Catherine Bukowski
Catherine Bukowski is a PhD student at Virginia Tech currently researching the agroecological and community development factors influencing the design and management of community food forests with a focus on social dimensions. A community food forest (CFF) is a perennial polyculture food production system modeled after a forest ecosystem open to the public for harvesting. They are emerging across the United States in urban areas to address a variety of concerns from food security to social justice. Cathie has visited twenty four food forests across the United States where she collected data to analyze with the goal of understanding which factors are most important to stakeholders and to produce guidelines for best management practices. She will be publishing a book on her dissertation findings through Chelsea Green Publishing in 2017 with co-author John Munsell. She also helps maintain a small community food forest in Blacksburg at the local YMCA community garden. She has co-taught an undergraduate agroforestry class as well as help plan and co-teach an advanced agroforestry seminar. She is a member of the eXtension.org communities of practice for forest farming and community, local and regional food systems as well as a board member of the Association for Temperate Agroforestry.