Tags: research

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Amazing student: Katie Irwin

Senior biology major - with a neuroscience emphasis - Katie Irwin found her passion for advancing science through her own work studying neurodegenerative diseases and helping encourage others — especially young girls — to pursue successful careers in STEM fields: During my freshman year, I was able to join Jim Lauderdale’s developmental neuroscience lab in the department of cellular biology. In the lab, I direct my own…

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Undergraduate research at scale: C.U.R.E.

How do students find their way into the laboratory? Integrating research experiences into lab courses, where students are tackling a problem related to a faculty member’s ongoing research, can introduce undergraduates to a world of career paths and opportunities as they come to understand research. Students learning research skills in the context of solving real research problems is the focus of work by Georgia Athletic…

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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…

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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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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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…

capuchin monkey is striking a nut with a stone hammer.
Up on two feet

Millions of years ago, before humans became fully bipedal, ancestral hominins used stones to break bones and nuts, probably while standing upright. A new study from the Primate Cognition and Behavior Lab in the department of psychology published today by the Royal Society journal Proceedings B documents how contemporary bearded capuchin monkeys likewise use stones to break nuts: [B]ecause the fossil record is…

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UGA recognizes 11 new CURO Honors Scholars

And speaking of amazing undergraduate students and a diversity of opportunities, UGA recently awarded 11 undergraduates - 7 with Franklin majors - from the incoming class of 2018-2019 with its CURO Honors Scholarship, the university’s top undergraduate research scholarship: CURO Honors Scholars receive $3,000 in annual funding renewable for up to four years; mentoring and community support; and special seminars, workshops,…

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Ehrlich receives NIH New Innovator Award

The National Institutes of Health Common Fund supports unusually innovative research from early career investigators with the High-Risk, High-Reward Research program. Assistant professor of psychology Katherine Ehrlich received a New Innovator award in the program to determine whether stressful life experiences have more immediate effects on children’s health: The $2.3 million Director’s New Innovator Award from the NIH Common…

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…

man in lab
Doctoral candidate awarded Department of Energy fellowship

University of Georgia doctoral candidate Jordan Russell was awarded a fellowship by the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science Graduate Student Research (SCGSR) program. The program prepares graduate students for science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM) careers critically important to the Department of Energy Office of Science mission by providing graduate thesis research opportunities at DOE laboratories in areas…

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Women at UGA: 100 years of evolving gender roles

Coeducation at the University of Georgia opened up a variety of fields where opportunities had been few, and over the decades has begun to change how women see themselves and engage their intellectual and career interests. Doctoral candidate Michelle Ziadie shares this thoughtful perspective from a scientist: It wasn't until I started graduate school that I really began to reflect on the challenges I faced as a woman of…

MRI program NSF
Grant brings new equipment, research potential to campus

The University of Georgia will soon be home to a new state-of-the-art spectrometer that will benefit researchers across campus and beyond. The instrument, known as an electron paramagnetic resonance spectrometer (EPR), is funded by a nearly $350,000 grant through the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Major Research Instrumentation (MRI) program. “The MRI program serves to increase access to multi-user scientific and engineering instrumentation…

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Professor's work figures in 2018 Fields medal

Finding a proof for a mathematical conjecture – a strong guess illuminating a way forward – has helped shape the course of mathematical history. The mathematics world recently celebrated the achievements of a proof that proved a conjecture partially formulated by UGA faculty member Valery Alexeev. Professor Caucher Birkar of the University of Cambridge was awarded the 2018 Fields medal, widely considered to be an equivalent of a…

Researchers link energy levels to living longer
Researchers link energy levels to living longer

A new theory of aging published by Franklin College researchers in the journal BioEssays addresses the link between ATP levels and aging, based on broad research showing that stored energy levels decrease substantially as animals age: In the BioEssays article, Snehal Chaudhari and Edward Kipreos of the University Georgia propose the “Energy Maintenance Theory of Aging,” which posits that the survival of older animals…

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History Fellows Summer Workshop

Five students from other colleges in the region spent July at UGA, living on campus and experiencing the work of professional historians firsthand. The new program, launched by the history department in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences and funded entirely by donors, provided an opportunity to share UGA with these students and to build better relationships with their institutions. The focus of the History Fellows Summer…

collage with map, graphic and fresco
The American South, Fibonacci and the origins of money

A title that would make an extraordinary single article [or film], but this triumvirate of stories in the media over the weekend featuring Franklin College faculty provides a handy illustration of the breadth of arts and science scholarship. Professor emeritus of history James Cobb in TIME magazine: During the 1950s and ‘60s, New York-based publications like TIME, Newsweekor Harper’s regularly devoted special issues or…

photo of people in a river with nets
Experiential Learning: connecting coursework beyond the classroom

The thriving Experiential Learning initiative at UGA provides arts & sciences students and faculty members the opportunity to reach higher: While experiential learning has long been part of many of UGA’s pre-professional programs, there was initial concern about the feasibility of ensuring science and humanities majors had a diverse range of opportunities. In STEM disciplines, undergraduate research is the most coveted EL experience.…

Theologically Engaged Anthropology
Theologically-engaged anthropology aims to answer big questions

Today’s current sociopolitical changes, much like other periods of time in our history, is a landscape worthy of collaboration between anthropologists and theologists, he said. "Traditionally, anthropologists have focused on the continuity of religious cultural change. Humans value order and predictability, and often behavior that is not in keeping with what is culturally expected is branded as deviant and punished,” said Lemons. “However, this…

photo of flooded highway 80
Georgia Climate Research Roadmap identifies Top 40 Climate Questions

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…

Moving Evolution Education Forward
Moving Evolution Education Forward

Recent research co-authored by department of genetics Ph.D. candidate Michelle Ziadie focuses on resources available for undergraduate evolution instructors. From the abstract of the paper: Evolution is a unifying theory in biology and is challenging for undergraduates to learn. An instructor’s ability to help students learn is influenced by pedagogical content knowledge (PCK), which is topic-specific knowledge of teaching and learning…
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