Nina Lauren Bassuk (born February 16, 1952) is an Emeritus Professor and program leader of the Urban Horticulture Institute at

Cornell University Cornell University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university based in Ithaca, New York, United States. The university was co-founded by American philanthropist Ezra Cornell and historian and educator Andrew Dickson W ...

Education

Bassuk received her B.S. in

Horticulture Horticulture (from ) is the art and science of growing fruits, vegetables, flowers, trees, shrubs and ornamental plants. Horticulture is commonly associated with the more professional and technical aspects of plant cultivation on a smaller and mo ...

from

in 1974 and her Ph.D. in Horticulture from the

University of London The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in Post-nominal letters, post-nominals) is a collegiate university, federal Public university, public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The ...

in 1980.

Research and career

Bassuk has worked in the Horticulture Department of Cornell University since 1980. In 1993, she became the program leader at the Urban Horticulture Institute. Her teaching, research and extension efforts aspire to enhance the function and health of plants growing in

urban Urban means "related to a city". In that sense, the term may refer to: * Urban area, geographical area distinct from rural areas * Urban culture, the culture of towns and cities Urban may also refer to: General * Urban (name), a list of people ...

and disturbed areas. She helped to develop the Student Weekend Arborist Team (SWAT) to inventory public trees in small communities. Her findings have led to the development of the Woody Plants Database whose focus is on

woody plants A woody plant is a plant that produces wood as its structural tissue and thus has a hard stem. In cold climates, woody plants further survive winter or dry season above ground, as opposed to herbaceous plants that die back to the ground until s ...

used for landscaping in the Northeast. Through her work researching the physiological problems of plants growing in

urban environments An urban area is a human settlement with a high population density and an infrastructure of built environment. Urban areas originate through urbanization, and researchers categorize them as cities, towns, conurbations or suburbs. In urbani ...

, she has developed several technologies to improve establishment and health of plants, including development of ‘CU- Structural Soil,’ for which she holds a patent with her colleague Jason Grabosky. As the program leader at the Urban Horticulture Institute, she has developed hybrid oak trees to be especially tolerant of urban conditions. She has authored over 100 papers focusing on the

physiological Physiology (; ) is the science, scientific study of function (biology), functions and mechanism (biology), mechanisms in a life, living system. As a branches of science, subdiscipline of biology, physiology focuses on how organisms, organ syst ...

problems of plants growing in urban environments. In 2017, she was asked by the

National Park Service The National Park Service (NPS) is an List of federal agencies in the United States, agency of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government, within the US Department of the Interior. The service manages all List ...

to evaluate the elm trees planted on the

National Mall The National Mall is a Landscape architecture, landscaped park near the Downtown, Washington, D.C., downtown area of Washington, D.C., the capital city of the United States. It contains and borders a number of museums of the Smithsonian Institu ...

to ensure their protection and preservation. Nina serves on the technical advisory committee of the Sustainable Sites Initiative and is on the board of New York State Urban Forestry Council. She retired from Cornell in 2022.

Selected Publications

Books

* Coauthor, ''Trees in the Urban Landscape'' with

Peter Trowbridge Peter Trowbridge is an American landscape architect, Emeritus Professor, and former Chair of Landscape Architecture at Cornell University Education He received an AS from Alfred State University, a BS/BLA degree from Syracuse University, Env ...

Research articles

* Yin, J., Bassuk, N. L., Oldburg, M. W., & Bauerle, T. L. (2014)
Fine Root Hydraulic Conductance is Related to Post-transplant Recovery of Two Quercus Tree SpeciesJournal of the American Society for Horticultural Science
139:649-656. * Cowett, F., & Bassuk, N. L. (2014). Statewide assessment of street trees in New York State, USA
Urban Forestry & Urban Greening
13:213-220. * Cowett, F., & Bassuk, N. L. (2012). SWAT (Student Weekend Arborist Team)
A Model for Land Grant Institutions and Cooperative Extension Systems to Conduct Street Tree InventoriesJournal of Extension
50:Article EFEA9. * Loh, Felix CW, Jason C. Grabosky, and Nina L. Bassuk
"Using the SPAD 502 meter to assess chlorophyll and nitrogen content of benjamin fig and cottonwood leaves."HortTechnology
12.4 (2002): 682-686. * Buckstrup, Michelle J., and Nina L. Bassuk.
Transplanting success of balled-and-burlapped versus bare-root trees in the urban landscape.
Journal of Arboriculture 26.6 (2000): 298-308.

Awards

* 2015 Olmsted Award, National Arbor Day Foundation"DR. NINA BASSUK RECEIVES 2015 ARBOR DAY AWARD." ''States News Service'' 6 Apr. 2015. ''Infotrac Newsstand''. Web. 7 Mar. 2016.

References

External links

* https://hort.cals.cornell.edu/people/nina-bassuk * http://www.hort.cornell.edu/uhi/ * https://nysufc.org/the-nina-bassuk-retirement-interview/2022/07/14/ {{DEFAULTSORT:Bassuk, Nina Cornell University College of Agriculture and Life Sciences alumni Cornell University faculty American landscape architects American women landscape architects American horticulturists Living people 1952 births Women horticulturists and gardeners 21st-century American botanists American women academics American women scientists Cornell University alumni