Faculty Research
We’re bringing all our knowledge and skills to the table
There are more pressures and demands being placed on our planet’s resources than ever before, and, thus, there is also a greater need to preserve and build capacity for the future. Our faculty are tackling these challenges as they engage in applied and practical research that seeks to help us understand and solve some of our most complex global problems. Along the way, they are also training the next generation of leaders and policymakers who will carry on this legacy.
Jennifer Russell is blazing a new path that will merge research about natural resources and materials science with an innovative perspective incorporating environmental resources considerations with social and economic benefits.
She co-authored a U.N. report about realigning the manufacturing industry to decrease waste and stimulate economic growth and received a National Science Foundation grant to tackle the challenge of recycling polyurethane foams by applying life-cycle thinking.
We’re taking on the big issues — and we won’t give up
As a society, the environmental challenges we are facing can seem overwhelming. That’s why a sense of optimism is critical and drives our faculty-led research projects. The work that is happening in the college impacts management and policy decisions related to every aspect and area of the natural environment, from the atmosphere to what’s on the ground, in the soil, and in the water.
Below are just a few of the critical research areas in which CNRE faculty are working. Click on each to read more about recent research:
- Agroforestry production and markets
- Atmospheric flash droughts
- Atmospheric processes and tornado risks
- Bird feeding and human well-being
- Clean water in India
- Circular economic model
- Communities adapting to rising seas
- Conservation of big cats in Belize
- Disappearance of hellbenders
- Ecological forecasting
- Geographic biases in ChatGPT
- How people interact with spaces
- Impacts of salt in freshwater streams
- Merging wildlife conservation and community health
- Population and distribution of flounder
- Shark catch and mortality rates
- Soil carbon processes
- Virus transmission from vampire bats
Our faculty are world-renowned experts in their fields
They are scholars, researchers, innovators, and change agents. They are leaders who take on the problems of the world and look for solutions, and then teach those who will follow them to ensure that their work will continue.
They are the world’s experts and they are right here at Virginia Tech.
Luis Escobar wants to answer the unsolved questions of how, when, and where cross-species virus transmission might next occur in wildlife. He’s traveled to Columbia with student researchers to understand how vampire bats can help predict and prevent the next pandemic.
Escobar has received a National Institute of Health award to study the spread of rabies to humans, as well as National Science Foundation funding to research the transmission of hantavirus as a means to determine how climate change may influence virus spillover.
Faculty research in the news
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Research aims to bring a circular revolution to industry , articleCollege of Natural Resources and Environment researchers are gaining insights from value-retention processes and natural systems to explore how to transition industry toward a sustainable future.
Date: Mar 15, 2024 -
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Forensic science combats wildlife trafficking , articleA $2.6 million grant will fund a new wildlife forensic center in Botswana as part of Virginia Tech’s ongoing collaborations with the government of the Republic of Botswana to foster conservation and global research initiatives in Africa.
Date: Feb 06, 2024 -
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Researchers use environmental justice questions to reveal geographic biases in ChatGPT , articleAssistant Professor Junghwan Kim has discovered limitations in ChatGPT’s capacity to provide specific information about environmental justice issues, suggesting a geographic bias in large-language artificial intelligence models.
Date: Dec 15, 2023