Research Awards and Grants (March 2025)

Each month College of Natural Resources faculty receive awards and grants from various federal, state, and nongovernmental agencies in support of their research. This report recognizes the faculty who received funding in March 2025.

Identifying potential locations for expanded, reactivated and new wood processing facilities to improve financial prospects and prioritize wildfire risk mitigation funding in the Priority Investment Landscapes of California, United States

• PI: Baker, Justin
• Direct Sponsor Name: California Department of Forestry & Fire Protection (CAL FIRE)
• Awarded Amount: $84,926 
• Abstract:  This project will identify Priority Investment Landscapes (PILs), quantify potential biomass volumes from vegetation management and wildfire fuel reduction treatments in these landscapes, and assess the role of existing market infrastructure to reveal areas where additional facilities could support active forest management for the next 20- 30 years.

CAREER: Harnessing the Self-assembly of Renewable Nanomaterials by Exploiting Topochemical Interactions with Solid Substrates for Controlled Design of Advanced Sustainable Materials.

• PI: Lavoine, Nathalie
• Direct Sponsor Name: National Science Foundation (NSF)
• Awarded Amount: $100,689 
• Abstract:  The physical and chemical factors that govern the self-assembly of nanomaterials produced from renewable matter (e.g., plants) are yet to be clearly identified. Such an understanding is crucial for designing and engineering advanced sustainable products as replacements for fossil-fuel materials. Controlled anchoring and pinning of liquid-state self-assembled structures on solid surfaces are particularly key steps for product development such as responsive coatings, templated synthesis, lab-on-a-chip, actuators, organic semiconductors, and photovoltaics, but very little is known about nanoparticle assembling and anchoring onto a variety of substrates, and how to control their behavior at the liquid-solid interface. The goal of my CAREER program is to thus develop a firm scientific foundation to harness the self-assembly of renewable nanomaterials on solid surfaces for the controlled design of advanced sustainable materials…

The Rural Tourism Institute: Leveraging Land-Grant Universities to Support Sustainable Rural Tourism Development in Appalachian

• PI: Savage, Ann
• Direct Sponsor Name: West Virginia University (ARC)
• Amount Awarded: $37,272 
• Abstract: The goal of the proposed Rural Tourism Institute is to fully leverage the resources of the region land-grant universities to support rural destination organizations and cooperatively create a sustainable rural destination management ecosystem. An ARC ARISE planning grant will allow Extension and academic faculty partners in West Virginia, North Carolina, and Kentucky to develop the curriculum and research methodology that will form the basis for an implementation grant proposal. The implementation phase will launch the pilot program designed to create a regional and national model for land-grant university partnerships to provide education, research, and capacity support for destination management organizations and long-term partnerships for sustainable destination management.

Simulating Floodplain Inundation Dynamics using Landis-II

• PI: Scheller, Robert
• Direct Sponsor Name: US Geological Survey (USGS)
• Awarded Amount: $30,000 
• Abstract: Flooding is an important aspect of many forests, where seasonal or severe flooding can cause reductions in tree growth or mortality of trees. These factors are clearly important in understanding and managing floodplain forests, but inundation is poorly represented in most dynamic modeling software. We will develop an extension to LANDIS-II to simulate the effects of flooding on tree growth and mortality and use this software to generate projections of climate impacts on forests along the Mississippi River floodplain.