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 recipients from UGA since the organization began its fellowship program in 1955.

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Harvey, who earned her Ph.D. in oceanography from the University of Rhode Island in 2013, works on plankton ecology, with a particular focus on how interactions between individual plankton can influence larger-scale patterns in the species’ abundance, distribution and physiology. She is based at UGA’s Skidaway Institute of Oceanography in Savannah.

“It was thrilling to be nominated by my department, but getting the fellowship signals that you, as a researcher, are doing something right,” Harvey said. “The Sloan Fellowship allows researchers to ask questions that are a little more risky or open-ended. I will be able to conduct some research with new colleagues to begin to generate and solidify collaborative research. Also, it will help support undergraduate and graduate students in conducting meaningful scientific research.”

Roberts-Galbraith studies planarians, or flatworms, in hopes of understanding the organism’s ability to regrow missing tissue after a wide range of amputations or injuries. She focuses on how planarians regenerate central nervous system tissue. She earned her Ph.D. from Vanderbilt University in 2010 and is the first UGA Sloan Fellow in neuroscience.

Congratulations to these early career leaders in their respective fields and on our campus. Two of our best pushing the frontiers of scholarship, inspiring students and making important contributions with their research activities.