Tags: research

In Spring 2023, UGA biologist Holly Bik is leading one of five teams of scientists on a research cruise to one of the most remote and understudied places on Earth. From March 6, the group departed from New Zealand and cruise west along the Antarctic continental shelf to South Africa. In all, more than thirty scientists and graduate students will be part of the two-month expedition aboard the Research Vessel – Ice Breaker, The Nathaniel…

University of Georgia plant biologist and ecologist, Anny Chung studies the smaller things in life to understand how microscopic organisms can influence entire ecosystems. As an assistant professor jointly appointed in the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences Department of Plant Pathology and the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences Department of Plant Biology, Chung studies how plant-microbe interactions…

Being a protective parent could set your kids up for a healthier life as an adult, according to new research from the University of Georgia. The study found that growing up in places where gunshots are common and heat and electricity are unreliable can lead to pain and other physical health limitations in adulthood. But being involved in your child’s life, such as knowing their friends or where they’re hanging out after school,…

Three University of Georgia faculty members have been named Regents’ Professors in recognition of the national and international reach of their innovative and pace-setting scholarship. Regents’ professorships are bestowed by the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia and are the highest professorial recognition in the state’s system of public colleges and universities. The university’s 2022–2023 Regents’ Professors are Jenna…

Over the past few years, the entire world has faced some harsh realities. A pandemic seemingly without end. A war between Ukraine and Russia. An international social movement in Black Lives Matter. For many, these moments in time are only seen through the lens of the fear, unrest and change they ignite.  Cody Marrs takes a different approach. Head of the English department in the Franklin College of Arts & Sciences who…

Fausto Sarmiento, professor of geography in the Franklin College and director of the Neotropical Montology Collaboratory, continues his excellent work on the broad subject of Montology with the publication of a new book. With the ecological acceleration and the indigenous revival trend of the present, the need for critical views of the reality of mountain systems has become evident in academic circles, such as the Commission of Mountain Studies…

The National Academy of Inventors has selected three University of Georgia faculty as 2023 NAI Senior Members. NAI Senior Members are faculty, scientists and administrators selected for their proven ability to invent and innovate. The UGA representatives of the 2023 class are Christine Szymanski, Hitesh Handa and Leidong Mao. With their selections, UGA now has 11 Senior Members overall: Szymanski is a professor, associate head of…

Active learning is an instructional approach that involves engaging students with the learning process through group work, case studies, class discussions and other methods. This type of approach places a greater degree of responsibility on the learner. Students with disabilities may have unique experiences in active-learning STEM courses because most active-learning practices were designed with limited input from students with disabilities.…

New research from the University of Georgia reveals that artificial intelligence can be used to find planets outside of our solar system. The recent study demonstrated that machine learning can be used to find exoplanets, information that could reshape how scientists detect and identify new planets very far from Earth. “One of the novel things about this is analyzing environments where planets are still forming,” said Jason Terry, doctoral…

The Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation announced that University of Georgia faculty member Courtney Ellison is one of seven new recipients of the Damon Runyon-Dale F. Frey Award for Breakthrough Scientists.  The Dale F. Frey award recognizes Damon Runyon Fellows who have exceeded the Foundation’s highest expectations and are most likely to make paradigm-shifting breakthroughs that transform the way we prevent, diagnose, and…

Five University of Georgia faculty – three from the Franklin College – have been named new Fellows for the American Association for the Advancement of Science, bringing the university’s total representation on this prestigious list to 42. Fellows are elected annually by the AAAS Council for extraordinary achievements leading to the advancement of science. This year, UGA’s new Fellows, representing four disciplines, are Joseph Hermanowicz, Ping…

A new study from University of Georgia researchers describes a vaccine that could be the first clinically approved immunization to protect against invasive fungal infections, a growing concern as antifungal drug resistance increases:   The experimental vaccine is designed to protect against the three most common fungal pathogens that are responsible for more than 80% of fatal fungal infections. The study tested the vaccine’s efficacy…

Three years ago, Doug Menke led a team that became the first in the world to create a gene-edited lizard. A professor of genetics in the Franklin College of Arts & Sciences and director of UGA’s Developmental Biology Alliance, Menke was recognized last spring with a UGA Creative Research Medal for the accomplishment. In this interview, Menke discusses his award-winning work, how he fell into the work of genetics and what…

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) presented the 2022 Arctic Report Card, highlighting that the warming Arctic reveals shifting seasons, widespread disturbances, and the value of diverse observations. Issued annually since 2006, the Arctic Report Card is a timely and peer-reviewed source for clear, reliable and concise environmental information on the current state of different components of the Arctic environmental…

The Modern Language Association of America announced the winner of the thirteenth Modern Language Association Prize for Collaborative, Bibliographical, or Archival Scholarship. Among the two two winning projects is Mina Loy: Navigating the Avant-Garde, created by Susan Rosenbaum, associate professor of English at UGA, along with colleagues at Davidson College and Duquesne University.   The born-digital, open access scholarly…

A new book by professor emerita of musicology in the Hugh Hodgson School of music Dorothea Link gets up close with the Vienna court opera of the late 1700s. The Italian Opera Singers in Mozart's Vienna is available now from the University of Illinois Press: Dorothea Link examines singers’ voices and casting practices in late eighteenth-century Italian opera as exemplified in Vienna’s court opera from 1783 to 1791. The investigation into the…

Smart technology claims to make our lives easier. You can turn on your lights, lock your front door remotely and even adjust your thermostat with the click of a button. But new research from the University of Georgia suggests that convenience potentially comes at a cost—your personal security. The study focused on smart home hubs, the centralized device that enables you to control all your smart devices in one easy spot. These…

Faculty members, students and visitors gathered for the 2022 Georgia Statistics Day (GSD) hosted by the department of statistics. The GSD is an annual event designed to promote interdisciplinary statistics research among the three flagship academic institutions in Georgia – the University of Georgia, Georgia Institute of Technology, and Emory University.  UGA hosted the inaugural GSD in 2015 to serve as a platform for bringing together…

Liza Stepanova’s story begins with a find at a Russian antique store. The find was an antique 19th-century piano, complete with built-in candleholders and engravings of famous composers. The finder was Stepanova’s grandmother, a World War II survivor who loved piano but whose circumstances had not allowed her to pursue music. Stepanova was instantly taken with the piano as a young child, and her family arranged for her to have lessons near…

New research by the Sentencing Project, a nonprofit organization that advocates for restoration of voting rights for people with prior felony convictions, estimates that 2% of the voting age population in the United States will be ineligible to cast ballots during this year's midterm elections due to state laws banning people with felony convictions from voting. The Sentencing Project advocates for effective and humane responses…

Should Africa’s land be owned? Westerners have a crucial blind spot when it comes to engaging with other landholding systems. Private, exclusive title backed by statutory law is sacrosanct in the West, and has been sold to the rest of the world on our behalf through international development agencies such as USAID and the World Bank.  Many benefits are said to flow from this outside intervention in African land relations, from greater…

New research findings, the first comprehensive study of stable isotopes from both animal and plant remains on the island of Cyprus, expand the archaeological understanding of the dynamics of landscape management in Cyprus during the development of social complexity that led to the first cities on the Mediterranean island The new study, led by UGA associate professor Suzanne E. Pilaar Birch with colleagues Patricia Fall, Steven Falconer, and…

The Hispanic community has been steadily growing in Georgia for many years, yet despite its increasing visibility, this community continues to be underrepresented in research around families and human development. Our colleagues in Research Communications share the story:   For Cynthia Suveg, this was a call to action. Suveg, professor of psychology in UGA’s Clinical Doctoral Program, has long been interested in bridging this research…

UGA and the Franklin College welcome guests and presenters to the 2022 Art Education Research Institute Annual Symposium Oct. 27-29 at the Lamar Dodd School of Art: The Art Education Research Institute (AERI) supports critical, systematic, empirical, and theoretical research and scholarship, which addresses key intellectual and practical issues in the field of art education.  AERI seeks to promote a broad range of rigorous research…

UGA's Jordan Pickett recently published findings which reveal that environmental and climatic changes in the eastern Mediterranean were part of a “perfect storm” that led to widespread settlement abandonment or transformation in the early medieval period, roughly 1,500 years ago. This new body of research, which challenges decades of scholarly work, provides modern humans with a case study for how our ancestors adapted creatively…