Tags: faculty

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Thomas to become Dean of Arts and Sciences at UAB

In her 27-year UGA career, Thomas has distinguished herself as an outstanding classroom teacher, graduate student mentor, and researcher. Her work on the psychology of workplace diversity has gained national attention, and she is an elected fellow of the American Psychological Association, the Society for Industrial-Organizational Psychology, and the Society for the Psychological Study of Culture, Ethnicity and Race. Thomas has also held several…

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Happy Holidays!

Happy Holidays from the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences! From our family to yours, all the best of the holiday season and warm wishes for 2025.

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School of Art to launch UGA Community Art School

Want to brush up on your drawing – or finally commit to that new creative endeavor you've always wanted? In 2025, the Lamar Dodd School of Art begins a new chapter in artistic outreach and instruction as it launches the the UGA Community Art School: Taught by UGA faculty and graduate students, the new series of classes maximizes individual instruction and experiential learning in the legendary studios of the Dodd, with a culminating pop-up…

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UGA professor authors 'Educator’s Guide to James Baldwin'

Penguin Random House published "An Educator’s Guide to the Works of James Baldwin," written by Ed Pavlić, Distinguished Research Professor of English, African American Studies and Creative Writing in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences department of English. The "Educator's Guide" is a product of Pavlić's work with the James Baldwin Estate and the Estate's relationship to Random House as Baldwin's major publisher. In honor of his…

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Art + Math make a GROVI connection

Creative ingenuity at the faculty level and across Franklin units provides the spark for an innovative new partnership – and the NSF support to expand the collaboration: Designer and artist Moon Jung Jang met mathematician David Gay through the UGA Arts Collaborative, a research incubator that encourages collaboration across the arts and sciences, and between the university and the Athens community. Since 2017, the two professors have engaged in…

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Noted and Quoted, November – December 2024

From comment and opinion to groundbreaking work on reviving heritage crops and fighting disease, Franklin faculty expertise informs and leads by a continual presence in media around the globe. A sampling of the numerous stories over the previous few weeks: We knew lead pipes were bad 140 years ago – Stephen Mihm, professor of history and associate dean, writing in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette UGA researcher links broken corn chromosomes to cancer…

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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…

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UGA plant biologist leads new advances in biotech

The evolutionary lineage leading to Amborella diverged from all other flowering plant lineages approximately 150 million years ago. In 2013, an international research team co-led by UGA Plant Biology faculty member Jim Leebens-Mack and collaborators announced the newly sequenced genome of the Amborella trichopoda plant became the foundation for comparative analyses of genes tracing back to the origin of flowering plants and earlier.…

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Gender & Society named top scholarly journal

According to the most recent impact factor ratings, Gender & Society, co-edited by UGA faculty member Patricia Richards, is ranked #1 among Women’s and Gender Studies journals and — also #1 among sociology journals.   The ranking comes from the Journal Citations Report by Clarivate. The Impact Factor Report provides a measure of how much a given academic journal is cited — the higher the number the better. Gender & Society is 1 of…

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Franklin hosts inaugural faculty research mixer

The Franklin College hosted the first-ever faculty research mixer on Nov. 14 at Normal Bar in Athens, bringing together faculty across the university who share research affinities to build multidisciplinary research and teaching teams. The evening featured seven brief research presentations and a social mixer of faculty interested in collaborating on areas related to "Health, Gender, & Equity." "There was an energy  about collaboration…

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Pollack named 2025 AMS Fellow

University of Georgia faculty member Paul Pollack is one of forty-one mathematicians from around the world named Fellows of the American Mathematical Society (AMS) for 2025, the program's thirteenth year. AMS members designated as Fellows of the AMS have made outstanding contributions to the creation, exposition, advancement, communication, and utilization of mathematics.  Pollack, professor in the Franklin College of Arts…

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Math-letes in Action: Students across Georgia, Alabama and South Carolina compete for UGA’s Annual High School Math Tournament’s Title

On Oct. 26, UGA’s campus buzzed with excitement as nearly 400 students and math coaches gathered for the university’s annual High School Math Tournament. First launched over two decades ago by Professor Emeritus Ted Shifrin and Professor Valery Alexeev, the event has become a high point for budding mathematicians from Georgia, South Carolina and Alabama. With help from over 60 faculty, staff and student volunteers, the event ran smoothly,…

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MFA Film program ranked in Top 50

The UGA Master of Fine Arts 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. This is the first time the UGA MFA Film program, launched in 2020 as a joint program between the Franklin College and the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication, has been named to a national list and it debuted at No. 43: “It is…

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UGA's Dorsey selected to receive Simons Foundation Pivot Fellowship

University of Georgia faculty member Alan T. Dorsey is one of eight 2024 Simons Foundation Pivot Fellows. The program supports researchers who have a strong track record of success and achievement in their current field, as well as a deep interest, curiosity and drive to make contributions to a new discipline. Professor of physics in the UGA Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, Dorsey serves as associate chief information officer for…

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Fish oil supplements bring a variety of health benefits

A new UGA study suggests the far-reaching benefits omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids may extend to lowering the risks of developing a variety of cancers: The study relied on data from a United Kingdom-based study of over 250,000 people who were followed for more than a decade. Of those participants, almost 30,000 developed some form of cancer during the study period. Some earlier research drew connections between levels of fatty acids and risk of…

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Ancestry of Sanford Stadium hedges goes into the lab

In a terrific story combining genome analysis, a love for the hedges and UGA history— a Franklin College faculty member and his students found that the same family of hedges have stood tall for nearly 100 years: Plant biology professor and hedges researcher James Leebens-Mack decided to sequence the genome of the Sanford Stadium hedges. His goal was to combine service-learning with his own areas of research, comparative genome biology and the…

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Kudos, October 2024

Faculty, students and alumni of the Franklin College shine all year long and October is no exception. A sample of the featured good work and achievements during the eighth month of the calendar of Romulus: UGA celebrates 40 years of AI  at Oct. 28 conference Alchemy, co-founded by Raj Shingadia (AB ’01, Philosophy, BS ’03, Psychology), designs and installs breathtaking water worlds through Southeast Aquariums & MRC and set design for…

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Noted and Quoted, October 2024

With high hurricane season – and related disinformation circulating in the public – Franklin College faculty members stepped up and into the media spotlight. Special thanks to Associate Dean Marshall Shepherd, Georgia Athletic Association Distinguished Professor of Atmospheric Sciences and Geography, and Pam Knox, Director of the UGA Weather Network and Agricultural Climatologist in the Atmospheric Sciences Program, for their tireless commitment…

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Sensing a new understanding of the world

Since 1985, the UGA Center for Geospatial Research has been dedicated to advancing remote sensing, mapping, and geospatial research. Along with the technological changes over that nearly 40 year history, the center's technical capacities have grown to reflect the advanced capabilities of today in environmental remote sensing and GeoAI, photogrammetry, small satellite development, and graduate and undergraduate training. In service of promoting…

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New study details open-source vision-language model for biomedical applications

The potential of applications using Artificial Intelligence is quickly venturing into the medical field, with implications for patients and practitioners. A new study published in Nature Medicine presents an open-source multimodal vision-language foundation model, BiomedGPT, for various biomedical applications. AI techniques have also demonstrated potential in solving a wide range of biomedical tasks, including radiology interpretation…

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Holland named Shellebarger professor in Geology

Steven Holland, paleobiologist and expert in stratigraphy, has been selected as the Shellebarger Professor in Geology in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences. The professorship is supported by a gift from Sydney (BSHE ’79) and Jeff (BS ’78, MS ’80) Shellebarger, former president of Chevron’s North American exploration and production operations. Jeff Shellebarger currently serves on the executive committee of the UGA Geology Alumni Board.…

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NSF grant to explore philosophical perspectives of human and machine translation

A new interdisciplinary project at the interface of philosophy, linguistics, cognitive science, and artificial intelligence seeks to explore the complicated relationship between human and machine translation. The project, led by professor of philosophy Yuri Balashov, is supported by an NSF Scholar's Award. "Translation from one language into another is a difficult and cognitively intense process requiring a broad set of linguistic and non-…

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kudos, September 2024

We welcomed new faculty and staff colleagues into the Franklin College, celebrated new professorships, a Hall of Fame induction and so much more in this first month of the fall semester 2024. Congratulations to our colleagues for outstanding contributions and career achievements: Kelly Dyer, professor in the department of genetics, director of the Integrated Life Sciences Program and co-director of the NIH T32 Genetics Training Grant program, is…

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Noted and Quoted, September 2024

Fantastic start to the fall semester, with excellent research stories and expert comment alike finding purchase in media around the world. Great job by Franklin College scholars in a wide range of disciplines, prepared with authority, ready to share. A sample of stories from recent weeks: There might be more than one way to make a planet – The New York Times reports on new research from Cassandra Hall, assistant professor of computational…

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Psychology professor embodies interdisciplinary approach

Drew Abney, associate professor in the department of psychology, has blended his interests in statistics and engineering to forge a multifaceted psychology research career. Our colleagues in UGA Research Communications share the story of how Abney's journey informs his scholarship: While working on his master’s in education, Abney took a statistics class that, surprisingly, made his passing interest in psychology seem like a possible career…
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