Josef Svoboda (scientist)
Josef Svoboda (born 16 July 1929) is a Canadian Arctic tundra scientist and botanist, who was appointed as an Officer of the Order of Canada (2019) for his pioneering scientific contributions regarding the Arctic tundra ecosystems, and his lifelong mentorship of scientists. Early life. Svoboda was born in Prague, Czechoslovakia and was raised in Moravia (in the Czech Republic). His father was a locomotive engineer. Svoboda survived World War II, and developed an early love for nature by his Scout leader. He graduated from high school in 1948, and then began studying biology and philosophy at Masaryk  University in 1948. While in university, Svoboda's involvement in student underground politics prompted his arrest at the age of 20, where he spent almost nine years in various prisons and labour campus, including being forced to work in a uranium mine for four years. While incarcerated, Svoboda continued to learn from fellow prisoners, and even received seminary training from bishops and prelates in a Leopoldov prison, though he was never ordained. Upon release in 1958, Svoboda attempted to continue his university studies with little success before taking on a research role at the Academy of Science in Brno. Research  career. In the Prague Spring of 1968, at the age of 39, Svoboda left for Canada to complete a Bachelor of Science degree at the University of Western Ontario, a doctorate at the University of Alberta, and then began a 22-year-long teaching and research career at the University of Toronto. Since 1973, Svoboda has been studying the Arctic plant ecosystem in Nunavut and other parts of northern Canada. From 1992 and onwards, Svoboda's research lab has participated in the International Tundra Experiment to understand the timing and abundance of various Arctic flowers across different sites in relation  to global warming. In 1993, Svoboda received a Northern Science Award from the Polar Knowledge Canada in recognition of his contributions to the global understanding of plant communities following glacial retreat, and his pioneering approaches in arctic botany. Svoboda is now an emeritus professor of biology at the University of Toronto. He has recounted his life, from a Communist regime to the Canadian Arctic, in a 2017 autobiography titled: "Wine from Raisins, A Life Transformed through Communist Gulag to Canadian Arctic." He was appointed as an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2019.