Béatrice Gervais-Bergeron is the winner of the 2024 edition of the Marcelle-Gauvreau scholarship awarded by the IRBV, in collaboration with The Friends of the Montreal Botanical Garden.

Following a remarkable career in environmental biology at McGill University, Béatrice joined Michel Labrecque‘s laboratory in 2019 to complete her master’s degree. She also enriched her experience with a six-month stay at the University of Santiago, in Chile. In 2020, due to the quality of her file, she was accelerated to a doctorate. Her project focuses on phytoremediation, focusing on the functional traits of plants in contaminated and ultramafic environments. Determined and demonstrating an excellent spirit of synthesis, she has already published three articles in renowned scientific periodicals, before the end of her doctorate, which she plans to defend in the fall of 2024.

In addition to her excellent scientific background, Béatrice stands out for her commitment to student life and society. In South America, she participated in mutual aid activities with humanitarian organizations such as Amnesty International and a farm school in Bolivia.

During her doctorate, Béatrice was often responsible for the organization of events or conferences (32nd Symposium of Biological Sciences Students, workshops and visits as part of the annual congress of the Société québécoise de phytotechnologies, Night of Space for Life researchers, for example).

Since 2020, she has been president of Phyto Action, a non-profit organization that supports phytotechnology projects and creates educational documentation related to these practices.