Category: student

Congratulations to computer science grad student Jennifer Rouan, who has been awarded a prestigious Google scholarship:

Rouan recently received the 2013 Google Anita Borg Memorial Scholarship, an award that honors its namesake by encouraging women to excel in computing and technology.

Borg was a computer scientist who devoted her life to revolutionizing perceptions of technology and dismantling barriers that keep women and minorities from entering computing and technology fields. The Google scholarship—worth $10,000 for the 2013-14 academic year—also encourages women to become active role models and leaders in these fields.

UGA’s Rouan, a master’s degree student in the Franklin College of Arts and Science’s department of computer science, also was selected for the 2013 Google Student Veterans of America Scholarship. Recipients of Google scholarships can accept only one of the awards.

“I’m very excited to have won both scholarships, but as a woman in tech I identify with Anita Borg and her impact on our field,” Rouan said. “And, so, being part of that memory is an important part of my own life philosophy.”
 

Fantastic - two Google scholarships. Difficult to verify, but we think Jennifer is the first UGA student to be selected for both awards. Big congratulations to her, Thiab Taha, and the computer science department.

Image: Women-inspired Google doodle honoring Anita Borg, Grace Hopper and Lada Ada Lovelace

We always love it when our people move on and do well - prizes, awards, appointments and new positions. Now Lamar Dodd School of Art alumna Katarina Burin (BFA '99) has hit two of these at once:

Katarina Burin, who took her conceptual creation of a fictitious Czechoslovakian architect from Berlin to Boston, has won the Institute of Contemporary Art’s 2013 James and Audrey Foster Prize.

The $25,000 award comes as Burin, a native of Slovakia, has accepted an offer to become a member of the faculty as lecturer in Visual and Environmental Studies at Harvard University. She’s been a visiting lecturer at Harvard since 2009. The ICA award, she said, will allow her to expand on a project centered around Petra Andrejova-Molnár, a character she created who is rooted in the movements of early-20th-century modernist architecture.

Franklin College Honos' student and anthropology major Smitha Ganeshan is the 18th UGA recipient of the Truman Scholarship since 1982 and the only recipient in Georgia this year.

[The] Harry S. Truman Scholarship recognizes juniors with exceptional leadership potential who are committed to careers in government and elsewhere in public service.

Ganeshan is a graduate of Northview High School in Johns Creek and a recipient of UGA's Foundation Fellowship. She was one of 62 students to receive the scholarship, which offers up to $30,000 for graduate study. 

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Ganeshan, who aims to pursue a dual M.D. and Master in Public Policy degree, is active in health care and health policy issues in Athens as well as around the globe.

She volunteers at the non-profit Athens Nurses Clinic, which provides basic primary care and dental services for uninsured patients, and has interned at the Athens Health Network, an organization that works to reduce health care disparities by coordinating health services for the indigent population. She is a co-founder of the Lunchbox Garden Project, an after-school nutrition education and obesity prevention program that was launched in 2011 and now serves two schools in Athens through a grant from UGA's Office of Sustainability. 

Around the globe, around your town. We are lucky to be surrounded by exceptional people, who - along with everything else they do - bring out the best in others. Congratulations to Smitha and the department of anthropology, which I know is very proud of her accomplishments. As are we all.

The 'Amazing student' feature on the UGA homepage is a window onto some of the most accomplished students you will ever hear about. Featured this week is actress and student judge for the Peabody Awards, Paige Pulaski:

All of the time that I’ve spent in the theatre department has led me to form intimate relationships with the performance, academic, design, administrative and custodial staff and faculty. There’s something about teaching a form of art and manipulating personal skills that opens a student up to her professor as a mentor. I am particularly enamored with John Bray’s capacity to entertain dramatic writing as a flexible, creative medium. His explicative powers are impressively coherent for an art form that is so deeply personal. I’ve learned things about story structure that I’ve been able to apply to my everyday life and can never hear or read a piece of text without analyzing it ever again. There’s no escape.

She is also featured in the Commedia Robotica project the department produced (and we filmed) in December. Congratulations, Paige. Great job and good luck.

Image: UGA Photographic Services.

The Bachelor of Fine Arts Exit Show in Photography happens this Friday, Nov. 30 at the Lamar Dodd School of Art.

The Skinny Jean Bandits: BFA Photography Exit ShowMark your calendar and join the Skinny Jean Bandits as they present the Fall BFA Photography Exit Show! The opening reception takes place on November 30th, 2012, from 7:00 - 9:00PM at the Lamar Dodd School of Art. The show will feature works from the BFA photography candidates Jon Alread, Erica Dale, Caroline Homer, Kathryn Kimmel, Nehemie Cal Lucien, Van Moncrieff, Mei Lin Ng, Betsy Phillips, Astin Shrader, Ian Watson, and Molly Weir.

Check the link for a nice slideshow of some of the work from the show - and how about that spiffy new site?

Image: photograph by LDSOA student Astin Shrader.

The customized university experience means different things to different people. For Elizabeth Allan of Atlanta, it meant bachelor's degrees in Arabic, economics, and international affairs. It also now means the path to becoming a Rhodes Scholar:

University of Georgia Honors student Juliet Elizabeth Allan of Atlanta has been awarded a 2013 Rhodes Scholarship to attend England's Oxford University, where she plans to pursue a master's degree in Modern Middle Eastern Studies. She is one of 32 Rhodes recipients in the United States.

Her degrees from the Franklin College, Terry College of Business and the School of Public and International Affairs create a unique set of credentials for this promising and motivated young woman, and the combination of degrees itself is inspiring and should define what is meant by the notion of creating your own path. For students like this who decide what they want from the university and have the ability to achieve in and outside the classroom, the sky is truly the limit. Congratulations to Allan and best of luck at Oxford. They are lucky to get her.

Associate professor of musicology and women's studies Susan Thomas and professor of biochemistry and molecular biology Jeffrey Dean were among four UGA faculty named to the SEC academic leadership program.

UGA was elected to the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR), becoming its 78th member

Geology professor Steve Holland was elected as President of the Paleontological Society at the November meeting of the Geological Society of America

Franklin professor and director of BHSI, Harry Dailey, receives $1.5 million grant to study anemia

Assistant research scientist Karen Abbott and Distinguished Research Professor Michael Pierce of the UGA Cancer Center received a $4.1 million grant from the NIH to support their work exploring new detection methods for ovarian and pancreatic cancers.

Terrific article in the Athens Banner Herald about the Tuba-Euphonium studio in the Hugh Hodgson School of Music:

“They’re a really, really talented crew. They have really bought into what they’re working on, and they work incredibly hard,” said Zerkel, who narrowly missed out on a chance at a full-time symphony job a few years ago.

It’s no accident that Zerkel sounds like a sports coach sometimes.

“Building a successful studio program is a lot like building an athletic team. You do the best you can to get the best players and do the best you can to get them to the next level,” Zerkel said.

We've written about the exploits of our tuba students in international competitions earlier this summer, but it's great to see Dr. Zerkel and his studio get this attention in the press.

Image: Professor David Zerkel leads a rehearsal of the University of Georgia tuba and euphonium studio in Athens, Ga., Mon., Oct. 15, 2012. (AJ Reynolds/Staff) OnlineAthens/Athens Banner-

A terrific article by the Athens Banner Herald on the Hugh Hodgson School of Music's production of 'The Tales of Hoffman" and DMA student Joseph Brent, who stars as Hoffman:

Compromised is too harsh a description for the UGA Opera Theater’s production of “Hoffman,” as only highlights from the text are offered here, and staging is minimal.
Since no true text of “Hoffman” exists, Brent explained they can pick and choose portions from numerous editions, as they do with the final act.
Brent, in his second year of a doctorate of musical arts in voice program, is no stranger to the stage, having played the lead in “The Pirates of Penzance” in the spring and in “La Boheme” at the PAC. Over the summer, Brent earned a contract to play Radolfo in “La Boheme” with an opera company in Italy.
But Brent, who spent most of his life studying the double bass, didn’t focus on his voice until he came to study at UGA. Born and raised in New York, Brent followed double bass professor Milton Masciadri from Juliard to Athens.
Compared to double bass duty in an orchestra, opera offers Brent a chance to step out of the shadows.
“Not to sound egotistical — that’s the nice thing about opera. When you are a soloist on a stage, everyone is interested in what you have to say,” Brent said. “You can communicate what the composer is trying to do. There are so many people behind the stage ... coaches, directors, lighting designers. It’s our job to represent them and to represent ourselves. In many ways, it’s not egotistical at all because I’m representing so many people onstage.”

Yes you are, Joe. And very well, at that. The two-night production is tonight and Saturday. Tickets here.

Faculty Kudos

 “Visiting Hours at the Color Line,” a collection of poetry by English and Creative Writing Professor Ed Pavlic, was a selection of the National Poetry Series for 2013 and will be published by Milkweed Editions.

Belinda Stillion Southard, assistant professor of communication studies and women’s studies, won the Marie Hochmuth Nichols Award for her book Militant Citizenship: Rhetorical Strategies of the National Woman's Party, 1913-1920 (Texas A&M University Press, 2011)

“The Age of Auden: Postwar Poetry and the American Scene (Princeton University Press, 2010), by Associate Professor of English Aidan Wasley has won the 2012 SAMLA Studies Book Award from the South Atlantic MLA.  The award "honors the author of an outstanding scholarly book published during the previous calendar year" that "reflects the highest standards of scholarship and criticism and offers a significant contribution to its field." 

Student Kudos

English and telecommunications major Thomas Bauer was featured in a Red and Black article on his recently launched website to help students find cheap eats

Lamar Dodd School of Art students were featured in the Red and Black and Oconee Enterprise (no link available) for their work to create a bulldog mural at the Epps Bridge Road Waffle House

Geography graduate students Lowery Parker and Levi Van Sant were quoted in an Athens Banner-Herald article on the “Future of Food” workshop they organized

UGA English doctoral student Dan Rosenberg was featured in a Red and Black article on his award-winning poetry collection “The Crushing Organ “

History major Orry Young was featured in Amazing Students