Meet the Team: Tonya Pruitt

The National Center for Earth and Environmental Nanotechnology Infrastructure (NanoEarth) continues the Meet the Team Series with NanoEarth Assistant Director Tonya Pruitt.

Pruitt began her academic journey at Virginia Tech, completing two Bachelor of Science Degrees in Biochemistry and Agricultural and Extension Education, while working in the Virginia FFA office on campus. Pruitt loved Virginia Tech and the Blacksburg area and, after graduation, decided to find a full-time position on campus. She accepted an administrative role in the Laboratory for Interdisciplinary Statistical Analysis (LISA). The lab allowed statistics graduate students to collaborate with others to better incorporate appropriate statistical methods into their research projects. While working full-time, she began her journey to complete a Masters of Arts in Education focused in Higher Education and Student Affairs. These experiences led her into a management and leadership role at NanoEarth. NanoEarth allowed her to work closely with physical scientists in the Earth and Environmental sciences and complete her graduate degree in 2022.

As the NanoEarth Assistant Director, Pruitt works closely with NanoEarth’s Director Mitsu Murayama, Ph.D.. She actively manages day-to-day operations, recruits new users, promotes inter-office collaboration, and leads the group to assist in solving environmental challenges.

Within the National Nanotechnology Coordinated Infrastructure (NNCI), Pruitt frequently collaborates with other sites, such as on joint outreach activities. She is part of several working groups, including the Education and Outreach Coordinators, Education and Outreach Evaluation Assessment, Workforce Development and Community Colleges, and Innovation and Entrepreneurship (I&E). She actively leads NanoEarth’s involvement in the Nanoscience in the Earth and Environmental Sciences Research Community and led the efforts on the I&E Working Group’s Economic Impact Survey.

There are many moments and events that she cherishes from her time with NanoEarth. At a Virginia Tech Science Festival, she met an elementary school student, who ended up partnering with NanoEarth scientists for his annual science festival projects. She led a group of community college research scholars from New York for a multi-day visit, planned a visit to Blacksburg for Japanese high school students, and orchestrated annual Teacher Workshops at Virginia Tech. The position has allowed her to travel to NNCI Annual Conferences across the country at other NNCI sites, to the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), and to Japan to visit Kyushu University’s Nanotechnology Platform node during a conference.

In her free time, she spends time with her husband David and their three cats, Miko, Tom and Stout. She enjoys board games, video games, and hiking. Her advice to young professionals is to not “be afraid to follow your interests into new areas of science or science-adjacent fields”.