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MASBio 2025

About

MASBio is a USDA NIFA (National Institute of Food and Agriculture)-funded project to promote sustainability and bioeconomy. This consortium of scientists from academia, government agencies, and partners from the wood product industry collaborate on integrated and transdisciplinary research, education, and extension projects that aim to facilitate and foster development of the bioeconomy and rural prosperity in the Mid-Atlantic region. The ultimate goal of this project is to deliver a sustainable and economically feasible biomass for value-added products system:

  • Sustainable Feedstocks
    Identify and demonstrate feasible and cost-effective approaches to soil amendment and feedstock production.
  • Supply Chain and Logistics Optimization
    Harvest, logistics and supply chain management aim to demonstrate efficient and effective harvest and logistics strategies for an optimized supply chain of integrated biomass crops and forest residues for continuous industrial use.
  • Value-added Products
    Dive into the world of innovative conversion processing and its role in enhancing the utilization of biomass for high-value chemicals and bioproducts.
  • Outreach and Business Support
    Outreach activities engage and educate farmers, landowners, stakeholders, policy makers, and other professionals. Entrepreneurial and bio-business development opportunities are supported through demonstrations of the engineering processes and commercial applications. 
  • Education
    Engage the next generation of bioproducts leaders through education and internship programs.
  • Sustainability
    Evaluate the sustainability and human dimensions of the developed system.

MASBio’s impact over the years includes:

  • 1,000 people engaged
  • 59 students involved (undergraduate, master’s, Ph.D.)
  • 40 outreach activities
  • 15 programs delivered (college-level courses and teacher training)
  • 200 academic programs
  • 49 peer-reviewed publications

This collaborative initiative includes eight universities, two U.S. Department of Energy national laboratories, the USDA Forest Service (RMRS and FPL), and twelve industry partners:

This work is supported by the Sustainable Agricultural Systems project, award no. 2020-68012-31881, from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture.