Chip Frazier named Thomas M. Brooks Professor of Wood Science and Forest Products
Charles E. "Chip" Frazier of Blacksburg, professor of wood science and forest products in the College of Natural Resources at Virginia Tech, has been appointed the Thomas M. Brooks Professor of Wood Science and Forest Products by the Virginia Tech Board of Visitors during the board's quarterly meeting March 26.
The Thomas M. Brooks Professorship was established in 1980 to express the value of Virginia forest lands and the contributions to economic vitality provided by the greater forest-based industry. The professorship is limited to senior faculty in the Department of Wood Science and Forest Products.
Brooks was a prominent Virginia lumberman who strongly supported the College of Natural Resources. His endowment to the college created two named professorships. The Thomas M. Brooks professor of forestry is Harold Burkhart, head of the department of forestry. The Thomas M. Brooks Forest Products Center, which houses over half of the department of wood science and forest products faculty, staff, and large processing equipment, is located on the edge of campus near the Virginia Tech airport.
A member of the Virginia Tech faculty for 14 years, Frazier has been an active member of the university-wide Center for Adhesive and Sealant Science, and is one of the founding members of the Macromolecules and Interfaces Institute. He serves as director of the Wood Based Composites Center in the Department of Wood Science and Forest Products. Frazier is also active in the Sustainable Engineered Materials Institute.
Frazier has received approximately $6 million in research grants and contracts and has been successful in obtaining new funding from the competitive USDA National Research Initiative. His research in wood adhesives and adhesion has been widely communicated internationally through peer reviewed journals, by his participation in conferences, and through his web-based outreach program.
In addition, Frazier is conducting research in the area of wood rheology, an area that will be important to realizing the full impacts of genetically-engineered wood.
His graduate students have won recognition on four occasions through the highly coveted Wood Award of the Forest Products Society. In addition to guiding students in wood science, he has produced graduates in materials engineering, engineering science and mechanics, macromolecular science and engineering, and chemistry. He has received several departmental teaching awards and has received Virginia Tech’s Sporn Award for Excellence in Teaching Introductory Subjects. He was recognized in 1999 for his instruction of Survey of Organic Chemistry, a course he continues to teach.
Frazier received a master’s degree from the University of Washington and a bachelor’s degree and Ph.D. from Virginia Tech.
The department of wood science and forest products is home to the Center for Forest Products Marketing and Management, the Center for Unit Load Design, the Wood-Based Composites Center, the Sustainable Engineered Materials Institute, and the award-winning Wood Magic Show for fourth- and fifth-grade children and their teachers. Through cooperation with the department of marketing in the Pamplin College of Business, the department co-directs the Alfred P. Sloan Forest Industries Center.
The College of Natural Resources at Virginia Tech consistently ranks among the top five programs of its kind in the nation. Faculty members stress both the technical and human elements of natural resources and instill in students a sense of stewardship and land-use ethics. Areas of studies include environmental resource management, fisheries and wildlife sciences, forestry, geospatial and environmental analysis, natural resource recreation, urban forestry, wood science and forest products, geography, and international development. Virginia Tech, the most comprehensive university in Virginia, is dedicated to quality, innovation, and results to the commonwealth, the nation, and the world.
