Tags: environment

University of Georgia professor J. Marshall Shepherd was recently named the recipient of the prestigious 2023 Environmental Achievement Award. This accolade is presented annually by the Environmental Law Institute to individuals or organizations that have made notable contributions to environmental protection, conservation and sustainability. “Dr. Shepherd’s outstanding career and commitment to understanding and communicating about climate…

Creative Writing Program doctoral student Holly Haworth is among the winners of the prestigious 2023 Robert B. Silvers Foundation grant for her book-in-progress. The Robert B. Silvers Foundation is a charitable trust established at the bequest of the late Robert B. Silvers, a founding editor of The New York Review of Books, with the aim of supporting writers in the fields of long-form literary and art criticism, the intellectual essay,…

More than a year in the making, a new lecture series featuring University of Georgia faculty member Suzanne Pilaar Birch "Early Humans: Ice, Stone, and Survival" is now streaming on Wondrium. The 20-episode series tells the story of humanity's journey from our earliest origins in Africa to the emergence of agriculture, examines the role of climate and environmental change in driving these transitions, and how archaeological science is helping us…

University of Georgia oceanographer Samantha Joye has been awarded the 2022 Captain Don Walsh Award for Ocean Exploration. Awarded jointly by the Marine Technology Society and the Society for Underwater Technology, the award is named for American oceanographer and marine policy specialist Capt. Don Walsh, who co-piloted the bathyscaph Trieste when it made its daunting record descent on Jan. 23, 1960, into the deepest point of the world…

Colorful leaf patterns imprinted on fabric, along with the wool fibers that create its structure, weave the story of Franklin College/Warnell School double major Jay Reddish. Kristen Morales of the Warnell School shares the story: The blending of art and nature on the dress represent how Reddish is also combining aspects of their dual major at UGA: parks, recreation and tourism management at the Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources…

Archaeologists have hypothesized that more than 4,500 years ago, communities on barrier islands along the southeastern coastlines of the North America were abruptly abandoned due to a sudden shift in climate. But new research from the University of Georgia Laboratory of Archaeology indicates that environmental change was happening both during the settlement of these island villages and—over centuries longer than previously…

A new children’s book published in three languages focuses on the Wounaan, Indigenous people of Panama and Colombia, and their relationships with birds. A collaborative effort, the book results from two projects supported by the Global Environment Facility and UNDP Small Grants Program and the US-based non-profit Native Future on bird guiding, birds and culture, and forest restoration in Panama. The Wounaan National Congress and the Foundation…

A delegation of seven students and scholars representing the University of Georgia at the 24th Annual Southeast Model African Union (SEMAU) simulation in Georgia College and State University, Milledgeville, Nov. 3 – 6, 2021 won the “Most Outstanding Delegation Award.”  The SEMAU simulation is a student-centered undertaking designed to assist students in gaining valuable knowledge of diplomatic codes of behavior as well…

Increasingly extreme heat threatens the health and comfort of city dwellers. That’s why researchers from the University of Georgia have developed a new dynamic heat exposure index that captures varying heat exposure within urban environments. “This is the first time a dynamic heat exposure model has been proposed, thanks in part to recent technological advances in sensing and big data,” said Deepak Mishra, professor, associate head of…

The asteroid Vesta is the second largest asteroid in our solar system. With a diameter of about 330 miles, it orbits the sun between the planets Mars and Jupiter. Asteroids have long played a part in building popular fascination with space. “Marooned off Vesta” was the first story published by American writer Isaac Asimov, the third story he wrote, appearing in the March 1939 issue of the science fiction magazine Amazing Stories. “When…

University of Georgia researcher Kaixiong Ye has received a Maximizing Investigators Research Award from the National Institutes of Health. The nearly $2 million, five-year award will support efforts to characterize gene-environment interactions, or genetic effects modified by environment, underlying complex traits in humans. The MIRA is a grant to provide support for a program of research in an early-stage investigator’s laboratory that…

Researchers at the University of Georgia Skidaway Institute of Oceanography have partnered with the University of North Carolina Wilmington (UNCW) and others in an ambitious project to use a dedicated nanosatellite to study ocean color. The nanosatellite, the SeaHawk-1 CubeSat, is about the size of a loaf of bread and weighs less than 11 pounds. Launched in 2018, it has undergone extensive testing and evaluation. It is now…

Doctoral student uses dendrochronology—the study of tree rings—to explore the ancient environment, constructing a 5,177-year chronology of the Georgia coast, the longest in eastern North America: Kat Napora didn’t plan to study trees. The UGA grad student originally worked on shell middens, or ancient trash piles. She’d planned to continue researching them in Ireland, but a tip from a colleague led her to a site…

New research from UGA Anthropology has found that the practice of feeding wildlife could be more detrimental to animals than previously thought. In a paper published recently in Nature Scientific Reports, researchers found that feeding wildlife can disrupt the social lives of animal communities, which they discovered by observing and documenting the behavior of moor macaque monkeys along a wooded roadway on the island of Sulawesi in eastern…

Valentine Nzengung, professor of environmental geochemistry in the Franklin College Department of Geology who has conducted groundbreaking research on phytoremediation techniques, has been named a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors, becoming the eighth UGA faculty member to receive the honor, all since 2013: Nzengung is the founder and CEO of MuniRem Environmental, which provides remediation products and services for…

The new documentary series Let Science Speak premiered September 20 on Youtube and the Let Science Speak website. The new six-part series aimed at combatting the “escalating efforts to suppress environmental science and silence scientists,” as well as stressing the importance of the work scientists are doing, features our own J. Marshall Shepherd and was filmed partially on the UGA campus: It’s not just scientists who lose…

From higher storm surge and more frequent flooding along the coast, to erratic weather patterns that affect the many industries connected to agriculture and forestry, the state of Georgia and its citizens face a growing array of challenges related to climate change. Now, a multi-disciplinary team of experts from across the state has developed the Georgia Climate Research Roadmap, a list of 40 key questions that can help Georgia’s policymakers…

The Striepen lab is one of UGA's outstanding research teams, conducting the painstaking, laborious, long-term research that can turn the tide against some of the worst communicable scourages known to man. An important aspect of Dr. Striepen's work is taching graduate and postdoctoral students the methods and culture of a successful researvh enterprise. Those efforts have been rewarded with a $1.25 million NIH grant announced today, to support…

Very big news out of cellular biology and the Striepen lab in the fight against a parasite known as a major cause of suffering throughout the developing world: Researchers at the University of Georgia have developed new tools to study and genetically manipulate cryptosporidium, a microscopic parasite that causes the diarrheal disease cryptosporidiosis. Their discoveries, published in the journal Nature, will ultimately help researchers in…