When learning to write scientific papers, we were probably all advised to use the passive voice. Samples are collected, experiments run, data analysed, as if these inanimate things had acted by themselves with no involvement of any human scientist. This leads to a distorted view of science as a wholly dispassionate endeavour, but nothing could be further from the truth. The personalities and passions of scientists are as important in shaping research as the results of the experiments that they perform.

Evidence of the human factor in scientific discovery runs through the stories of how fundamental discoveries were made. August Kekulé day-dreaming of serpents eating their own tails and waking up to the discover the structure of benzene; Richard Feynman seeing spinning plates that put him on the path to the fundamentals of quantum mechanical spin; Isaac Newton watching an apple fall under the influence of gravity; Charles Darwin cruising in The Beagle around South America and the Galapagos; Albert Einstein musing on what would be happening if the Bernese tram he was riding in was moving near the speed of light. All scientists have their personal legends about how they chose the question that they are striving to answer — or how it chose them. Whether these stories are strictly true is unimportant; they serve to illuminate the characters of those who have shaped our understanding of the universe.

As a way to honour the personal and individual facets of research, starting from this month’s issue of Nature Plants, we will be producing a new content type: Q&As, which you may be familiar with from other Nature titles. It allows us to celebrate the people behind the science, providing a place for researchers to tell the stories that have made their work possible. Each Q&A will be a short interview in which we ask a working plant biologist about their motivations, their journey through science, and any words of wisdom for other scientists — particularly those in the early stages of their careers.

Our first interviewee is Aster Gebrekirstos, an agroecologist and dendrochronologist at the Center for International Forestry Research and World Agroforestry, who was interviewed by Catherine Walker.

“I first met Aster at the European Conference of Tropical Ecology in Lisbon in 2024,” says Catherine, “where she presented her work on the ways in which agroforestry can benefit food security, biodiversity and climate resilience. What stood out to me most about Aster’s talk was her passion and commitment to her research and the communities that it serves. Chatting with her afterwards over a cup of coffee, she stressed the importance of keeping people at the heart of her work and discussed how she was working with smallholder farmers to co-create her research agenda.”

“A year and a half later (my delay rather than Aster’s), we sat down again for a Zoom interview. The topics we covered were wide-ranging, from how best to work with diverse stakeholders to the directions in which she thinks agroforestry is moving — as demonstrated by the resulting 8,000-word transcript. I had to whittle this down to the 1,200 words Q&A, so not all of our discussion has made it into the final piece. Aster, for example, described the difficulties ecologists face in generating data in tropical regions. From challenging environmental conditions to monkeys ripping out field sensors, this was a humbling reminder for an editor who sits behind their desk all day that every piece of data is hard-won. What does remain in the Q&A is a moving testimony from a researcher who believes deeply that her science has the power to save lives. It’s these stories, too often unheard, that fuel science and innovation and inspire others to take on scientific projects.”

It is a frequent theme of research dealing with ecology and other complex systems that greater diversity leads to greater resilience and productivity. Indeed, in this issue, Ruochen Cao et al. describe how they used remote satellite measurement of sun-induced chlorophyll fluorescence to discover that forests with a richer mix of species tend to be more photosynthetically active. We believe that the same is true of science, so we intend to speak to researchers from varied disciplines, backgrounds and experiences for our Q&As. In this way we hope to reflect the full breadth of individuals in our community.

Our next interviewee will be Helen Brabham, a team leader at 2Blades, who sat down with Catherine recently to talk about her work on NLRseek — a project focused on identifying and deploying nucleotide-binding leucine-rich repeat (NLR) genes. Brabham has a particularly valuable viewpoint, sitting comfortably in both the worlds of academia and industry. Her Q&A discusses how researchers can ensure that their discovery science translates into real-world impacts.

Q&A’s will provide a place to highlight a diversity of perspectives, and to bring you fascinating and inspiring stories that might otherwise be left out of the necessarily impersonal prose of a research article. We hope that you will enjoy these glimpses into the personalities of your peers.