Valerie A. Thomas awarded Thomas M. Brooks Forestry Professorship

Valerie A. Thomas, professor of forest remote sensing in the College of Natural Resources and Environment at Virginia Tech, has been awarded Thomas M. Brooks Forestry Professorship by the Virginia Tech Board of Visitors.

The Thomas M. Brooks Professorship in the Department of Forest Resources and Conservation was established in 1980 to express the value of Virginia forest lands and the contributions to economic vitality provided by the greater forest-based industry.

A member of the Virginia Tech community since 2007, Thomas is an internationally recognized scholar in the field of remote sensing of forest ecosystems, forest cover and condition, and forest change. Her research program combines cutting-edge sensor technologies with the development of novel algorithms, resulting in widely respected contributions to understanding and managing forested landscapes. She has published extensively in leading journals of her field.

Her research has been supported through numerous competitive grants from sponsors including the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the U.S. Geological Survey, NASA, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Virginia Department of Forestry, the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries, and the National Council for Air and Stream Improvement.

She has served as principal investigator and co-principal investigator on multi-investigator, multi-institution projects. As examples, her work contributed to the scientific team of the National Land Cover Database Tree Canopy Cover Product, to mapping of coastal degradation in the eastern United States, and to assessment of the impacts of forest management in the United States, India, and elsewhere.

In the classroom, she has made significant contributions to the department curriculum, developing innovative courses and enriching the learning experiences of both undergraduate and graduate students. She is a co-author of the introductory textbook "Introduction to Remote Sensing, Sixth Edition" (Campbell, Wynne, Thomas, 2023). She is a dedicated mentor to graduate students, and many of her students now hold prominent positions in academia, government, and industry.

She holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Guelph and a master’s degree and Ph.D. from Queen’s University, all in Canada.