The tiny studio is dark and cramped as Ginger Orton settles into her seat, the long arm of a microphone stand stretching toward her as if an overeager cub reporter hanging on her every word. In many ways, she’s surprised to be here.
For one, she never really expected to be a faculty member at an R1 research university like the University of Georgia. At one point, in fact, the Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources assistant professor wasn’t sure she’d attend college. Growing up on a family farm, she was dead set on continuing the family business when she graduated high school.
“I wanted to be a farmer,” she said. “I didn’t want to go to college at all. I thought I’d take over the operation from my dad and just stay there.”
“There” is a cattle farm in tiny Tazewell, Georgia, about 150 miles southwest of the podcast studio in which she currently finds herself.
But alongside her farming experience, Orton grew up in the National FFA Organization (previously Future Farmers of America), which prepares its members for careers in the science, business, and technology of agriculture. She learned public speaking and leadership training, both integral communications skills that transformed her life’s trajectory. She was exposed to the breadth of possibility, challenges facing the industry, and the importance of strong voices to educate the public.
“It’s cheesy to say I got bit by the bug ‘to tell the story,’” Orton said. But I guess that’s kind of where it started.”
From her undergraduate years training to be a journalist to her doctoral studies in West Texas forming the foundation of her current research agenda, Orton has kept that motivation front and center: Remove the veil between scientists and the public, bring clarity to complex topics that are important to society, and rebuild a trust that can be fleeting in modern discourse.
Country kid mischief
Orton’s story begins in Key West, where her father grew up as a committed outdoorsman. He was “fundamentally a conservationist,” Orton said, and sought a place to conserve on his own terms. He established the private 500-acre family farm about 40 minutes east of Columbus, Georgia, in 1991, shortly before Orton was born.
The farm was split 50/50, half the land managed for pasture and the other half for wildlife, reflecting her father’s instincts for stewardship. It supported species like squirrels and bobcats, raccoons and coyotes. Every decision was made with intention: Dirt is positioned near a trough to help provide calves access to water; certain forested areas were fenced off from livestock to preserve native species biodiversity.
It’s a mindset Orton learned from an early age. She worked alongside her siblings, doing hands-on chores and riding the tractor into the field with her father. She hunted and fished, raised chickens, kept horses and cows. As she got older, she ran hay equipment alongside her father.
What she calls ‘country kid mischief’ was, in many ways, the beginning of her academic career.
“As a young kid, there weren’t many responsibilities other than to ride along, lend a hand, and kind of witness everything going on at the farm,” she said. “It was this sort of passive knowledge transfer, like, I was just curious and passionate about all the little things [my dad] knew. He was always just flowing that information to me as I grew up and worked alongside him.”
“The simple answer is trust. Trust. Trust among society; trust among individuals; trust in institutions broadly and, most pertinent, in science as an institution.”
– Ginger Orton, assistant outreach professor of natural resources science communication, Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources
Despite her initial inclinations, Orton did eventually go to college, enrolling in 2014 at Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College (ABAC) in Tifton. Amid her studies in agricultural communications, she discovered journalism. She was the copy editor for the student newspaper, The Stallion, and a news anchor for Stallion TV. She joined the literary magazine, Pegasus, which was bound and printed every year as part of an experiential learning class.
“I really, really loved journalism,” she said with a laugh.
In her senior year, she read hallmark works by noted environmental advocates like Edward Abbey, John Muir, and Rachel Carson—deeply personal accounts from the authors’ perspectives that left their mark on her.
“The power of their words and their permanence [affected me],” she said. “It really struck me how words can make a difference in the world, and I remember thinking, ‘Okay, this is confirmation.’”
One essay drew the attention of her professor, who noted the observations and opinions expressed within Orton’s writing. For the first time, it affirmed and emboldened Orton, giving her confidence that she had something to say—and the desire for a platform on which to say it.
A challenge of trust
Orton finished her undergraduate degree at ABAC and went on to earn master’s and doctoral degrees in agricultural communications from Texas Tech. She focused her research on content analyses of climate change coverage and evidence-based sustainability messaging for U.S. cattle producers.
After a research assistantship from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and postdoctoral scholarship at UGA’s Department of Agricultural Leadership, Education, and Communication, Orton accepted a faculty position as an assistant outreach professor of natural resources science communication. Her position is a “three-way split,” focusing on teaching, research, and outreach, connecting research to stakeholders and decision-makers within the agriculture industry.
At the core of her work is a desire to make evidence-based decision-making more accessible.
For her dissertation, she worked with the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association to communicate sustainable cattle production practices using theoretical frameworks tied to audience values. For NOAA, she tested messaging on weather-alert push notifications, including eye-tracking research on how people visually process warning messages. As a postdoc with a faculty member from the Institute for Integrative Precision Agriculture, she investigated adoption and communication around technologies that reduce chemical and water inputs.
“The simple answer is trust,” she said of the primary challenge she wants to address. “Trust. Trust among society; trust among individuals; trust in institutions broadly and, most pertinent, in science as an institution.
“It’s naïve to think this crisis of trust in science is new. We’ve been here before. Science has an ugly past as much as it does a rewarding one. But involving the public in this process of science, bringing them in and letting them understand the nature of evidence—it’s crucial.”
This is The Next Question
And, so, Orton finds herself squeezed into a dark podcast studio. Seated at a table. A microphone in her face. It’s not a place she expected to be as a girl on a farm, whose ambitions had been focused within the boundaries of a 500-acre plot of land in Tazewell, Georgia.
But at UGA, there’s a lot of research to communicate. Challenges to address. People addressing them.
A guest seated at the table opposite her, Orton gets the signal to begin.
“This is The Next Question podcast, where we believe that science isn’t just about finding answers. It’s also about asking better questions.”
Note: Ginger Orton is the host of the Office of Research Communications’ new podcast, The Next Question, which will debut its first episode on Sept. 3. Taking listeners inside the process and impact of University of Georgia research, the podcast will not only highlight the answers being uncovered but the vital questions that push academic research forward.