The future resilience of Canada’s forests and food systems may depend on our ability to anticipate how crops and trees will perform in climates they have never experienced before, says an incoming University of Alberta researcher whose work aims to shift climate adaptation from reacting to losses toward identifying how plants can thrive under future conditions.
“By understanding how plants respond to drought, heat and other environmental stresses, and using AI to explore and design adaptive solutions that may not be apparent through conventional approaches, we aim to enable breeders, forest managers and governments to make more informed decisions about what to breed, what to plant and where to deploy it,” says Dr. Charles Chen, who joins the Faculty of Agricultural, Life & Environmental Sciences as the Eddie Goldenberg Research Chair in Adaptive Genomics for Climate-Resilient Forestry and Agriculture.
Consider a tree planted today: it may still be growing a century from now under a climate substantially different from the one its genetics were shaped to withstand. Chen’s team will integrate genomic discovery, climate projections and AI to identify trees with the greatest potential to remain productive and resilient under those future conditions. By turning those insights into predictive tools, the research could enable forest managers and governments to make better-informed decisions about breeding, seed selection and reforestation decades before the full consequences of climate change are realized.
The same principle applies to agriculture. Chen’s program will use machine intelligence to decipher the genetic and regulatory mechanisms that determine how crops respond to heat, drought and increasingly variable growing conditions, exploring novel combinations of adaptive genomic features to open new possibilities for developing resilient cultivars.
“This work will sustain the long-term resilience and productivity of Canada’s forests and agricultural systems and strengthen our country’s food and fibre security,” Chen says. “More importantly, Canada can lead globally in developing predictive genomic and AI-enabled approaches that generate proactive solutions for climate-vulnerable ecosystems around the world.”
Chen, who comes to Edmonton by way of Oklahoma State University, is a global research leader joining the U of A as part of the newly renamed federal chair program designed to accelerate breakthroughs.
Each chair is worth $1 million annually for eight years, with the possibility of a four-year funded extension.
About the Eddie Goldenberg Research Chairs of Canada
In December 2025, the federal government launched the Canada Global Impact+ Research Talent Initiative, a suite of programs designed to attract leading international researchers to Canada. This initiative represents one of the largest recruitment programs of its kind globally, uniquely structured for exceptional speed and flexibility in securing top research talent. In July 2026, the awards were renamed the Eddie Goldenberg Research Chairs of Canada, after former prime minister Jean Chrétien’s longtime chief of staff and adviser.