We aren't experts in humanity. We're students of it.

If These Trees Could Talk is made by people who are endlessly curious about places and people.

We come to this work with different skills, different perspectives and different ways of seeing the world, but with a shared belief that stories deserve curiosity, context and care.

We don't believe wisdom belongs only to experts, or that the most important stories always come from the loudest voices.

Sometimes it comes from a researcher who has spent decades understanding a landscape. Sometimes from someone telling the hardest story of their life. Sometimes from a child noticing something the adults in the room have completely missed.

Our job isn't to have all the answers.

It's to ask better questions — and listen carefully to what comes back.

Shannon

Host| Writer | Creative Director

Shannon is curious about almost everything — particularly the things that don't have simple answers.

She created If These Trees Could Talk from a fascination with the stories hidden in ordinary places and a tendency to ask one question too many. What began with stories of place has grown into a much broader exploration of people: what shapes us, what we carry, what we believe, and the experiences that change the way we understand ourselves and each other.

As host and creative director, Shannon leads the research, writing and conversations across the project, following stories through history, science, nature, lived experience, mystery and wherever else curiosity takes them.

Her lived-experience and suicide-prevention advocacy has deeply influenced the way she approaches other people's stories , particularly the responsibility that comes with being trusted to tell them.

Shannon doesn't pretend to be an expert in everything she explores.

She is, however, remarkably good at finding someone who is.

Megan

Executive Producer| Editorial Director | Reluctant Co-Host | Moral Compass

Every curious storyteller needs someone willing to ask, “But do we actually know that?”

Megan is that person.

She brings a critical eye and a healthy amount of scepticism to the project. She questions assumptions, pulls apart arguments and helps make sure an interesting story never becomes more important than an accurate one.

But there is another kind of curiosity that drives Megan's work.

She has long believed that young people have far more to teach us than adults often give them credit for — that their perspectives aren't simply interesting because they're young, but valuable because they see and experience the world from a place the rest of us no longer can.

That belief became the life force behind If We Listened.

Megan brings the passion and purpose; Shannon helps build the storytelling around it. Together, they create space for young people to speak for themselves — without adults rushing to interpret, correct or finish the sentence.

Across the wider project, Megan works alongside Shannon to shape its research and editorial direction, bringing context, perspective and the occasional necessary reality check. She is the person asking the harder question, spotting what we've missed and reminding us to look again.

She also continues to find herself behind a microphone despite maintaining that becoming a co-host was never part of the agreement.

Between Shannon's instinct to follow every fascinating thread and Megan's insistence on asking where the evidence leads, much of the character of If These Trees Could Talk has emerged:

Curiosity and scrutiny. Wonder and evidence. Story and context.

Mia

Social Media & Marketing | Audience Connection | Community Voice

Mia ensures our stories find the people who need to hear them.

As the team’s Social Media and Marketing lead, Mia guides how If These Trees Could Talk and What Would They Say connect with their growing audience. She approaches this work thoughtfully, recognising that the spaces where stories are shared deserve the same care and integrity as the stories themselves.

Rather than focusing on attention alone, Mia prioritises authenticity, helping the project build meaningful relationships with listeners while keeping its values clear and visible.

In this role, she acts as a bridge between the work and its audience, ensuring the conversations sparked by the podcast continue to reach people with the same care, honesty, and intention that shaped them.