News Archive - 2017

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40 Under 40: LeRoya Chester Jennings

Founding Partner of Chester Jennings & Smith LeRoya Chester Jennings of Atlanta (B.S., psychology, '01) is among the University of Georgia Alumni Association 40 Under 40 Class of 2017: a former prosecutor who has worked in various prosecuting agencies - the City of Atlanta, the Fulton County District Attorney's Office, the Coweta County Solicitor's Office and the DeKalb County Solicitor's Office. Chester Jennings is also dedicated to…

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40 Under 40: Dorian Lamis

The University of Georgia Alumni Association 40 Under 40 Class of 2017 celebrates Emory University School of Medicine faculty member and Franklin alumnus Dorian Lamis: Dr. Lamis is a licensed clinical psychologist, completing both his internship and postdoctoral training at the Emory University School of Medicine.  His research focuses on mood disorders, substance use, and suicidal behaviors in a variety of populations including adolescents…

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40 Under 40: Maritza McClendon

The first African American woman to earn a spot on the U.S. Olympic swim team, on which she won a silver medal in the 2004 games in Athens, Maritza McClendon rounds the Franklin College graduates in the 2017 class of the Alumni Association 40 Under 40: Born in Puerto Rico in 1981, Maritza Correia is the first black female swimmer to break an American record, setting new records in both the 50- and 100-yard freestyle events at the Women's NCAA…

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The history of summer vacation

Professor Stephen Mihm shares a history of how summer vacation took hold on the pages of Bloomberg: By the early 20th century, the idea that parents and children alike needed to rest their brains and commune with the great outdoors had become an article of faith among the middle class.  While summer vacation never grew to the outsized proportions found in many European countries, it has nonetheless persisted as an American ritual, with July…

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The Benefits of Being Bilingual

From cross-cultural and social adaptability to increased intelligence, cognition and empathy, there are a number of ways to approach the myriad benefits of knowing multiple languages. Included among these, brain fitness: Multilingualism has been shown to have many social, psychological and lifestyle advantages. Moreover, researchers are finding a swathe of health benefits from speaking more than one language, including faster stroke recovery and…

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The science of rain delays

Spatio-temporal rainfall patterns around Atlanta, Georgia and possible relationships to urban land cover. Great stuff. Baseball fans (and teams) are weather watchers comparable perhaps only to farmers. This new work builds on the urban heat island phenomenon Shepherd has published on previously, and like the best science, may help the public make sense out of a puzzling situation.  

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Third Emmy nomination for alumnus Tituss Burgess

Actor Tituss Burgess (AB Music 2001) was recently nominated for an Emmy Award for the third time, profiled in the Washington Post: Even in a show as whacked-out and packed with funny people as Netflix’s doomsday-cult comedy “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt,” Titus Andromedon has a way of stealing a scene. The character, an actor with a voice from the heavens and a wardrobe from a costume shop’s clearance aisle, once sang in the…

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WUGA-FM celebrates 30 years on the air

Congratulations to our local public radio affiliate WUGA, which is celebrating 30 years in broadcasting: the NPR affiliate operated by the University of Georgia, is celebrating 30 years of being on the air. The station first went live on the morning of Aug. 28, 1987, and has been serving the Athens community ever since, offering both national and local programming. "There is no other radio station in this area that provides the kind of content…

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Alexander named director of Skidaway Institute of Oceanography

Marine sciences professor Clark Alexander has been named director of the University of Georgia Skidaway Institute of Oceanography: [Alexander] has served as interim director of the Skidaway Institute for the past year. As director of the Skidaway Institute, he will continue to oversee its personnel, budgets and facilities and report to the Office of the Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost. "The Skidaway Institute of…

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Anthropology professor helps Hollywood get 'Apes' right

A rare story combining social science scholarship and the entertainment industry brings anthropology professor Roberta Salmi to the movies: Recordings of gorilla sounds are extremely rare, so sounds used in the entertainment industry are generally not obtained from actual gorillas. In films, they are usually portrayed as screaming, aggressive beasts, when they are actually the opposite. For this summer's blockbuster "War for the Planet of the…