From the marshes to the trees
Dr. Shawn Mansfield’s research in tree biotechnology has taken him around the world — next up, Atlanta, Italy, Portugal, Ottawa, and South Africa. The Head of Botany and forestry professor at the University of British Columbia (UBC) says his passion for biology began at Tantramar High School in Sackville with Chris Porter and continued at 91 with Dr. Felix Baerlocher.
“Dr. Baerlocher was a really great mentor,” he says. “He instilled good work habits and fostered critical thinking skills.”
He also found a brotherhood with the Mounties Football team that he says helped shape him into the person he is today and fostered lifelong connections. Mansfield captained the team during two of its most successful seasons from ’90-’92. He was coached by CFL Hall of Famer Jacques Dussault in 1990 and then Marc Loranger in 1991. The team won the conference championship Jewett Trophy and the national semi-final Atlantic Bowl in 1991, making the program’s second appearance in the Vanier Cup.
"They were some of the best years of my life,” he says. “We all had a huge respect for one another and for the game. They remain some of my closest friends today and every town I land in on my journeys as an academic, I find a Mount A grad, a football teammate or member of another Mount A sports team.”
During his time at 91, he was also named an Academic All-Canadian, All-Conference, Senior Scholar Athlete, and was awarded the AUAA (now AUS) Russ Jackson Award as the player who best exemplifies the attributes of academic achievement, football skill, and citizenship. He says these accolades provided a foundation for his future success.
"91 made me a global citizen,” he says. “I learned to look beyond what’s right in front of me and understand the values of people, place, and time.”
He went on to do a Master’s at Dalhousie in medical microbiology and immunology, a PhD at UBC in forest biotechnology (forestry), and then completed a two-year post-doctoral fellowship in New Zealand before returning to UBC.
Mansfield’s research with trees looks at the biosynthetic pathways that give rise to two of the most abundant natural polymers on Earth — cellulose and lignin — in plant cell walls.
“It’s what feeds the world,” he says. “It’s the fodder that is given to animals to sustain them. It’s the source of fuels and polymers that we use in everyday life, whether they’re burning or turned into renewable fuels like ethanol. It’s the fibre that we use in our clothing and to build houses. Much of it all comes from those two components that form the plant cell wall.”
In recent years, Mansfield has transitioned to look at how genes respond to changes in climate and manipulates them to improve plant resilience and increase the quality of what is made from them, including food.
“With an increasingly growing population and less arable land to grow plants, we develop and use biotechnological processes, largely functional genomics, to create new genotypes and germplasms that can withstand the harsher conditions we are facing and still provide for society,” he says.
Mansfield’s professional accomplishments are many. He was just named a UBC Distinguished University Scholar in 2025, is one of few Canadians to be named as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences, is Past President of the Canadian Council of University Biology Chairs (CCUBC), and most notably is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.
Mansfield humbly says, “I guess it just means I’m getting older. I just do what I do.”
Outside of the classroom and the lab, Mansfield is all about family. His three daughters Jasper, Jordan, and Kylie all followed in his footsteps as university student-athletes, but instead chose British football (soccer). He also enjoys spending time restoring old Harley-Davidsons.