Colleen Iversen is an ecosystem ecologist who uses a variety of field and laboratory techniques to understand and predict how ecosystems are shaped by environmental change. Her work takes her from upland forests to flooded peatlands to thawing Arctic tundra, chasing a better understanding of the secret lives of roots hidden beneath the soil surface. She works at the millimetre scale to answer a global question: how will ecosystems respond to the climate of the future? Colleen completed her Masters in Wetland Ecology at the University of Notre Dame (IN, USA) in 2004, and her PhD in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Tennessee (Knoxville, TN, USA) in 2008. She is now a Senior Staff Scientist in the Environmental Sciences Division at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (TN, USA) and serves as a Theme Lead in the Climate Change Science Institute. Colleen is an elected Early Career Fellow of the Ecological Society of America, and a member of the inaugural cohort of ‘New Voices’ at the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine. She sees science communication as the foundation for a shared understanding of society's future, and she has shared her scientific vision on Public Radio International's ‘Science Friday’, and in the Alda School's ‘Flame Challenge’, as well as in organized symposia, sessions, and workshops.