Kudos, August 2020

Congratulations to the many Franklin College faculty, students, and alumni on awards, grants, fellowships and other recognition of scholarly activity we learned about over the summer. A sampling of recent accolades for our terrific colleagues:

Lisa A. Fusillo, professor of dance in the Franklin College, has been selected by The Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi—the nation’s oldest and most selective all-discipline collegiate honor society—as the 2020-2022 Phi Kappa Phi Artist. Fusillo received the award for her career accomplishments as a professor, dancer and choreographer, and her scholarly accomplishments

In her virtual minisymposium presentation at the 2020 SIAM Conference on Mathematics of Planet Earth, Sofya Zaytseva, assistant professor of mathematics, explored the mathematics of pattern formation in intertidal oyster reefs. She focused particularly on flow and geometry/orientation

Michelle Momany, professor of Plant Biology and associate dean in the Franklin College, was been selected as a Fellow of the Mycological Society of America at the organization's forest-ever virtual meeting in mid-July

“Beyond Blue,” a new video game launched by E-Line Media in conjunction with the BBC and the researchers behind its “Blue Planet II” series, takes players into the near future to explore the mysteries of the ocean. The game allows players to become part of a new research team using groundbreaking technologies to see, hear and interact with the ocean in a meaningful way. University of Georgia Regents’ Professor Samantha Joye, a deep-sea oceanography expert who participated in the “Blue Planet II” documentary series, served as a consultant on “Beyond Blue”

The Department of Marine Sciences announces a new bachelor of science in Ocean Science, available to UGA students beginning in fall 2020

James Leebens-Mack, Distinguished Research Professor in plant biology and interim curator of the UGA Herbarium, was named director of the UGA Plant Center

National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded Ervan Garrison, professor of anthropology, a Standard Grant for his research project, "A Method for Assessing Scour Nuclei in US Inner-to-Mid Continental Shelf." Garrison will undertake a study of submerged prehistoric archaeological sites drowned after the end of the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). The sites are expected to be found on the Atlantic Ocean’s Continental Shelf of the Georgia Bight

Ellen Ritchey, Instructor and Clinical Coordinator of Music Therapy, Hugh Hodgson School of Music, and Ryon Cobb, assistant professor of sociology, and Marshall Shepherd, Georgia Athletic Association Distinguished Professor Director, Atmospheric Sciences Program, took questions from alumni in Ask Me Anything sessions over the summer presented by the UGA Alumni Association

Evelyn S. Autry, Ph.D in Hispanic Studies in the department of Romance Languages, has been awarded a 2020 Emerging Voices Fellowship from the American Council of Learned Societies

Chip Chambers (BS '19, biology) has been selected as a recipient of a Marcus L. Urann Fellowship by The Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi—the nation's oldest and most selective collegiate honor society for all academic disciplines 

To accelerate glycomaterials research, the National Science Foundation (NSF) has committed $23 million to a new multi-university partnership that will bring together leading scientists and engineers from the University of Georgia, Virginia Tech, Brandeis University, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to establish an NSF Materials Innovation Platform called GlycoMIP focused on “Automating the Synthesis of Rationally Designed Glycomaterials”

In a new study, an international team of researchers, including a UGA cognitive scientist John Hale, UGA Arch Professor in the department of linguistics, report that a computational model based on the concept of "phrase structure” most closely matches functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data collected from participants’ brains while they listened to an audiobook of the first chapter of Lewis Carroll’s classic novel

The CyanoTRACKER project, a collaboration between University of Georgia researchers the first early reporting system of its kind, collects and integrates community reports, remote sensing data and digital image analytics to detect and differentiate between regular algal blooms and CyanoHABs. “Not all CyanoHAB outbreaks are toxic, but that is why it’s so important to have early reporting,” said Deepak Mishra, lead author and associate head of the department of geography

The University of Georgia Alumni Association unveiled its 40 Under 40 Class of 2020. This annual recognition program celebrates the personal, professional and philanthropic achievements of successful UGA graduates under the age of 40. This year’s honorees work in a variety of industries and include 12 UGA alumni with Franklin College degrees

Image: A still image from the video game "Beyond Blue."