Tom Hammett, a professor in the Department of Wood Science and Forest Products in Virginia Tech's College of Natural Resources, has been invited by the Sustainable Forest and Nature Management Commission, also known as SUFONAMA, to teach as a Scholar of Excellence in the Erasmus Mundus Masters Course at Georg-August University in Goettingen, Germany.

The Erasmus Mundus Masters Course on SUFONAMA focuses on the demand for forest and nature resources and the rising pressures on the environment. The two-year internationally integrated course emphasizes the need to ensure the sustainability of natural resources and researches different methods of sustainable management. The program, which is European Union funded, has awarded Hammett the SUFONAMA Scholar Scholarship as part of his stay at the institution.

As a Scholar of Excellence, Hammett will play a vital role at Georg-August University (http://www.uni-goettingen.de/) by establishing an international seminar on non-timber forest products curriculum development. “I will help establish e-learning and distance learning procedures for the course, while also instructing a course on the issues of non-timber forest products. I am looking forward to my time in Germany as it will help SUFONAMA’s research,” Hammett stated.

He has also recently co-created a study abroad program, “Sustaining Human Societies and the Natural Environment,” which teaches many of the elements he is now researching during his time in Germany.

Hammett received his bachelor of science from the University of New Hampshire, and his master of forest resources and Ph.D. from the University of Georgia.

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