Tags: Earth

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International expedition tracks East Greenland Coastal Current

Nicks Foukal, assistant professor in the UGA Department of Marine Sciences is co-leader of an international research project focused on oceanography and current measurements in the East Greenland Coastal Current. The team’s observations aboard the Research Vessel Thorunn Thordardottir from August 29 through September 12 aim to help determine how the East Greenland Coastal Current may influence the stability of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning…

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Original Space Dawg achieving lift-off at NASA

As founding ringleader of the UGA Small Satellite Research Lab, Franklin alumnus Caleb Adams (BS ’18, MS ’20) displayed an early knack for tackling tech and software conundrums, as well as putting teams together. Today, those skills, intuition and creativity are hard at work in helping lead efforts in Silicon Valley at NASA’s Ames Research Center to develop automated spacecraft to manage traffic in Earth’s low orbit and perhaps one day…

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Noted and Quoted, summer 2025

Throughout the summer quiet and into the busy fall, Franklin faculty expertise and research findings continues to resonate broadly across the global media. A few of the many recent stores we've been following: How it’s not about the place — it’s about the people – research lead by Daisi Brand, graduate student in the department of psychology, reported by Health Medicine Network   New research illustrates how live events foster social…

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New Faculty Tour lets professors get to know Georgia

28 University of Georgia faculty members toured the state in early August on the 2025 New Faculty Tour. The immersive five-day trip introduces new faculty to UGA’s statewide mission and helps them connect their academic expertise to the real-world needs of Georgia communities.  The tour provided a thorough introduction to UGA’s vital role in the state as participants traveled through 45 counties and 15 cities: Tour stops included the UGA…

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Jack Hartpence: Supplying Water, Serving Humanity 

In this seven-part series, we’re excited to highlight our 2025 Franklin alumni award winners—showcasing their accomplishments and providing some insights as we seek this year’s nominations. The Franklin College of Arts and Sciences Alumni Awards honor a group of outstanding alumni across various categories. These individuals exemplify The Franklin Spark, the characteristics that unite the arts and sciences: ambition, curiosity, creativity,…

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Welcome, Class of 2029!

It's that time – crowded buses and sidewalks, nervous energy and general wonderment of students back on campus for the fall of 2025. Welcome to the Class of 2029 – the next in a distinguished line of high-achieving, ambitious, creative freshmen entering UGA and the Franklin College with big dreams: This year, every measure of the incoming class’s academic profile increased. These first-year students arrive with an average of 11 Advanced…

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Three Franklin professors named as UGA Faculty Innovation Fellows

The University of Georgia Innovation Fellows Program, a university-wide initiative to provide the UGA community with improved, peer-delivered access to information, training, and assistance related to innovation and entrepreneurship, announced its first cohort of Faculty Innovation Fellows. The program recruited faculty members from select colleges to act as peer-liaisons and ambassadors between researchers and innovation programs…

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Chemistry doctoral student awarded prestigious DOE fellowship

University of Georgia Ph.D. student Troy Smith is among thirty students selected for the Department of Energy Computational Science Graduate Fellowship (DOE CSGF) program, which emphasizes the use of computing and mathematics. The DOE CSGF ranks at the top of the most competitive fellowship programs offered by the NSF and DOD. The 2025-2026 incoming fellows will attend 21 U.S. universities as they learn to apply high-performance computing (HPC)…

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Alumni Awards are open!

The Franklin College of Arts and Sciences is excited to announce the 2026 Franklin College Alumni Awards! These awards honor a group of distinguished alumni who exemplify the characteristics of the Franklin Spark that unite us across the arts and sciences. These traits are undeniably ambitious, exceptionally curious, wildly creative, incredibly innovative, and tomorrow’s leaders. When the arts and sciences come together, innovative multi-…

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Geology steps up to identify Georgia meteor

On June 26, a fireball streaked through the daytime sky. After catching eyes across the Southeast US, the extraterrestrial fragments crash landed in Atlanta. Multiple fragments tore through a residential roof in Henry County, later turned over to a UGA planetary geologist and impact expert to determine their origin and classification: And it turns out these new chunks are actually quite old. “This particular meteor that entered the atmosphere…

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Thirst for history always ripe for discovery

The story of how the steel industry in the United States was caught flat-footed by foreign competition as well as a nascent environmental movement embraced by their labor union represents a fascinating turn in the historical arc of American industrial development. It was also sufficiently captivating to power Louise Milone to get her doctorate degree after age 75. “The real history of the 1950s is how US steel and the other major companies…

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Lyall among new SEC leadership fellows

Neil Lyall, associate dean for physical and mathematical sciences and professor of mathematics in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, is one of four accomplished University of Georgia faculty members named as Fellows of the 2025-2026 Southeastern Conference Academic Leadership Development Program: The program, which launched in 2007, seeks to prepare campus leaders for executive careers in higher education. Fellows are selected through a…

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Art professor works to help 'Restore the Night Sky'

Oxford American features UGA art faculty member Marni Shindelman, whose work investigates the impacts of ambient LED lighting on our views of the night sky – and our perceptions of the light sources. Associate Professor in the Lamar Dodd School of Art at the University of Georgia where she heads the photography area, Shindelman brings a keen eye to the effects of a networked world, connecting the invisible to actual sites, anchoring the…

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Ancient bald cypress trees archive climate secrets, future clues

A new research study led by UGA anthropology alumna Katherine Napora (Ph.D. '21) reveals how dramatic shifts in climate can have long-lasting effects on even the toughest, most iconic trees – and offers a glimpse into the powerful forces that shape our natural world. Researchers from Florida Atlantic University and the UGA Museum of Natural History studied bald cypress trees from a buried subfossil deposit at the mouth of the Altamaha River near…

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Geology, anthropology guided alumna toward science career

UGA goes Beyond the Arch to feature alumna Beth Shapiro (BS ’99, MS ’99), MacArthur Fellow, author, and chief science officer of the “de-extinction” startup Colossal Biosciences, where she works the front lines of possibility and ethics in utilizing gene editing to re-introduce an extinct wolf species:   For her part, Shapiro addressed these questions in her 2015 book How to Clone a Mammoth, a sort of how-to manual that also…

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Higher CO2 levels leading plants to contribute to warmer temperatures

One of the elevated dangers of global climate change is discoveries outside the boundaries of expected changes – whether temperature, sea level and other predicted results of higher atmospheric carbon concentrations. UGA scientists now have added plants to net contributors to rising global temperatures. The scientists detail the findings in a study published in the Nature journal Climate and Atmospheric Science documenting the impact of…

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The South Atlantic Bight: a living laboratory

The swath of US coastline that extends from Cape Hatteras, NC to Cape Canaveral, FLA, known as the South Atlantic Bight, is a broad but relatively shallow section of the Atlantic that reaches to the gulf stream. Situated near its coastal midpoint, the University of Georgia Skidaway Institute of Oceanography houses a research hub into the bight that allows marine scientists and oceanographers near-constant access to this dynamic biological…

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UGA partners with Rowen on climate resilience

The University of Georgia Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences and the College of Engineering in partnership with the Rowen Foundation has launched a two-year Hydrometeorology and Land Cover Change Observational Study (HALOS) that will begin this summer.  HALOS will generate critical baseline data to monitor how large-scale development impacts local weather, geography and watershed…

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Marine sciences graduate student connects passion for sailing to ocean preservation

UGA goes Beyond the Arch to the Skidaway Institute of Oceanography to catch up with graduate student Grace Mann, whose childhood ocean adventures drive her marine science research: She spent her first 16 years exploring the reefs, sailing the waves, and walking the shores of the Turks and Caicos Islands. These experiences instilled in Mann a love for the ocean and, eventually, a calling to protect it.  Her English-born dad and Texas-bred…

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Genetics professor puts UGA on the corn map

A career of investigation and groundbreaking discovery in maize genetics has helped Kelly Dawe, Distinguished Research Professor in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, reshape how researchers understand—and improve—a vital crop. Through the rich genetic diversity of corn, Dawe has unlocked pathways to long-sought breakthroughs with cross-scale impacts in genetics, cell biology and genome evolution. Our colleagues in Research…

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Plates, spinning, fixed crater origins on Vesta

Vesta, one of the largest bodies in the asteroid belt, has long occupied human imagination – from Roman mythology to 20th century science fiction.  The protoplanet's Divalia Fossae, massive surface troughs comparable in size to the Grand Canyon, encircle two-thirds of Vesta's equator. Rather than erosion, these deep basins were the result of large meteorite impacts that changed the asteroid’s gravitational field which, in turn, affected…

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New study documents declining health of coastal marshes

Scientists from Colorado State University, Georgia Southern, the University of Georgia and the University of Texas at Austin developed a model to provide an early warning and opportunity to protect an ecosystem that serves as the first line of defense against coastal flooding. By using satellite observations, the model identified vulnerable marshes along Georgia’s coast by locating declining root production – a harbinger of marsh failure. The…

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UGA Franklin grad receives AAAS Mass Media Fellowship

Alex Music, a 2025 master's degree alumna in geography in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, is a recipient of an AAAS Mass Media Science & Engineering Fellowship. The 10-week summer program places science, engineering, and mathematics students at media organizations nationwide to use their academic training to research, write, and report on pressing issues, sharpening their abilities to communicate complex scientific issues to the…

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Enhancing Academic Excellence with real-world projects

Spring 2025 Capstones included computing, history, Statistics, and criminal justice A wide array of capstone opportunities across Franklin College – ranging from data-driven projects in statistics and data science to history students curating a Special Collections exhibition – produced outstanding work and provided many opportunities for student learning and career readiness this spring.  As part of the Academic Innovation Initiative of the…

artists rendering of dusty star system, with colors, space, and bright stars
UGA's Song receives Webb Telescope support to observe low-mass stars

Inseok Song, associate professor of astronomy in the University of Georgia Franklin College of Arts and Sciences department of physics and astronomy, has received a grant from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). Song's JWST program, "JWST Mid-IR Observations of Warm Debris Disks around Nearby M-dwarfs", will observe 19 M-type stars, the lowest mass stars that are the most common in the Universe.  "M-dwarf stars are the most common type…
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