University of Georgia
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Author: npatel

Team Impact Award 2026

npatel on March 26, 2026

Team Impact Award 2026

Four people stand in a row inside an industrial setting, with large red industrial fans in the background, celebrating their Team Impact Award.

G-WISE (Georgia Wildland-fire Simulation Experiment) is an ambitious, interdisciplinary research program that has advanced understanding of wildland fire smoke and its implications for public health, environmental regulation, and land management. Led by Rawad Saleh in the College of Engineering, the team integrates expertise from engineering, forestry and natural resources, chemistry, and veterinary medicine to address a central challenge in fire science: how smoke from prescribed fires differs from wildfire smoke in quantity, composition, and health impact. Through a tightly coordinated framework that combines laboratory-scale fire simulations, smoke chemistry analysis, toxicological assessment, and predictive computer modeling, G-WISE has generated insights that could not be achieved within any single field. The team’s work has clarified how smoke composition, exposure, and toxicity interact to shape health outcomes, providing land managers and regulators with evidence-based guidance for the use and timing of prescribed fires. Supported by major federal funding and national collaboration, G-WISE demonstrates how interdisciplinary team science can inform policy-relevant decisions and address complex environmental challenges. 

Team Impact Award 2026

npatel on March 26, 2026

Team Impact Award 2026

A group of 20 adults, both men and women, stand outdoors in front of a stone wall and trees, posing for a group photo after receiving Research Awards.

The Institute for Resilient Infrastructure Systems (IRIS) is redefining how infrastructure systems are designed to protect communities in a rapidly changing world. Directed by Brian Bledsoe in the College of Engineering, IRIS brings together engineering, ecology, forestry and natural resources, environmental design, business, public health, social sciences, and related fields to develop integrative solutions in which natural and conventional infrastructure work together to reduce risk. IRIS research addresses urgent societal challenges including flooding, sea-level rise, extreme weather, drought, and pollution, combining rigorous engineering and environmental science with social, economic, and community-engaged approaches. The team’s work spans local flood mitigation efforts in Georgia, resilience planning for military installations across the United States, and internationally funded projects in Latin America, Asia, and the Middle East. Supported by major federal, state, and philanthropic investment, IRIS has influenced engineering design standards, policy discussions, and on-the-ground implementation of natural infrastructure. IRIS demonstrates how interdisciplinary team science can translate complex research into durable benefits for communities worldwide. 

Holly Bik

npatel on March 26, 2026

Research Communications Award 2026

Jenna Jambeck, a woman with long blonde hair wearing a blue floral dress, stands against a plain gray background, smiling at the camera.

Holly Bik, associate professor in the Franklin College Department of Marine Sciences, is a nationally recognized scientist-communicator whose work sets a high standard for research communication and public engagement. A marine biologist and bioinformatician, Bik studies the diversity and evolution of nematodes—microscopic worms that play essential roles in ocean ecosystems—and has developed innovative ways to make this complex research accessible to broad audiences. Her most distinctive communications effort accompanied a 2023 research expedition to East Antarctica, where her team collected nematodes from seafloor sediments to study adaptation in extreme environments. Confronted with limited internet connectivity, Bik pioneered the use of WhatsApp as a low-bandwidth outreach platform, sharing daily mini-blog posts that provided real-time insights into Antarctic science and life at sea. The project reached thousands of participants in more than 40 countries, engaged classrooms worldwide, and drew coverage in Nature. Through creativity, rigor, and reach, Bik transforms specialized research into shared discovery.

Alexander Fyfe

npatel on March 26, 2026

Michael F. Adams Early Career Scholar Award 2026

Joseph Kellner, wearing a green suit jacket, white shirt, and brown tie, stands against a plain, dark background, facing the camera and smiling slightly.

Alexander Fyfe, assistant professor in the Franklin College Department of Comparative Literature and Intercultural Studies and the African Studies Institute, is recognized for his soon-to-publish book, Writing the Noncolonial Self: Modern African Literatures and the Politics of Subjectivity (University of Virginia Press, May 2026), a major contribution to African literary studies and postcolonial theory. The book examines how African writers articulate forms of political and ethical subjectivity within colonial frameworks, without simply reproducing nationalist or anticolonial paradigms. Through close readings of fiction, essays, and political writing, Fyfe demonstrates how modern African literature theorizes noncolonial modes of selfhood grounded in relationality, responsibility, and historical awareness. The book has been widely praised for its conceptual originality, archival depth, and theoretical precision, and it positions Fyfe as an important new voice in global literary studies. Through this work, Fyfe has made a lasting contribution to debates about subjectivity, decolonization, and world literature.

Omid Arhami

npatel on March 26, 2026

James L. Carmon Scholarship 2026

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Omid Arhami, a doctoral student in the Institute of Bioinformatics (IoB), is recognized for innovative research that advances the ability to predict infectious disease threats by linking viral evolution to population-level outbreaks. Working under the advisement of IoB’s Pejman Rohani, Arhami conducts research at the intersection of bioinformatics, statistics, and epidemiology, developing new computational methods to identify which viral mutations drive meaningful changes in immune response—an essential challenge in vaccine design and pandemic preparedness. Arhami is the developer of Topolow, a novel algorithm that transforms sparse and incomplete viral data into accurate antigenic maps, overcoming limitations that have constrained the field for decades. Published in Bioinformatics and released as open-source software, the method is already being adopted by researchers across immunology and related life sciences. Arhami’s work also connects molecular change to epidemic dynamics, with applications to influenza and other rapidly evolving pathogens, reflecting an ambitious and impactful research profile. 

Qitao Tan

npatel on March 26, 2026

James L. Carmon Scholarship 2026

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Qitao Tan, a doctoral student in the School of Computing, is recognized for research that advances how powerful artificial intelligence models can be trained and deployed on resource-limited devices. Working under the advisement of Geng Yuan, Tan develops new algorithms that make it possible to adapt large-scale AI models—such as large language models—without their typical heavy computational demands. His work addresses a longstanding disconnect between AI algorithms and the hardware on which they must ultimately run. Tan has already published multiple first-authored papers in highly selective international venues. One of his papers received a Best Paper nomination at the International Conference on Computer-Aided Design, a top-tier conference in electronic automation design. Together, these accomplishments reflect an unusually strong record of innovation, productivity, and interdisciplinary impact. 

Olutosin Adesogan

npatel on March 26, 2026

Robert C. Anderson Memorial Award 2026

Olutosin Adesogan, a woman with braided hair, smiles at the camera outdoors, standing in front of green trees and flowering bushes on a sunny day.

Olutosin Adesogan, a 2025 Ph.D. graduate of the Franklin College Department of Psychology and current postdoctoral fellow at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine, is recognized for a highly productive research program examining health inequities among Black Americans. Working under faculty adviser Justin Lavner, she investigates how stressors rooted in systemic racism shape mental and physical health across the lifespan, while also identifying sources of resilience. Adesogan has authored 10 peer-reviewed publications, including multiple first-authored articles, in leading journals such as Clinical Psychological Science and Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology. Her research and training have been supported by prestigious national programs, including her selection as a visiting future faculty scholar at the University at Buffalo and as a trainee in the Michigan Center for Urban African American Aging Research. Adesogan also secured a National Institute on Aging Research Supplement to Promote Diversity, reflecting recognition of both her scholarship and its relevance to aging and health equity research. 

Cassandra Hall

npatel on March 26, 2026

Fred C. Davison Early Career Scholar Award

Chester Joyner, with long wavy brown hair, wearing glasses and a dark green velvet jacket, poses against a plain gray background.

Cassandra Hall, assistant professor in the Franklin College Department of Physics and Astronomy, is an emerging leader in computational astrophysics whose research bridges planet formation, astrobiology, and artificial intelligence. Her work focuses on understanding how planets form within young circumstellar disks—particularly through gravitational instability, a long-debated process that has proven difficult to test observationally. Using high-resolution numerical simulations, Hall generated predictions for physical signatures produced through gravitational instability that were later confirmed by observations of the AB Aurigae system, providing some of the strongest evidence to date that gravitational instability can directly produce giant planets. She has published over 60 peer-reviewed papers, including work in  Nature, and her research has been featured in The New York Times. Hall has secured more than $1 million in funding as principal investigator and over $3 million in total research support. She is a National Geographic Explorer and the recipient of the Royal Astronomical Society’s Winton Early Career Award. 

Jill Anderson

npatel on March 26, 2026

Creative Research Medal 2026

A woman with gray hair, wearing a light purple cable-knit sweater, stands and faces the camera against a plain, dark background—resembling Grace Ahn.

Jill Anderson, professor in the Odum School of Ecology and the Franklin College Department of Genetics, is recognized for a groundbreaking long-term research project investigating the ecological and evolutionary consequences of climate change in natural plant populations. For more than a decade, Anderson has led one of the world’s most ambitious field experiments, testing whether plant populations harbor sufficient genetic variation to adapt to rapidly changing environments. Using the Rocky Mountain wildflower Boechera stricta, her project integrates common garden experiments, climatic manipulations of temperature and snowpack, and quantitative genetic and genomic analyses across an elevational gradient. This work has produced insight into how climate change alters natural selection, disrupts local adaptation, and constrains evolutionary rescue. Anderson demonstrated that adaptation and gene flow are insufficient to prevent population declines under projected climates, even in widespread species. By linking evolutionary processes to demographic outcomes, her project has reshaped understanding of extinction risk and informed conservation strategies, including the potential need for assisted migration under accelerating climate change.

Amy Winter

npatel on March 26, 2026

Fred C. Davison Early Career Scholar Award

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Amy Winter, assistant professor in the College of Public Health, is an epidemiologist whose research uses mathematical and simulation-based models to inform global vaccination policy. A central contribution of her research is analyses conducted through the Vaccine Impact Modelling Consortium, in which Winter evaluated rubella vaccine introduction scenarios across 19 countries. Her findings demonstrated that longstanding World Health Organization guidelines—requiring 80% measles vaccine coverage prior to rubella vaccine introduction—were unnecessarily restrictive. By showing that rubella vaccine introduction would not increase the burden of congenital rubella syndrome in these countries, her work provided strong evidence for expanding vaccine access. These results informed deliberations of the WHO Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization and contributed to revised global recommendations that will allow more than 200 million children access to the rubella vaccine. Achieving this level of policy impact at an early career stage reflects Winter’s exceptional research influence in infectious disease epidemiology.