Bernard Goffinet completed his Ph.D. at the University of Alberta, Canada. As a research associate of Dr A. J. Shaw he pursued his interest in the phylogeny of mosses, with a special focus on the evolution of entomophily in the dung mosses. He joined the University of Connecticut in 1999, where he is an associate professor in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. He has co-authored nearly 70 publications. His current research spans choroplast genome evolution in liverworts, the phylogenetic history of the new model taxon, Physcomitrella patens, as well as the evolution of multisymbiosis in lichen-forming fungi.