Tags: Society

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Smart home hubs leave users vulnerable to hackers

Smart technology claims to make our lives easier. You can turn on your lights, lock your front door remotely and even adjust your thermostat with the click of a button. But new research from the University of Georgia suggests that convenience potentially comes at a cost—your personal security. The study focused on smart home hubs, the centralized device that enables you to control all your smart devices in one easy spot. These…

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UGA’s Latin American Ethnobotanical Garden

An incredible resource of knowledge about flora from around the world – some very familiar, others less so – positioned in a corner of North Campus is a wealth of tastes, cures, and indigenous wisdom. Students in many FYO courses, as well as staff from around Franklin College, have enjoyed and learned from tours of Latin American Ethnobotanical Garden courtesy of its director Paul Duncan.  Research Communications presents an intro complete…

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UGA welcomed academic, industry partners for Georgia Statistics Day

Faculty members, students and visitors gathered for the 2022 Georgia Statistics Day (GSD) hosted by the department of statistics. The GSD is an annual event designed to promote interdisciplinary statistics research among the three flagship academic institutions in Georgia – the University of Georgia, Georgia Institute of Technology, and Emory University.  UGA hosted the inaugural GSD in 2015 to serve as a platform for bringing together…

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Student musicians connect Hodgson School, Athens music scene

Great feature from our friends at the UGA Performing Arts Center about how Experiential learning at UGA gets students out of the classroom and into the world. In October, the UGA PAC and the Hugh Hodgson School of Music created a collaboration between the University of Georgia Symphony Orchestra and world-renowned Athens indie musician Kishi Bashi: A sold-out concert at Hodgson Concert Hall with conductor Mark Cedel showcased Kishi Bashi’s…

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MFA Film accepting applications through Jan. 15

The Master of Fine Arts in Film, Television and Digital Media is accepting applications for its fourth cohort with some exciting plot developments including a partnership with the new Athena Studios, less than five miles from the UGA campus; growth of the Distinguished Industry Mentor program that includes professionals like Chuck Haywood (“WandaVision”), Davita Scarlett (“The Good Fight”) and Damon Lindelof (“Watchmen”); and the…

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Johnson-Bailey receives inaugural Centennial Professorship

University of Georgia professor Juanita Johnson-Bailey was announced at the first recipient of the Centennial Professorship, an endowed professorship for a Women’s Studies faculty member in recognition of the centennial anniversary of women's education at UGA.  Founded in 1977, the Institute for Women’s Studies at UGA is one of the senior Women’s Studies programs in the United States. It also holds the distinction of being the first…

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Locked Out: Sentencing Project 2022 report

New research by the Sentencing Project, a nonprofit organization that advocates for restoration of voting rights for people with prior felony convictions, estimates that 2% of the voting age population in the United States will be ineligible to cast ballots during this year's midterm elections due to state laws banning people with felony convictions from voting. The Sentencing Project advocates for effective and humane responses…

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Anthropology study on land use, herding in Bronze Age Cyprus

New research findings, the first comprehensive study of stable isotopes from both animal and plant remains on the island of Cyprus, expand the archaeological understanding of the dynamics of landscape management in Cyprus during the development of social complexity that led to the first cities on the Mediterranean island The new study, led by UGA associate professor Suzanne E. Pilaar Birch with colleagues Patricia Fall, Steven Falconer, and…

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Noted and Quoted, October 2022

From tempests in the physical world to the discovery of an ancient canal to the reintroduction of heritage apple crops, expertise from and research by Franklin faculty was present in media around the globe. A same of stories over the past month:    As moms return to the office, companies need to demonstrate empathy – Malissa A. Clark, associate professor of psychology, quoted at Indeed Historic storm surge. Record flooding.…

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Kudos, October 2022

Amid the turning of the season, October brought career milestones and the dedication the McBay Science Library, along with prestigious awards, grants, and new books from Franklin faculty. A sample of recent announcement – congratulations to all: UGA oceanographer Samantha Joye has been awarded the 2022 Captain Don Walsh Award for Ocean Exploration The University of Georgia has named nine faculty and academic leaders to the 2022-2023…

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Classics professor documents changing climate

UGA's Jordan Pickett recently published findings which reveal that environmental and climatic changes in the eastern Mediterranean were part of a “perfect storm” that led to widespread settlement abandonment or transformation in the early medieval period, roughly 1,500 years ago. This new body of research, which challenges decades of scholarly work, provides modern humans with a case study for how our ancestors adapted creatively…

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Special issue focuses on growth of archeological science

Suzanne Pilaar Birch, associate professor of anthropology, served as co-editor of a special issue published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences featuring articles outlining the state of the art in archeological science. A collection of articles from the Recent Advances in Archaeological Science Techniques Special Feature explores developments in archaeological science, highlighting advancements in radiometric…

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100th anniversary of Homecoming

This year, the University of Georgia celebrates the 100th anniversary of Homecoming. UGA’s first formal Homecoming event was held on Nov. 18, 1922 when alumni and students gathered on a Friday evening to listen to speeches from faculty, coaches, members of the football team and visiting alumni. This rally was followed by an evening of entertainment and dancing.  Welcome back to all of our alumni friends and families to what should be a fun…

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Athens Hip Hop Harmonic: Building a Bridge Between UGA and Local Music

A vital collaboration between town and gown, Athens Hip Hop Harmonic has created a pipeline for cultural connections strengthening UGA ties to the community through musical innovation and collaborative artistry.  The collaboration gets the star treatment this week as the cover story for Flagpole: As each community artist participating in the Athens Hip Hop Harmonic crossed the stage of Hugh Hodgson Concert Hall and looked out across the 1,…

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Research opens up new revelations about Ancient Greece

Thanks to trade and colonization, 1st millennium BCE Mediterranean was characterized by an unprecedented increase human mobility. New anthropology research co-led by the University of Georgia on the diverse genetic origins of the Classical period Greek army reveals a broad mix of ethnic identity within Greece and throughout the region – as well as the use of mercenaries in battle. Accounts by ancient historians Herodotus and Diodorus…

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Lemons, Shaffer among 2022-2023 Women's Leadership Fellows

The University of Georgia has named nine faculty and academic leaders to the 2022-2023 class of the university’s Women’s Leadership Fellows Program, including Franklin College faculty members Paula Lemons and Anne Shaffer. UGA established the program in 2015 as part of its Women’s Leadership Initiative to provide a select group of current faculty and administrators with an opportunity to develop leadership skills while gaining a deeper…

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UGA’s Guggenheim fellows - the history trio

What does it take to become a Guggenheim fellow? A big idea. Boldness coupled with humility. A keen awareness of just how much time the project will require. And an unwavering curiosity about what it means to be a citizen of our world. Since 2019, the Department of History in UGA’s Franklin College of Arts and Sciences has seen three faculty members awarded fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.…

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Noted and quoted, September 2022

A new naming system for microbes, Greenland's zombie ice, a Finnish scholar on a American history, and tributes to a beloved campus colleague and friend lead Franklin College media mentions and experts During September: Greenland ‘zombie ice’ an ominous warning for future, new study finds – Tom Mote, Distinguished research Professor of geography and associate dean, quoted at Yahoo! News Jackson’s water crisis – A stark warning about…

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Kudos, September 2022

New rankings, art exhibitions, awards and grants highlight recent achievements of colleagues from across the Franklin College: The University of Georgia has been ranked 10th on the latest list of Top Public Universities in the U.S. by the rankings platform Niche UGA Skidaway Institute of Oceanography director Clark Alexander, professor in the department of marine sciences, was voted the 2022-23 president-elect of the Southern…

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Department of Linguistics faculty receive NSF grant to support research on endangered languages

Keith Langston, Professor of Linguistics, was recently awarded a three-year, $450,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to study endangered languages on the Istrian peninsula of Croatia and the Kvarner Bay in the northern Adriatic Sea. The project, supported by the NSF Dynamic Language Infrastructure–NEH Documenting Endangered Languages program, seeks to document and analyze endangered language varieties in the Istria and Kvarner…

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Leaky infrastructure driving antibiotic resistant pathogens in local waters

Could your old septic tank be driving a growth in antimicrobial resistant bacteria? It’s possible, say the authors of a University of Georgia study that identified aging sewer lines and septic systems as the primary drivers of antibiotic resistant bacteria contamination in their samples. This finding flips the script on the assumption that agriculture runoff or treated wastewater outflows are the main ways antibiotic resistant bacteria are…

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Researchers discover potential treatment for Chagas disease

Researchers from the University of Georgia have discovered a potential treatment for Chagas disease, marking the first medication with promise to successfully and safely target the parasitic infection in more than 50 years. Human clinical trials of the drug, an antiparasitic compound known as AN15368, will hopefully begin in the next few years. “I’m very optimistic,” said Rick Tarleton, corresponding author of the study and a UGA…

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Kudos, Summer 2022

The new School of Computing, faculty awards and grants as well as the promotion of Franklin College colleagues to university-level leadership positions highlight our kudos for the summer. Congratulations all!   University of Georgia to elevate computer science with new school – AJC, R&B, Fortune UGA plant biologist Robert Schmitz named finalist for prestigious 2022 Blavatnik National Award for young Scientists – R…

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Noted and Quoted, summer 2022

Broad coverage of big stories on race, health, climate change, weather safety, and history featured research findings and expertise of faculty from across the Franklin College over the summer. A sampling of ongoing, highly impactful scholarship from our colleagues: Black, Latino people more likely to remain masked during pandemic, polls show – research by Allison L. Skinner-Dorkenoo, assistant professor of psychology, reported at …

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Conservation is the future

On campus, as well as elsewhere. The University of Georgia report on its operational sustainability and energy conservation reveals some notable findings. Despite adding over 500,000 square feet of conditioned space, including I-STEM Research Building 1, the Butts-Mehre Heritage Hall Expansion and the Porcelain and Decorative Arts Museum, Discovery and Inspiration Garden, overall campus energy consumption increased only…
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