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Tags: faculty

Over the summer, two faculty members from the University of Georgia department of theatre and film studies worked with the Aurora Theatre and Broadway Factor to bring Chris Anthony Ferrer’s debut play, “Swindlers,” to life. The play ran at the Aurora Theatre in Lawrenceville in May and June. Julie Ray, associate professor and head of the department of theatre and film studies, and Ivan Ingermann, associate professor…
Defying all expectations, a fern no larger than a dinner plate currently holds the title for highest chromosome count, with a whopping 720 pairs crammed into each of its nuclei. This penchant of ferns for hoarding DNA has stumped scientists, and the intractable size of their genomes has made it difficult to sequence, assemble and interpret them. Two new papers published in the journal Nature Plants are rewriting history with the first full-…
The new School of Computing, faculty awards and grants as well as the promotion of Franklin College colleagues to university-level leadership positions highlight our kudos for the summer. Congratulations all!   University of Georgia to elevate computer science with new school – AJC, R&B, Fortune UGA plant biologist Robert Schmitz named finalist for prestigious 2022 Blavatnik National Award for young Scientists – R…
Broad coverage of big stories on race, health, climate change, weather safety, and history featured research findings and expertise of faculty from across the Franklin College over the summer. A sampling of ongoing, highly impactful scholarship from our colleagues: Black, Latino people more likely to remain masked during pandemic, polls show – research by Allison L. Skinner-Dorkenoo, assistant professor of psychology, reported at …
The University held a ribbon-cutting ceremony to celebrate the completion of the second phase of the Interdisciplinary Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (I-STEM) Research Complex on Wednesday, Aug. 24. The 101,000-square-foot, $64 million I-STEM Research Building 2, which was funded by a combination of university and state funds, will support collaborative research in chemistry, engineering and other scientific disciplines. Paired with…
Much like lava flows, Mattia Pistone began his interest in volcanology and petrology via an energetic and wandering path. It started in Pistone’s hometown of Pescara, Italy, when he began studying Latin literature and noting how the Romans used nature as a model for technology. The Romans are known as excellent engineers, but they were also early geologists. They knew that choosing the right rock for the right purpose could lead to longstanding…
Densely-packed solar cells that fit on a car and efficiently transfer light to electricity; point-of care medical diagnostic tools; major advances in communication, sensing and imaging – all of these plus many more depend on interaction of light with the material world at a very small scale, also known as nanophotonics. What makes nanophotonics so interesting to scientists and so promising across a broad array of industry is the subject of a new…
A popular, easily rentable party feature could be putting tens of thousands of children at risk, according to new research from the University of Georgia. The study found at least 479 people were injured and 28 died worldwide in more than 130 bounce house accidents due to weather events since 2000. But the researchers caution that these estimates are likely an undercount. These injuries are on top of an estimated 10,000 ER visits in…
The UGA Office of Research named Jody Clay-Warner the new director of the Owens Institute for Behavioral Research, effective Aug. 1. Clay-Warner, Meigs Professor of Sociology in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, received a Ph.D. in sociology from Emory University and has been at UGA since 1998, where she previously served as director of the Criminal Justice Studies Program and as head of the department of sociology. She…
The National Science Foundation Research Traineeship Program (NRT) awarded a $3 million Collaborative Grant to the University of Georgia (UGA) and the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, to develop a Quantum Networks Training and Research Alliance in the Southeast (QuaNTRASE). The NSF award advances convergent research in quantum information science and engineering, which it has identified as a national priority of utmost importance, via…
Janet Westpheling, professor in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences department of genetics, has been selected to receive the Society for Industrial Microbiology and Biotechnology (SIMB) Charles Porter Award. The award recognizes meritorious service to the Society as exemplified by Charles Porter, co-founder of the SIMB. Dr. Janet “Jan” Westpheling is a dedicated and active member, volunteer, and leader within the SIMB community. As a…
The Hugh Hodgson School of music announced its fall 2022 season, a rich musical tapestry of student and faculty performances by the full roster of large ensembles and solo concerts. Anchored by the Scholarship Series, the fall also includes the Faculty Artist Series, the ensemble series, and a UGA Opera Theatre production of Gounod's Faust. Season subscription packages and individual concert tickets are available here.  
Culture and Community at the Penn Center National Historic Landmark District, a partnership between the Penn Center, on St. Helena Island, SC, and the Willson Center, continued its first year’s public programs with a five-day cycle of research residencies in early June, 2022. The residencies brought students, faculty, and community experts from across the southeastern U.S. for unique place-based studies on the theme of…
Important new research from communication studies describing how mothers and daughters who follow feminist principles speak more positively about their bodies. Published in Body Image, the study found that feminist mothers and their daughters felt more positively about their bodies and less shame about how their bodies look than those who don’t ascribe to feminist ideals. Additionally, the paper showed that how mothers view and speak about…
Women tend to live longer than men but typically have higher rates of illness. Now, new research from University of Georgia suggests these higher rates of illness can be improved by a better diet, one that is high in pigmented carotenoids such as yams, kale, spinach, watermelon, bell peppers, tomatoes, oranges and carrots. These bright-colored fruits and vegetables are particularly important in preventing visual and cognitive loss. “The idea is…
War. Politics. Changing technology. Plagues and famine and migration and outsized personalities. These are major forces that shape the world we live in, and many historians spend their careers studying them. Jamie Kreiner takes a different approach. A professor of history in the Franklin College of Arts & Sciences who specializes in the early Middle Ages, Kreiner looks for the quieter agents at work. “I like getting beneath…
New research from the UGA Laboratory of Archaeology, together with its partners in the Muscogee Nation, indicates that inhabitants of the Americas may have been practicing democratic-style collective governance at least a millennium before European contact. According to a new paper published in the journal American Antiquity, artifacts from the Cold Springs site in central Georgia indicate the presence of a “council house” on the site…
University of Georgia professor LeAnne Howe was awarded the Richard Beale Davis Award for Distinguished Lifetime Service to Southern Letters by the Society for the Study of Southern Literature for her work as a scholar and writer. Howe received the award at the 2022 SSSL conference in Atlanta on June 26. The Richard Beale Davis Award for Distinguished Lifetime Service to Southern Letters is awarded every other year at the biennial…
2019 Guggenheim Fellow Scott Nelson, Georgia Athletic Association Professor in Humanities in the department of history, published a timely new book this year recounting the story of how people have been growing wheat along Ukraine’s Black Sea coast since at least 2700 BC. Nelson's book Oceans of Grain (Basic Books, 2022) has met with widespread acclaim worldwide for both its insights on this global commodity as well as grain's…
After a national search and great anticipation, the Lamar Dodd School of Art announced the appointment of Joseph Peragine to the position of director, effective August 1, 2022. Professor Peragine, an accomplished practicing artist, is an alum of the school (BFA, '83), and brings a wealth of experience to this position through his committed work as faculty and director of the Ernest G. Welch School of Art & Design at…
The new episode of our interview podcast Unscripted focuses on Patricia Yager, professor of marine sciences, and her recent experience co-leading a research expedition to the Amundsen Sea Polynya in western Antarctica. While many research projects on the International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration were focused on sea level rise and the physical processes related to the melting, Yager served as co-chief scientist and lead P.I. on the project…
The Genes to Genomes blog reports on recent research by UGA fungal biologists Michelle Momany and Marin Brewer, who reported in their findings that Aspergillus fumigatus isolated from clinical settings is resistant to agricultural fungicides. Infections have long been a deadly problem for hospital patients. Though modern medicine has an impressive array of antimicrobial drugs at its disposal, pathogens continue to evolve resistance,…
Shortly after the close of the Spring semester, the University of Georgia gave the final approval to create the School of Computing, a new academic unit to be jointly administered by the Franklin College and the College of Engineering. In response to rising student enrollment and the growing role of computing in a range of fields, the University of Georgia has elevated its longstanding department of computer science to a School of Computing…
University of Georgia faculty member Robert Schmitz was recently chosen as a finalist for a national award for young scientists. The Blavatnik National Awards for Young Scientists is the world’s largest unrestricted prize honoring early career scientists and engineers. Schmitz is a plant biologist who performs groundbreaking research on plant epigenetics—the chemical modifications to DNA and associated proteins that alter gene expression—to…
The University of Georgia Franklin College of Arts and Sciences and the Office of Institutional Diversity sponsored the inaugural “Reflections on Race” Workshop on May 18-19 on the UGA campus, an effort led by Franklin College Associate Dean Jean Martin-Williams. Nine faculty members from nine departments representing all tenured and untenured ranks were selected to participate in the workshop, which included a distinguished group of…

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