Kudos, November - December 2024

From rankings to renovations of beloved campus buildings to welcoming award-winning new faculty colleagues, a rich cohort of accolades and good news ushered in late fall on campus.

A sampling of the terrific stories about our colleagues and alumni:

UGA dedicates first phase of Science and Ag Hill modernization 

Nathan Lewis, a professor of pediatrics and bioengineering at the University of California San Diego, joined UGA as the new Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar in Molecular Cell Biology 

UGA again ranks No. 1 in new research-based products 

Plant biologist Kelly Dawe is connecting genetic mutations in corn to an identical, toxic process in cancers and received a $1.8 million grant from the NIH to continue the work

The UGA MFA program in Film, Television and Digital Media was named to the list of Top 50 Film Schools across the country by The Wrap, a leading publication in the media and entertainment industry

Franklin alumnus Greg Lavender, now the executive vice president and chief technology officer of Intel and AI, returned to UGA for the first time in nearly three decades to deliver two public lectures

Gender & Society, co-edited by Patricia Richards, Meigs Professor of Sociology & Women's Studies, is ranked #1 among Women’s and Gender Studies journals and — also #1 among sociology journals

Professor ophysics and former Franklin College dean Alan T. Dorsey is one of eight 2024 Simons Foundation Pivot Fellows

Franklin alumnus and ESPN executive James Dunn visited the UGA campus in October and spent time with students in Communications Studies

Franklin College hosted the first-ever faculty research mixer, bringing together faculty across the university who share research affinities to build multidisciplinary research and teaching teams

A book project by Paola De Santo, associate professor of Italian, and her co-translator/editor Caterina Mongiat Farina of DePaul University has won the Josephine Roberts Award for a Scholarly Edition, granted by the Society for the Study of Early Modern Women and Gender

Professor of mathematics Paul Pollack was one of forty-one mathematicians from around the world named Fellows of the American Mathematical Society (AMS) for 2025

A new quantum algorithm developed by UGA statisticians addresses one of the most complex challenges in single-cell analysis, signaling significant impact in both the fields of computational biology and quantum computing

Four Franklin College alumni were recognized as 2024 Graduate School Alumni of Distinction

Image: University and state leaders cut the ribbon during the Science and Ag Hill dedication ceremony. (Chamberlain Smith/UGA)