New grants and awards, number one in debate and the unveiling of a portrait of Mary Frances Early headline our kudos for the month of October. Congratulations to faculty, students and alumni on their recent accolades and accomplishments:

The U.S. Department of Education awarded $1.7 million in support of the University of Georgia Latin American and Caribbean Studies Institute(LACSI) to expand research, teaching and public service in Georgia and beyond

 

Hugh Hodgson School of Music DMA student Gonzalo Arias Contreras won the silver medal at the Florida Guitar Festival and Competition held annually in Tallahassee, Florida in October

 

Madhur Mangalam, defended Ph.D. thesis in August under Professor Dorothy M. Fragaszy in the Behavior and Brain Sciences Program at the department of psychology, was a lead author on new study published in October by the Royal Society journalProceedings B documents how contemporary bearded capuchin monkeys likewise use stones to break nuts

 

UGA 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

 

UGA celebrated the life and achievements of Mary Frances Early by unveiling her portrait in the Administration Building at a ceremony on Oct. 10. Early became the first African American to earn a degree from the University of Georgia when she graduated on Aug. 16, 1962, with a master’s degree in music education.

 

The Georgia Debate Union was ranked first in all three college debate organizational rankings - the American Debate Association, the Cross-Examination Debate Association, and the National Debate tournament - ahead of Harvard, Wake Forest, Emory, Michigan, Northwestern, among hundreds of other institutions

 

Assistant professor of psychology Katherine Ehrlich received a New Innovator award in the NIH Common Fund High-Risk, High-Reward Research program to determine whether stressful life experiences have more immediate effects on children’s health

 

The UGA Graduate School honored eight graduates with the 2018 Alumni of Distinction Award for achieving exceptional success in their professional careers and in service to their community including Alan Campbell(MFA ’75), Jeffrey Shellebarger(MS ’80), and former dean of the Franklin College Garnett Stokes(MS ’80 and PHD 82)

 

Senior psychology majors in the Psych 5100 class under the supervision of associate professor Michelle vanDellen and her Motivation and Behavior Laboratory, debuted a new podcast series GoalDiggerz, which investigates the psychology of goals and self-regulation

 

Congratulations to these faculty members on their recently awarded grants:

 

Regents professor and Franklin Professor of Chemistry Michael Duncan on a U.S. Department of Energy Award for “Coordination and Solvation of Actinide Cations Studied with Selected-Ion Infrared Spectroscopy”

 

Professor of paleontology Sally Walker in the department of geology received a National Science Science Foundation grant for “Collaborative Research: The Antarctic Scallop as Key to Paleoenvironments and Sea Ice Conditions: Understanding the Modern to Predict the Past”

 

Associate professor of biochemistry and molecular biology Paula Lemons received a National Science Foundation grant for “Seeking Synergy: K-12 Professional Development as a Model for College Science Faculty”

 

Gene E. Michaels Professor in Medical Mycology Xiaorong Lin in the department of microbiology is part of NIH award to support the research project “Determining genetic signatures of the cryptococcal response to Zoloft by an integrated approach combining transcriptome, translatome and genetic screens”

                                                            

   Image: President Jere W. Morehead with Mary Frances Early after her portrait was unveiled.