Dr. Ilga Porth  is a well‐experienced research scientist with research achievements in forest tree genomics, functional genomics and genetics fields. Her research findings were published in around 80 peer‐reviewed articles and in plant sciences’ top‐ranked journals such as New Phytologist, Plant Physiology, Tree Physiology, Nature Communications, Science or Molecular Ecology. She is also the editor of The Spruce Genome with Springer. She obtained her M.Sc. in Biochemistry, and her Ph.D. in Genetics from the University of Vienna. She worked at The University of British Columbia as a Research Associate in spruce and poplar functional genomics. She is currently an Associate Professor in Functional Genomics at the Département des sciences du bois et de la forêt, Université Laval, in Québec, and a Principal Investigator at the Institut de Biologie Intégrative et des Systèmes.   Dr. Jaroslav Klápště has achieved expertise in quantitative genetics and statistical genomics with a focus on forest trees. He is mainly interested in exploring tree phenotypic response to changing environmental conditions by exploring genotype by environment interactions supported by genomics and enviromics. Additionally, he is interested in a dissection of the genetic architecture of complex traits through genome-wide association mapping and the prediction of unobserved phenotypes through genomics and its implementation in operational forest tree breeding programmes. His research was published in around 80 peer-reviewed articles. He graduated from the Czech University of Life Sciences in Prague with a MSc in Forestry and a PhD in Dendrology and Forest Tree Breeding. After graduation, he successfully applied for a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of British Columbia focused on statistical genomics. Currently, he is a Forest Geneticist at Scion (New Zealand Forest Research Institute), working on projects focused on implementing genomic selection in forest tree breeding programs.    Dr. Athena McKown is an experienced researcher in plant biology and applied genomics, including physiology, anatomy and morphology, and ecology. Her research is published in top-ranked journals, including New Phytologist, American Naturalist, Molecular Ecology and Plant Physiology. She obtained her BSc (Honours) in Plant Biology at the University of Alberta and PhD in Plant & Microbial Biology at the University of Toronto. She worked as a research postdoc at the University of California (Los Angeles) and University of British Columbia focusing on adaptive ecology and tree genomics. She continues as a Lecturer and Research Associate at the University of British Columbia in the Department of Forest & Conservation Sciences.