Greg Evanylo receives Alumni Award for Excellence in Extension

Greg Evanylo, of Blacksburg, Extension specialist in the Department of Crop and Environmental Sciences in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, has received Virginia Tech’s 2004 Alumni Award for Excellence in Extension.

The award was presented at a ceremony held to honor the university’s most distinguished faculty and staff members.

Established in 1976 by the Virginia Tech Alumni Association, the Alumni Award for Excellence in Extension is presented each year to recognize outstanding members of the Extension faculty.

Evanylo’s research-supported Extension program addresses the management and use of wastes as they effect agricultural productivity and water quality. His program has become a model for Extension programs that deal with by-product processing and protecting soil and water quality nationally.

One of Evanylo’s greatest accomplishments has been to calibrate waste, soil and plant testing methods that are employed to reduce the unnecessary application to agricultural land of nutrients from fertilizers, animal manure, wastewater treatment biosolids, industrial sludges, and other waste by-products.

Evanylo has expanded his investigation and education of environmental quality into the relatively new area of soil health, especially as it is affected by the use of waste by-products as soil amendments. His educational soil-quality kits have hastened the adoption of enhanced environmental quality nationally.

He received a bachelor's in biology from the University of Connecticut, a master's in plant and soil sciences from the University of Massachusetts, and a Ph.D. in agronomy from the University of Georgia. He is a member of the Soil Science Society of America, the American Society of Agronomy (ASA), the Water Environment Federation, the Virginia Water Environment Association, the U.S. Composting Council, and the Mid Atlantic Composting Association. He has received the ASA Extension publication award and the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality Certificate of Recognition for contributions made to improve wastewater treatment-plant operations through biosolids composting instruction.

Consistently ranked by the National Science Foundation among the top 10 institutions in agricultural research, Virginia Tech’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences offers students the opportunity to learn from some of the world’s leading agricultural scientists. The college’s comprehensive curriculum gives students a balanced education that ranges from food and fiber production to economics to human health. The college is a national leader in incorporating technology, biotechnology, computer applications, and other recent scientific advances into its teaching program.

Founded in 1872 as a land-grant college, Virginia Tech has grown to become the largest university in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Today, Virginia Tech’s eight colleges are dedicated to putting knowledge to work through teaching, research, and outreach activities and to fulfilling its vision to be among the top research universities in the nation. At its 2,600-acre main campus located in Blacksburg and other campus centers in Northern Virginia, Southwest Virginia, Hampton Roads, Richmond, and Roanoke, Virginia Tech enrolls more than 28,000 full- and part-time undergraduate and graduate students from all 50 states and more than 100 countries in 170 academic degree programs.