Tags: Human Nature

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UGA English professor receives British Arts and Humanities award

University of Georgia faculty member Susan Rosenbaum, along with Jonathan Ellis, Reader in American Literature at the University of Sheffield, received a $351,000 grant from Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) of UK Research and Innovation, a non-departmental public body sponsored by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT). Rosenbaum, associate professor in the UGA Franklin College of Arts and Sciences…

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Implanted medical devices can also incubate deadly fungal infections

Medical devices that extend lives and improve quality of life for tens of millions of Americans are generally understood to be wonders of modern science. Prosthetic joints and pacemakers are all but a common occurrence in the lives of many, even as they meaningfully alter the health of the patient. But implanting any foreign object into the body also carries risk of introducing deadly fungal infections. New research from University of Georgia…

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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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Conversation wins over setting in new dating study

'Location, location, location' turns out not to be so decisive when it comes to dating, according to new research from the department of psychology. What resonates more, researchers found out through a clever experiment, is of course the human connection: The researchers randomly paired up 200 strangers in two different first date environments. One room was adorned with comfortable furniture, decorations and nice lighting. The other space was…

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UGA's Rodrigues earns national education award

University of Georgia faculty member Cecília Rodrigues has been awarded the Consortium of Latin American Studies Programs (CLASP) 2025 Excellence in Language Education Award.  The CLASP Excellence in Language Education Award recognizes excellence in Less Commonly Taught Languages (LCTLs) spoken in Latin America and the Caribbean, including language instruction, pedagogical success, curriculum development, and efforts to promote,…

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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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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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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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Psychology alumnus sees opportunity in impact

Born and raised in Cuba, Antonio E. Puente (MS, PhD ’78 – more on that shortly), grew up in a privileged environment that changed in a moment and gave way to scarcity. “All of a sudden, I was in a place where there was no food, no understanding of the language, and very limited resources,” Puente said of his family’s move from Havana to Miami at the beginning of Cuba’s Revolution. “We were in a 1BR apartment with my aunt, uncle, their family,…

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UGA microbiology postdoc receives Life Sciences Research Foundation Fellowship

John Ciemniecki, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Georgia, has been awarded a fellowship from the Life Sciences Research Foundation.  The Life Sciences Research Foundation (LSRF) is a non-profit organization that supports early-career investigators by connecting them with philanthropic donors. Less than 5% of applicants receive a fellowship, which will support Ciemniecki’s salary and research expenses for three years…

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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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Alumni couple builds support network for life challenges

Jordan and Scott Arogeti, founders of SupportNow, help turn difficult moments into opportunities for creating a space where communities can rally to support those in need. “Everyone wants to take action when they hear news, and SupportNow was built to be the platform where people can take those actions,” says chief operating officer Scott Arogeti AB ’06: Through the platform, friends and family can donate money for groceries or medical bills,…

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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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Professor brings American history into view through art

Museum studies is one of the most popular humanities fields, situating visual art within the cultural and historical contexts in which it emerges. Franklin College of Arts and Sciences assistant professor Tracey Johnson takes the disciplines one step further, showing how art as an educational tool influences culture and history.  "The popular front and cultural front periods of the 1930's influenced the pedagogy of Harlem Renaissance-…

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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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Childhood adversity leads to health problems later in life

UGA and the Franklin College welcome back alumna Sierra Carter (PhD, '16, clinical psychology), who will join the Department of Psychology faculty and become the next associate director of Center for Family Research in August. Carter is co-author of a new study that suggests growing up with negative events and in dangerous communities in early adolescence can alter an entire lifetime, particularly for Black men and women. “Things that happen to…

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UGA's Perdisci receives Amazon Research Award

Roberto Perdisci, Patty and D.R. Grimes Distinguished Professor of Computer Science and Director of the UGA Institute of Cybersecurity and Privacy, was selected as a recipient of an Amazon Research Award.   Amazon Research Awards (ARA) provide unrestricted funds and AWS Promotional Credits to academic researchers investigating various research topics in multiple disciplines. This cycle, ARA announced 73 award recipients who represent 46…

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Individuals benefit differently from fish oil, depending on genotype

The health benefits of fish oil have expanded in recent years. As laboratory breakthroughs expand the understanding of omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids’ impact on brain health and warding off a variety of cancers, uptake in the public has followed.  The positive feedback loop continues to inspire new laboratory investigations, and now University of Georgia researchers have published a new study describing how genetic factors modify the…

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Study Abroad in Buenos Aires frames bilingual experiences

Romance Languages graduate student and WUGA staffer Emma Auer reports from the department's study abroad program in Argentina, designed for career-shaping experiences among the people and culture in one of the most diverse cities in the Americas. Auer's report on Athens News Matters: Nearing midnight on a Tuesday, 20 or so University of Georgia fans stumbled towards the stadium doors. They’ve just spent two hours on their feet cheering and…

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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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Computing faculty member receives UGA's first Google Research Scholar Award

Ninghao Liu, assistant professor in the UGA School of Computing, is UGA’s first Google Research Scholar Award recipient.Liu's proposal, "Enhancing Medical Knowledge in Multimodal Foundation Models through Self-Synthesized Data," was awarded $60,000 by the Google Research Scholar program after review by several teams of Google engineers and researchers. "The project explores a new framework to enhance medical understanding in multi-modality AI…

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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…
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