Prof. Donald Lawrence Smith received his BSc, MSc from Acadia University, and Ph.D. from the University of Guelph. He is now a Distinguished James McGill Professor at the McGill University. He has conducted research in the production and physiology of crop plants, with an emphasis on plant-microbe interactions, most recently, within the context of biofuel feedstock production. He has been a member of the Advisory Board of the Centre for Translational Biology (CTB) Drug Discovery Platform of McGill University since 2018 and the Scientific Director and CEO of Biomass Canada from 2018 to 2023.