Virginia Tech alumnus chosen as new director of Tidewater Agricultural Research and Extension Center
Matthew Chappell brings more than two decades of nursery and horticulture expertise to the position.
Virginia Tech alumnus Matthew Chappell is the new director of the Tidewater Agricultural Research and Extension Center.
Virginia Tech alumnus Matthew Chappell ’98, M.S. ’02, has been named the new director of the Tidewater Agricultural Research and Extension Center in Suffolk, Virginia.
Chappell comes to Virginia Tech from the University of Georgia, where he served as a horticulture professor and an Extension specialist.
“Like many of Tidewater Agricultural Research and Extension Center stakeholders, I don't consider agriculture a profession as much as it is a way of life. That mindset drives me, as the new director, to improve the economic and environmental sustainability of farms across the region while broadening Tidewater AREC's reach into our communities,” Chappell said. “As a research and extension center, we are uniquely positioned to serve as researchers, educators, and advocates for farming, which is still the largest private industry in the state. I certainly believe that the faculty and staff of Tidewater AREC share these sentiments, and this is precisely why I am excited to join this productive team.”
As a Virginia Tech student, Chappell earned his bachelor’s degree in horticulture and master’s degree in crop and soil and environmental sciences from the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. From 2000-01, he was granted by The Fulbright U.S. Student Program to serve as a Fulbright Fellow. In this prestigious role, he conducted research in the Crop Science Department at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (Sveriges Lantbruksuniversitet).
In 2007, he earned his Ph.D. in horticulture from the University of Georgia.
Chappell’s areas of expertise are nursery production and management, plant breeding/genetics, plant path pathology, and entomology. His diverse range of interests and skillsets will support and enhance the key disciplines of the Tidewater center, which include peanut, cotton and soybean agronomy, row crop entomology, as well as plant physiology and pathology.
His research interests include water quality and use/conservation, production systems, pest/disease/weed control, and business and marketing strategies.
- Written by Mary Hardbarger
