Chris Todd is a Professor and Head of the Department of Biology in the College of Arts and Science at the University of Saskatchewan. He is a plant molecular biologist with a research program focusing on molecular mechanisms driving plant responses to biotic and abiotic stresses. Chris has been with the University of Saskatchewan since 2005 and is a winner of the College of Arts and Science Distinguished Teacher Award and the Provost’s Award for Outstanding Innovation in Learning. We spoke about his role as department head, a position which he took on a few months before the Covid-19 pandemic hit, about the transition to remote learning at a department level, and about his academic journey from freezing his fingers off as a hammer-hand in the Canadian winter, to department head of biology.