On April 3, faculty, students, and staff from across the university will gather in the Georgia Center for the 46th annual Research Awards banquet and ceremony, celebrating significant achievements in research, innovation, creativity, and entrepreneurship by University of Georgia faculty, graduate students, and postdoctoral researchers.
The awards are sponsored by the UGA Research Foundation and are held each year during Honors Week, a time when exceptional performance is recognized across campus.
This year’s winners are:
Robert C. Anderson Award
Ava Reck: Recent Ph.D. graduate, College of Family and Consumer Sciences
Trevor Tuma: Recent Ph.D. graduate, Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources
James L. Carmon Award
Luyang Fang: Doctoral candidate, Franklin College of Arts and Sciences Department of Statistics
Aiman Munir: Doctoral candidate, School of Computing
Postdoctoral Research Awards
Stephanie Halmo: Postdoctoral research associate, Owens Institute for Behavioral Research
Raíssa Nogueira de Brito: Postdoctoral research associate, Franklin College Department of Anthropology
Team Impact Award
The Biointerface Translation and Engineering Center (BTEC): Left to right, Associate Professor Vincent Starai (Franklin College), Professor and Alison Bradbury Chair in Feline Health Chad Schmiedt (College of Veterinary Medicine), Associate Professor Elizabeth Brisbois and Associate Professor Hitesh Handa (College of Engineering), and Benjamin Brainard (College of Veterinary Medicine).
International Collaborative Research Award
Radioactive Wildlife Team: Terrell Distinguished Professor of Wildlife James Beasley (Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources and the Savannah River Ecology Laboratory), together with Thomas Hinton (Fukushima University, Japan), Ole Christian Lind (Norwegian University of Life Sciences), and Kenji Nanba (Fukushima University, Japan)
Entrepreneur of the Year
Prashant Doshi: Professor, School of Computing
Inventor of the Year
Kelly Dawe: Distinguished Research Professor and UGA Athletic Association Professor, Franklin College departments of Plant Biology and Genetics
Regents’ Entrepreneur
Hitesh Handa: Associate professor and Distinguished Faculty Fellow, College of Engineering
Ron Orlando: Professor, Complex Carbohydrate Research Center and Franklin College departments of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and Chemistry
Research Communications Award
Jenna Jambeck: Georgia Athletic Association Distinguished Professor of Environmental Engineering, College of Engineering
Non-Tenure Track Faculty Award
Scott Pippin: Public service associate, Carl Vinson Institute of Government
Jennifer Thompson: Associate research scientist, College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences
Early Career Scholar: Charles B. Knapp Award
Yilang Peng: Assistant professor, College of Family and Consumer Sciences
Early Career Scholar: Fred C. Davison Award
Matthew Bilskie: Assistant professor, College of Engineering
Christopher Cleveland: Assistant professor, College of Veterinary Medicine
Kelly Hines: Assistant professor, Franklin College Department of Chemistry
Chester Joyner: Assistant professor, College of Veterinary Medicine
Early Career Scholar: Michael F. Adams Award
Joseph Kellner: Assistant professor, Franklin College Department of History
Creative Research Medals
Elizabeth Brisbois: Associate professor and Distinguished Faculty Fellow, College of Engineering
Krista Capps: Associate professor, Odum School of Ecology and Savannah River Ecology Laboratory
Justin Lavner: Professor, Franklin College Department of Psychology
Rumya Putcha: Associate professor, Hugh Hodgson School of Music and Institute for Women’s and Gender Studies
Timothy Yang: Associate professor, Franklin College Department of History
Lamar Dodd Creative Research Award
Scott Merkle: Professor, Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources
Pejman Rohani: Regents’ Professor and UGA Athletic Association Professor in Ecology and Infectious Diseases, Odum School of Ecology and College of Veterinary Medicine
WenZhan Song: Georgia Power Mickey A. Brown Professor, College of Engineering
Albert Christ-Janer Creative Research Award
Rielle Navitski: Associate professor, Franklin College Department of Theatre and Film Studies
William A. Owens Creative Research Award
Gregory Strauss: Franklin Professor of Psychology, Franklin College Department of Psychology
Distinguished Research Professor
Sonia Altizer: Martha Odum Distinguished Professor, Odum School of Ecology
Luis Correa-Díaz: Professor, Franklin College Department of Romance Languages
Natarajan Kannan: Professor, Institute of Bioinformatics and Franklin College Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
Barbara McCaskill: Professor, Franklin College Department of English
Christine Szymanski: Professor, Complex Carbohydrate Research Center and Franklin College Department of Microbiology
