Tags: faculty

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Conservation in the age of a changing climate

Over Spring break, an International Scientific Conference on "Past Plant Diversity, Climate Change and Mountain Conservation," organized under the Belmont Forum's VULPES project, convened a five-day meeting at the University of Cuenca, in the city of Cuenca – a World Cultural Heritage Site, in southern Ecuador. The conference, organized by professor and undergraduate coordinator in the department of geography Fausto…

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Simons receives SEC Faculty Achievement Award

Distinguished Research Professor Ronald L. Simons has been named the University of Georgia’s recipient of the 2019 Southeastern Conference Faculty Achievement Award: The SEC award recognizes professors with outstanding records in teaching and scholarship and is administered by provosts at each of the 14 universities in the conference. Simons, who is a faculty member in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences’ department of …

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Kudos, March 2019

Congratulations to faculty and student award winners, the Georgia Debate Union, and distinguished keynote speakers announced among our colleagues this month. A sample of recent accomplishments: Gregory Simchick, a graduate student in the department of physics and astronomy, has been selected to participate in the 69th Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting taking place from 30 June to 05 July 2019 in Lindau, Germany. The most qualified young…

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'Statistical significance' reaches its limits

Scientists are re-assessing one of their own most fundamental measurements: the use of statistical significance in research findings (as well as funding). An editorial co-authored by UGA statistics professor Nicole Lazar and published this week in a special issue of The American Statistician urges scientists to stop using the term: The issue, Statistical Inference in the 21st Century: A World Beyond P<0.05, calls for an…

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Franklin faculty members receive 2019 Russell Awards

Three faculty members in the Franklin College, all former Lilly Teaching Fellows, have been named recipients of the Richard B. Russell Awards for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching, the university’s highest early career teaching honor: Vera Lee-Schoenfeld, associate professor of linguistics: Lee-Schoenfeld uses an inductive approach to her introductory and advanced syntax courses that guides students to collaboratively explore and analyze…

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Amazing student Sam Huffman

Senior biology major Sam Huffman is passionate about serving others as well as Spanish language and culture, and he plans to combine those as a bilingual physician who can make an impact for all patients seeking to gain informed access to health care: During my time at UGA, I have also been able to travel abroad through the UGA en España Program. The summer after my sophomore year, I studied abroad in Cádiz, Spain, for seven weeks. While…

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UGA Theatre presents world-premiere of three medieval farces

Beginning March 19, UGA Theatre presents Peas, Patelin and Purgation: Three Farcical Arts of the Deal, featuring a world-premiere translation directed by associate professor in the theatre and film studies department Marla Carlson: A down-on-his-luck lawyer sets off an endless chain of deceit that backfires on him. A young husband turns a messy accident to his advantage. A foolish man attempts to sell a sack of…

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Georgia Humanities Symposium

UGA and the Franklin College welcome delegates from around the state and region to the Georgia Museum of Art on Friday March 8 for the Georgia Humanities Symposium, the first of three annual meetings during which participants will share experiences of projects, grants, and innovations in humanities research and teaching: The Willson Center and Georgia Humanities will host the Georgia Humanities Symposium, made…

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Noted and Quoted, February 2019

An extraordinary diversity of subject matter expertise shared in the media during February by Franklin faculty, on hot topics of the day and perennial issues from human affairs to climatic challenges. Here's a sample of the great work by public-spirited scholars, outside the classroom: Freda Scott Giles,associate professor emerita of theatre and film studies and African-American studies, presents lecture…

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Kudos, February 2019

Fantastic news from grants and awards to scholarships and fellowships highlight faculty and student accomplishments during February. A sample: Georgia Coastal Ecosystems, a research program based at the University of Georgia Marine Institute, was renewed for another six years by the National Science Foundation with $6.7 million in funding. According to Marine Institute director and professor of marine sciences…

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Opera Theatre presents Don Pasquale

The University of Georgia Opera Theatre, along with esteemed guest artists, take on the beloved opera Don Pasquale by Gaetano Donizetti at the Fine Arts Theatre. The opera is set to run February 22 and 23 at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, February 24 at 3 p.m.  Don Pasquale epitomizes Italian opera buffa, so audiences should come prepared to have a good laugh: This production will be unique because it is set in the 1950s and…

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Two Franklin College professors win 2019 Sloan Fellowships

Two UGA faculty members have been awarded a prestigious Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship to support their research for the next two years, the Sloan Foundation announced on Feb. 19: Elizabeth Harvey of marine sciences and Rachel Roberts-Galbraith of cellular biology will each receive $70,000 from their fellowships over the next two years. Two of 126 Sloan Fellows nationwide for 2019, the assistant professors represent just the 12th and 13th Sloan…

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New comparative study on DNA modifications across the fungal tree of life

DNA activity can change without changing the sequence of the DNA segment itself. Gene activation and inactivation can be the basis for how species produce unique individuals. Some processes that change gene activity are well understood in the context of model species. However, scientists are still grappling with how some processes, like DNA methylation, change gene activity in many diverse organisms. Broader theories applicable to all species…

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Ehrlich recognized for early career work

UGA faculty member Katie Ehrlich is a recipient of the 2019 Association for Psychological Science Janet Taylor Spence Award for Transformative Early Career Contributions. The award, named for the first elected APS president, celebrates the many new and leading-edge ideas coming out of the most creative and promising investigators who embody the future of psychological science. Ehrlich, assistant professor in the UGA Franklin College of…

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UGA to collaborate on Haitian library conservation project

History faculty member Jennifer Palmer, along with Julia Gaffield of Georgia State University and Conservateur-en-Chef of the Bibliothèque Hatïenne des Pères du Saint-Esprit Patrick Tardieu, will collaborate on a project to digitize materials printed before 1820 during the colonial, revolutionary, and early independence periods in Saint-Domingue (now Haiti). The materials are housed at the Bibliothèque hatïenne…

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Creating coursework for cell manufacturing

Research teams at UGA and the University of Pennsylvania, along with four private firms, are taking part in an 18-month federally sponsored project led by the Georgia Institute of Technology that will develop a much-needed curriculum to train workers for the fledgling cell manufacturing industry: The curriculum development project is part of the National Institute for Innovation in Manufacturing Biopharmaceuticals, or NIIMBL, which the U.S…

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Georgia Coastal Ecosystems research program renewed

Georgia Coastal Ecosystems, a research program based at the University of Georgia Marine Institute, was renewed for another six years by the National Science Foundation with $6.7 million in funding: The award marks the third renewal of GCE’s long-term ecological research, or LTER, grant from NSF and ensures that the group’s research will continue into its third decade from its base at the Marine Institute’s headquarters on Sapelo…

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Faculty Artist Series Concert: Mozart on Chinese New Year

World-renowned performer and University of Georgia piano faculty David Fung will take the Ramsey Hall stage on February 5 at 7:30 in celebration of the Chinese New Year as part of the Hugh Hodgson School of Music’s Faculty Artist Series: Lauded by TheWashington Post for his “ravishing and simply gorgeous” performances, audiences will want to mark their calendars for this concert. “The program combines my passion and…

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Noted and quoted, January 2019

Franklin College faculty appeared in a wide variety of media over the month of January: New method to classify schizophrenia symptoms should improve care - assistant professor of psychology Gregory Strauss quoted by Psych Central   Scientists could engineer a spicy tomato. Is it worth it? Research by professor of plant biology Esther van der Knaap reported in Popular Science, Tahlequah Daily Press…

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Ghartey-Tagoe Kootin selected as 2019 TED Fellow

 Amma Y. Ghartey-Tagoe Kootin, assistant professor in the department of theatre and film studies, has been selected as a TED Fellow, joining a class of 20 change-makers from around the world to deliver a talk on the TED stage this April in Vancouver: Dr. Amma was selected for her original and hyper-collaborative approach to creating artistic works based on archival research for the stage and screen, including her new musical in…

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Health Psychology Professorship honors past faculty member

The Franklin College of Arts and Sciences department of psychology will add a new professorship this year in memory of a former Professor Emerita who studied health psychology in older adults and was among the first to document the interconnected challenges confronted by the elderly and their caregivers.   The Gail M. Williamson Distinguished Professorship in Health Psychology will bring a senior researcher to the department who will…

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Diverse lineages of human pathogen live on old oaks

Commensalism is a term for one kind of biological relationship between species in which members of one gain benefits while those of the other neither benefit nor are harmed, contrasted with mutualism or parasitism. One obligate commensal is a common human fungal pathogen, the yeast Candida albicans, and the focus of new paper by assistant professor of plant biology Douda Bensasson published in…

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Happy New Year!

The Franklin College of Arts and Sciences wishes you a safe, happy and healthy New Year.

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The year at Franklin

This is the 222nd post of 2018 on the Franklin Chronicles, and what an incredible year it has been for UGA's oldest, largest and most academically diverse college. We look back: 17(!) Amazing students [and counting] Eight Focus on the Faculty features And from January though today, a plethora of rich activity that defines the modern academy - groundbreaking scholarship, outreach, research, performance, milestones, new initiatives, books,…

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Marshall Shepherd on TED.com

A TED talk by Georgia Athletic Association Distinguished Professor of Geography and Atmospheric Sciences J. Marshall Shepherd is featured today on TED.com, 3 kinds of bias that shape your worldview: What shapes our perceptions (and misperceptions) about science? In an eye-opening talk, meteorologist J. Marshall Shepherd explains how confirmation bias, the Dunning-Kruger effect and cognitive dissonance impact what we…
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