Fall 2011

Many mourned when the ancient sycamore on Henderson lawn at Virginia Tech had to be cut down last year. The exact age of the tree is unknown, but it had been on campus since Virginia Tech’s establishment in 1872.

A group of students spent their 2011 spring break in Letterfrack, Ireland, learning about design and project management at the Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology

The Virginia Tech Forestry Club hosted a “Timberbeast” competition last winter as a warm-up to the annual Southern Forestry Conclave.

Joe Davis of Sarasota, Fla., a senior majoring in conservation and recreation management, earned his first All-American honor.

Wildlife science doctoral student Sarah DuRant’s research on wood ducks continues to be well received by the scientific community.

Brandon Fair, a sophomore fisheries science major from Mount Sidney, Va., earned second place in the Virginia Outdoor Writers Association, Inc., Collegiate undergraduate Writing Contest.

Virginia Tech intramural sports graduate assistant Jeff Feldhaus, who is working towards a master’s degree in forestry, was chosen for the second consecutive year to officiate the American Collegiate Intramural Sports National Flag Football Tournament last winter.

Candice Luebbering became the first student to complete a doctorate in the history of the Virginia Tech geography department, earning her degree in geospatial and environmental analysis in May 2011.

Students have established Lean@VirginiaTech, an organization dedicated to helping businesses become more competitive and profitable through education and hands-on support.

Senior Scott McDonald created an elliptical coffee table dubbed “Magnus.” It can be rotated to form a rosette shape using magnets embedded under the table’s laminate surface.

Forestry Professor Tom Fox spent the fall 2010 semester working on a research project that compared carbon dynamics and carbon sequestration in tree plantations and native forests in Chile.

Science, the world’s leading journal of original scientific research, featured the findings of a global team of cellulose researchers, including Professor Barry Goodell.

Jason Holliday, assistant professor of forest genetics and biotechnology, is using a $1.5 million Faculty Early Career Development Program grant from the National Science Foundation to gain insight into how tree populations adapt at the genomic scale as a result of climate change.

A new study published in the Journal of Forestry has found that the U.S. Forest Service paid $6.1 million in legal fees to groups that have successfully sued it from 1999 to 2005.