Episode Details

On this week's show we'll be discussing American chestnut with Vasiliy Lakoba from the national organization--The American Chestnut Foundation (TACF). As many of you know, American chestnut has been made "functionally extinct" from the devastating chestnut blight brought in from Asia in the last century. We'll discuss how TACF plans to bring back the tree as well as their recent parting with SUNY College of Enviornmental Science & Forestry's transgenic chestnut project as well. 

Vasiliy Lakoba is Director of Research and Restoration with The American Chestnut Foundation (TACF). TACF's mission of restoring the American chestnut tree has been driving diverse approaches to establishing disease resistant trees throughout the eastern U.S. for over 40 years. Vasiliy's work with TACF spans applied tree improvement and evaluation, species reintroduction, and public engagement. He holds a PhD from Virginia Tech and his prior work includes forest understory restoration, invasion ecology, species distribution modeling, and ecophysiology. Vasiliy serves as Board Vice President of the North American Invasive Species Management Association and is passionate about nonprofit models of long-term environmental conservation.