A researcher in Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences recently won second place in this year's competition for the Wood Award, sponsored by the Forest Products Society.

John Carlson, professor of molecular genetics in the College of Agricultural Sciences, has been chosen to receive the 2011-12 Alex and Jessie C. Black Award for Excellence in Research. The honor recognizes significant accomplishments in agricultural research at Penn State.

A forest products researcher in Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences is playing a role in a national effort to gauge the viability of wood and wood waste as feedstocks for jet fuel and other high-value co-products. As part of a multi-institutional consortium, Paul Smith, professor of forest products marketing at Penn State, will lead a group that will quantify environmental and social values and determine how those values influence purchasing decisions for biofuel-based products. "This is an exciting opportunity to work with a world-class team of industrial, academic and government researchers to address one of society's most pressing challenges," said Smith, who before coming to Penn State worked for five years as an industrial forester in Colorado and Montana, and for two years as operations manager for a wood products export-trading company in the Pacific Northwest.

Loggers, sawmill operators, value-added processors and forest landowners in Pennsylvania and surrounding states can get valuable business and operational knowledge by attending the Forest Products Equipment and Technology Exposition, June 3-4. Hosted by the Pennsylvania Forest Products Association in partnership with Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences and School of Forest Resources, the event will be held at the Ag Progress Days site at Rock Springs, on Pa. Route 45, nine miles southwest of State College.

A plant geneticist in Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences has received a $3.7 million grant from the National Science Foundation to develop genomics resources to address forest-health issues affecting hardwood trees. Principal investigator John Carlson, professor of molecular genetics in the college's School of Forest Resources and director of the Schatz Center for Tree Molecular Genetics, explained that the research is needed because of the increasing incidence of introduced exotic pests, diseases and invasive plants -- combined with climate change and forest fragmentation -- threatening the sustainability of forest ecosystems.

James Grace, deputy secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, was recently selected as the new Maurice K. Goddard chair in forestry and environmental resource conservation in Penn State's School of Forest Resources.