Silas Friesen

Questions? Email research.communications@usask.ca
Check out USask research on Instagram, X/Twitter, LinkedIn and on the University of Saskatchewan's web pages!