Thelma Finlayson knows more about bugs than just about anybody.

Using maggots, the 95-year-old can determine, with some accuracy, how long a person has been dead—something that in the past has made her services valuable to the RCMP.

She is also accomplished at finding—and propagating—the enemies of the pests that would destroy our crops and trees.

“Every organism has its own enemies,” says the professor emeritus at Simon Fraser University, “and every pest has, oh, 25 or 30 that we call parasites that attach to it.”

The problem is that pests, by definition, are exotic—meaning they came from somewhere else and they usually neglect to bring their enemies with them.

For decades as a researcher with the Department of Agriculture, and later as a founder of the Centre for Pest Management at Simon Fraser University, Thelma has been at the forefront of the quest to find environmentally-wise ways to bring pests to a quick end.

“While I don’t advocate not using chemicals at all, we wanted to advocate for natural control to manipulate the environment,” she said recently in an interview at her Burnaby condo. “You just have to look at the Mountain Pine Beetle (currently destroying B.C. pine forests) to see what can happen.”

Thelma’s been at this a long time. In the mid-1930s as a student taking sciences at the University of Toronto, one of her final classes was with a renowned entomologist. He came in on the first day, Thelma recalls, plunked down a box of insects, wrote a list of six key textbooks on the board and said “Read these, and dissect these”—then disappeared for the rest of term.

Only Thelma and a fellow student followed through, effectively teaching themselves the field of study.

She made a vow: if she ever taught, she wouldn’t leave her students hanging.

And it’s that emphasis on students that has been a continuing theme in her life. In 1970, she helped set up an academic advice resource centre at SFU, and served as its acting director for a time.

She continued providing that assistance, on top of her regular academic work, and even though she retired in 1979—30 years ago—she continued her research for years and hasn’t stopped helping students.

Until this year, Thelma was up at SFU two days a week to provide academic advice, a role she seems well suited for.

“I like helping people. It doesn’t matter what they’ve done, I’m here to help them, not to judge,” she says, in her gentle way.

But a few months ago, not long after the university threw a big party for her to celebrate her 95th birthday, she suffered a major setback.

Antibiotics she’d taken to deal with an earlier injury gave her Clostridium (C) difficile, forcing hospitalization for eight weeks.

She’s home now, but recovery has been slow.

And certainly not quick enough for a woman who hardly sees retirement as a series of rocking chairs, golf courses and sunny holidays.

In recent weeks, slowly, Thelma has been winning back her independence. The goal is to get around without the scooter or walker she’s relied upon.

“If I can get my legs back, I’ll go back and help students again,” she says. “It’s given me a purpose to live.”

And though she hasn’t published any papers on pest management over the past few years—though one of her best papers was published in her late 70s—she is still passionate about the importance of “biological control” as the area of expertise is called.

In recent years, the pest management program at SFU was phased out, prompting Thelma to make a major cash contribution for an endowment to fund a Chair in Biological Control—effectively reviving and stabilizing the program.

The accolades that have come her way in recent years have come as something of a surprise, including her naming as a Member of the Order of Canada, and a YWCA Woman of Distinction. Her work and reputation have even led to two species of insects being named for her—for an entomologist, no doubt, a high honour.

“I’ve always been a very simple person, and thought I had nothing particular to offer. I don’t think I deserve it,” she says of her awards.

“But I’m awful pleased about it.”