Each spring, the University of Georgia celebrates its achievements of academic excellence during Honors Week, culminating in the annual Research Awards banquet.
For 47 years, this event has recognized researchers making groundbreaking strides in their respective fields through discovery, innovation, creativity, and entrepreneurship.
The 2026 ceremony will take place on April 2 as part of UGA’s Honors Week activities. The awards are sponsored by the University of Georgia Research Foundation.
The full list of winners includes:
James L. Carmon Award
Omid Arhami: Doctoral candidate, Institute of Bioinformatics
Qitao Tan: Doctoral candidate, School of Computing
Robert C. Anderson Award
Olutosin Adesogan: Recent Ph.D. graduate, Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Psychology
Hannah Arnade: D.V.M./Ph.D. candidate, College of Veterinary Medicine
Postdoctoral Research Awards
Trevor Tuma: Postdoctoral research fellow, Franklin College of Arts and Sciences
Haolin “Horace” Zeng: Postdoctoral research associate, College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences
Team Impact Award
Georgia Wildland-fire Simulation Experiment (G-WISE):
Rawad Saleh, associate professor, College of Engineering; Amanda Frossard, associate professor, Franklin College Department of Chemistry; Alexandra Noël, assistant professor, Louisiana State University School of Veterinary Medicine, Department of Comparative Biomedical Sciences; Joseph O’Brien, research ecologist, Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources; Geoffrey Smith, professor, Franklin College Department of Chemistry
Institute for Resilient Infrastructure Systems (IRIS): Brian Bledsoe, professor, College of Engineering, and director of IRIS, representing 30+ faculty
International Collaborative Research Award
M³X (Materials, Manufacturing & Machine Learning Nexus) International Team: Kenan Song, associate professor, College of Engineering; Rayane Akoumeh (senior research assistant, Qatar University); Mohammad Hassan (assistant professor, Qatar University)
Entrepreneur of the Year
Kevin Mis Solval: Associate professor, College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences
Inventor of the Year
Brian Schwartz: Professor, College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences
Research Communications Award
Holly Bik: Associate professor, Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Marine Sciences
Non-Tenure Track Faculty Research Excellence Award
René Ranzinger: Associate research scientist, Complex Carbohydrate Research Center
Michael F. Adams Early Career Scholar Award
Alexander Fyfe: Assistant professor, Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Comparative Literature
Fred C. Davison Early Career Scholar Award
Cassandra Hall: Assistant professor, Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Physics and Astronomy
Amy Winter: Assistant professor, College of Public Health
Charles B. Knapp Early Career Scholar Award
Carla Schwan: Assistant professor, College of Family and Consumer Sciences
Creative Research Medals
Sun Joo “Grace” Ahn: Professor, Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication
Jill Anderson: Professor, Odum School of Ecology
Sharina Maíllo-Pozo: Associate professor, Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Romance Languages
Nikki Shariat: Associate professor, College of Veterinary Medicine
Amanda Spivak: Professor, Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Marine Sciences
Albert Christ-Janer Creative Research Award
Jennifer Palmer: Associate professor, Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, Department of History
Lamar Dodd Creative Research Award
John Drake: Regents’ Professor, Odum School of Ecology
Hitesh Handa: Professor, College of Engineering
James Martin: Professor, Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources
William A. Owens Creative Research Award
Jamie Carson: UGA Athletic Association Professor, School of Public and International Affairs
Distinguished Research Professor
Amy Ellis: Professor, Mary Frances Early College of Education
David Gay: Professor, Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Mathematics
Qingguo “Jack” Huang: Professor, College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences
Daniel Perez: Professor, College of Veterinary Medicine
Robert Schmitz: Professor, Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Genetics