katie Commender

Appalachian Sustainable Development (ASD)

Katie Commender, Director of Agroforestry at Appalachian Sustainable Development (ASD), started her agroforestry career in 2012 as ASD’s Agroforestry AmeriCorps VISTA, where she trained beginning forest farmers and developed a multifunctional riparian forest buffer program with U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. In 2016, Katie received her M.S. in Forestry from Virginia Tech, where she served as an agroforestry teaching assistant and researched preferences and intentions for riparian buffer adoption and retention. In 2017, she founded the Appalachian Harvest Herb Hub to help medicinal herb farmers sustainably grow, process, and market herbs to premium domestic and international markets. Most recently, Katie led a network of inter-regional partners to launch Agroforestry Trainings for Natural Resource Professionals to build out technical assistance capacity for farmers. When not whipping up foraged ramp biscuits and pawpaw smoothies, Katie is gardening, hiking, paddling, and skiing her way through the Appalachians.