Tags: faculty

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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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New study upends timeline of Iroquoian history

New research by an international team based at UGA raises questions about the timing and nature of early interactions between Indigenous Peoples and Europeans in North America: The European side of first contact with indigenous people and settlement in northeast North America is well known from European sources. Until now it's been assumed that the finds of dated European artifacts provide a timeline for the indigenous peoples and…

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Anderson Foundation support for statewide climate project

Important news for The Georgia Climate Project, a statewide consortium of university researchers focused on helping Georgia localities facing the challenges of a changing climate: The Ray C. Anderson Foundation has awarded a $650,000 grant to Emory University to advance the Georgia Climate Project, a state-wide consortium co-founded by Emory, the University of Georgia, and the Georgia Institute of Technology, and joined by Agnes Scott…

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$10M weather and climate project will refine models, forecasting

UGA geography faculty member Gabriel Kooperman will lead one of 13 new DOE projects to enhance and refine computer models that help scientists understand weather patterns: This past July, the U.S. Department of Energy announced $10 million in funding for 13 projects aimed at further enhancing one of the world’s most sophisticated computer models for understanding weather and climate patterns. The projects will support…

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Franklin College faculty members elected to AAAS

Six UGA faculty members, including three from the Franklin College, have been named Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), an honor bestowed by their peers for “scientifically or socially distinguished efforts to advance science or its applications.” These six faculty members are among 416 new AAAS Fellows who will be presented with an official certificate and a gold and blue—representing science and…

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Noted and Quoted, November 2018

Too much screen time, the Deepwater Horizon spill, and Thanksgiving were a few of the leading headlines over the last month that quoted and reported Franklin College faculty experts: The great family exodus – associate professor of history Stephen Mihm quoted in a news story on families fleeing the city at – Axios, and reported as‘Increasingly in big cities, youth isn’t being served’ in Crain’s Cleveland Business  …

rendering of a new building
New Interdisciplinary STEM building

With the infrastructure demands of science and technology research collaborations reaching higher levels each year, the university will break ground on the new Interdisciplinary Science, Technology, Engineering and Math Research Building at 2 p.m. on Nov. 27. The groundbreaking marks the beginning of the construction of the ISTEM Research Building, which will house engineering, chemistry and related disciplines to promote…

vector image of materials diagram
New study opens possibilities for smaller, more powerful light-control in quantum materials

The transfer of energy, as light or information, from one point to another is a big part of the science behind the phone in your hand and the images on your screen. Manipulating light wavelengths to transmit information represents the next frontier in optoelectronics, though many obstacles remain. Among the primary challenges in using light for information processing is the difficulty of squeezing light to very small space to fit in ever-…

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New Russian Flagship program at UGA

The power and importance of language skills, from global collaboration and entrepreneurship to defense and diplomatic capabilities, continues to grow and expand at UGA: The development of global partnerships and a growing Eastern European economy have created an expansion of job opportunities for professionals with Russian language skills in fields ranging from the biological and mathematical sciences to the social sciences and…

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Design + Mathematics: Math Outreach Design Lab

  An image from a model created in an active learning course co-taught by mathematics professor David Gay and associate professor of graphic design Moon Jung Jang appeared as the cover of the October 23 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.   The model in the illustration was created by 3 math majors and one graphic design major, working collaboratively in the course "Math Outreach Design Lab.”…

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Arts in the 'Spotlight'

The scope of the fine and performing arts at UGA emanates from our robust degree programs in art, music, dance and theatre and film studies, and extends to the state's official art museum and one of the nation's most influential literary journals. The vision of Lamar Dodd and Hugh Hodgson that placed a premiere importance for the role of the arts at the state's flagship institution has come to fruition and continues to…

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Focus on the Faculty: Elizabeth Wright

Professor of Spanish Elizabeth Wright builds research opportunities into her teaching that help students develop skills that will last a lifetime—whether as educators, scholars, entrepreneurs, public servants or world travelers: My scholarship ponders an abiding paradox of empire building in the early modern era (circa 1490–1800). That is, the expanding horizons of the Spanish monarchy—both geographic and cultural—coincided with the…

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Kudos, October 2018

New grants and awards, number one in debate and the unveiling of a portrait of Mary Frances Early headline our kudos for the month of October. Congratulations to faculty, students and alumni on their recent accolades and accomplishments: The U.S. Department of Education awarded $1.7 million in support of the University of Georgia Latin American and Caribbean Studies Institute(LACSI) to expand research, teaching and public service…

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Noted and Quoted, October 2018

Franklin College faculty expertise is regularly featured in media around the world.  A sample from the past month: Report: Georgia justice, prison reforms slowly showing results – assistant professor of sociology Sarah Shannon quoted at CorrectionsOne   Professor looks at science and religion – Davis Enterprise features an October talk by Henry F. Schaefer, Graham Perdue Professor of Chemistry and…

man at football game with mascot, crowd
Amazing student: Chip Chambers

Known as the Mic Man, hyping up the crowd at home football games, biology (B.S.)  and economics (A.B.) double major Chip Chambers is also an honors student with his sights set on business and public health. We particularly enjoyed the section of his profile where he describes some of his favorite professors: David Mustard taught principles of microeconomics my freshman year and sparked a love for economics that has continued to…

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Franklin College website redesign

In early September, the Franklin College web services team launched a redesigned primary website for the college, including the Chronicles blog: The Franklin College of Arts and Sciences launched a redesigned website, updating access to information about UGA’s largest college for faculty, students, staff and the public. The redesign of the principal Franklin site was predicated on presenting a cohesive brand experience that flows from…

photo of woman with bassoon, and student
Hodgson School professor shares richness of the bassoon in class, on stage

Associate professor Amy Pollard picked up a bassoon in middle school after playing the flute for a few years, intrigued with the instrument that developed into a passion she now instills with students and audiences alike: According to Pollard, the instrument truly is diverse—able to blend with woodwinds, play alongside percussion parts or stand on its own as a solo instrument.  “I think it has a really fascinating…

group photo on steps of the Hunter Holmes academic building
Kudos, September 2018

Franklin College students, faculty and staff began the new academic year with many awards, grants, new books and other distinguished accomplishments. The Georgia Debate Union finished in second place at the season-opening college debate tournament held at Georgia State this past weekend.  The Georgia State tournament featured 140 teams from around the country, including teams from Harvard, Georgetown, Northwestern, Cornell, Vanderbilt…

diagram of blood cells with chemical abbreviations
New study on heme synthesis for red blood cells

A plenary paper featuring students and faculty from the UGA department of biochemistry and molecular biology and the department of microbiology was recently published, highlighted, and given commentary in the journal Blood, the publication of the American Society for Hematology. The paper, which originated in the lab of professor emeritus Harry Dailey, addresses how erythroid cells acquire sufficient carbon for heme synthesis…

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Noted and Quoted, September 2018

Hurricane Florence and its highest ever ranking led the headlines for the University of Georgia in September. A sample of faculty and alumni news and widely shared expertise: Project Greenland- Reuters multi-media series following some of the world’s top scientists tackling one of its toughest assignments: Understanding exactly how — and how fast — melting polar ice sheets will make global sea levels rise. Series features Distinguished…

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Psychology, climate, public health, humanities

We're seeing, and UGA students are experiencing, great examples of the breadth of expertise in the liberal arts learning environment that is a major research university. With the unfortunately impending hurricane Florence, Georgia Athletic Association Distinguished Professor Marshall Shepherd is responding to media requests around the clock, from around the world. And in his own regular Forbes column, he expanded the discussion of storm-related…
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