Susan Day, an associate professor of urban forestry at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg, has been selected as the winner of the 2017 L.C. Chadwick Award of Arboricultural Research from the International Society of Arboriculture. The organization has more than 30,000 members worldwide.
Dr. Day’s research focuses on finding practical information to improve tree health and canopy cover in urban environments. She has recently studied soil profile rebuilding, a technique to rehabilitating soils degraded by land development. “I look at the soil and think if we can manage it well, we will create better opportunities for the urban forest,” Dr. Day says.
Dr. Day is a graduate of Yale University. She holds a master’s degree from Cornell University and a Ph.D. from Virginia Tech.