Brandon Rotavera

ovprweb on April 16, 2021

Fred C. Davison Early Career Scholar Award 2021

University of Georgia researcher Brandon Rotavera

Brandon Rotavera, an assistant professor with appointments in the College of Engineering and the Department of Chemistry, conducts fundamental studies to advance scientific objectives related to sustainable transportation energy for next-generation combustion systems and climate change. His research program bridges experimental measurements with computational modeling to solve basic science questions, including how reactions of new biofuels differ from those of conventional hydrocarbons, to understand how ignition occurs and how pollutants form during combustion. He has developed unique experimental spectroscopic methods to measure important chemical species and is a rising authority in the field of chemical kinetics and combustion, particularly biofuel oxidation. His research is transforming basic understanding of the gas-phase physical chemistry of biofuels and their impacts on combustion and atmospheric chemistry. His group aims to provide fundamental science to further advance the development of engines that operate in “low-temperature combustion” mode, which provides increased efficiency and reduced pollutant emissions.

M. Stephen Trent

ovprweb on April 16, 2021

Lamar Dodd Creative Research Award 2021

University of Georgia researcher Stephen Trent

M. Stephen Trent, UGA Foundation Distinguished Professor of Infectious Diseases, is a driving force and an international leader in the area of bacterial cell surfaces and cell envelope biology. His work has affected the development of novel antibiotics and the generation of vaccines, providing a broader understanding of bacterial pathogenesis for the treatment of infectious diseases. He exploits a wide range of bacterial pathogen prototypes, representing different modes of infection, to highlight unique questions in cell envelope biology and bacterial surface remodeling. He has developed a series of complementary, innovative and well-funded projects that ask leading-edge questions in pathogen biology. The impressive breadth of microorganisms under investigation by his team is matched by successful integrations of multidisciplinary approaches ranging from animal models of infection to genomics, enzymology and structural biology. As a result, his work has offered detailed mechanistic investigations, as well as important broader insights that have afforded major advances.

John Ruter

ovprweb on April 16, 2021

Inventor of the Year 2021

University of Georgia researcher John Ruter

John Ruter is the Allan Armitage Endowed Professor of Horticulture and Director of the Trial Gardens at UGA. The research he conducts focuses on breeding and releasing herbaceous and woody ornamental cultivars and developing Camellia oleifera as a new oilseed crop for the United States. His program has developed numerous ornamental cultivars with economic impact over the last 14 years, with more than 30 being licensed to companies in Georgia, across the United States, and internationally. Most notable of the licensed plants are Hibiscus and Ilex (Holly) cultivars, with useful ornamental traits for various landscape applications. Previously, Ruter was awarded the D.W. Brooks Award for Excellence in Research from the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. Ruter is a Fellow of the International Plant Propagators’ Society and an award-winning author of four books and over 500 scientific and popular publications.

Demi Thomloudis

ovprweb on April 16, 2021

Michael F. Adams Early Career Scholar Award 2021

University of Georgia researcher Demi Thomloudis

Demi Thomloudis, assistant professor in the Lamar Dodd School of Art, is an accomplished researcher in the small, intensely competitive field of contemporary jewelry. Her investigation of the human body and its relationship to jewelry have manifested in consistently strong works of art that challenge our assumptions about jewelry and its meaning, power and value. Her research, which explores jewelry’s capacity to express the interrelationship of person and place, has earned her an international reputation in the field, as well as numerous accolades and invitations to participate in prestigious exhibitions and residencies. Over the last five years, she has had four two-person exhibitions and one solo exhibition; invitations to exhibit in 20 internationally recognized group and juried exhibitions; 28 nationally recognized exhibits; and was included in dozens of books, articles, exhibition catalogues, newspapers and online media that have reviewed or reproduced images of her work.

Katherine Ehrlich

ovprweb on April 16, 2021

Charles B. Knapp Early Career Scholar Award 2021

University of Georgia researcher Katherine Ehrlich

Katherine Ehrlich, assistant professor in the Department of Psychology, leverages cutting-edge biological methods to understand health consequences of problematic parenting, racial discrimination and socioeconomic disadvantage. Her research often focuses on how children’s experiences become embedded in their physical health, including their immune systems, during development. In one study, she and her colleagues examined whether early-life adversity versus current stress more strongly predicted inflammatory response to challenge over time. From children’s blood samples drawn over several years, the researchers found that adversity in early life predicted enhanced interleukin-6 production whereas current stress did not. This research could provide critical information about sensitive periods for immune system development. In another study, she reported that children’s attachments to their parents were associated with asthma management. Her more recent research explores health disparities and resilience among high-achieving African American children and youth.

Rachel Gabara

ovprweb on April 16, 2021

Albert Christ-Janer Creative Research Award 2021

University of Georgia researcher Rachel Gabara

Rachel Gabara, associate professor of French in the Department of Romance Languages, works at the intersection of cinema studies, African studies and French and Francophone studies. She has expanded our understanding of literature and film from Africa and Europe in rigorous scholarship grounded in extensive archival research supported by the Fulbright Scholar Program and the National Endowment for the Humanities. In a book and a number of essays on autobiographical narrative, transnational modes of nonfiction film, and African cinema in a global context, Gabara has examined the complex connections between the two continents during the colonial and postcolonial eras. She is currently completing a second book, “Reclaiming Realism,” the first comprehensive study of documentary filmmaking in West and Central Africa. Gabara serves as film review editor for the African Studies Review and has organized and facilitated a wide variety of events with African filmmakers and about African cinema.

Lawrence Sweet

ovprweb on April 16, 2021

William A. Owens Creative Research Award 2021

University of Georgia researcher Lawrence Sweet

Lawrence Sweet, Gary R. Sperduto Professor in Clinical Psychology, is an internationally recognized transdisciplinary researcher. Trained as a clinical neuropsychologist, he is a methodologist with specializations in cognitive assessment and multimodal neuroimaging. He also creatively combines knowledge from other disciplines, departments and programs to generate insights into pressing challenges in public health and clinical psychology. He has published in top journals in several areas of research including human development, behavioral medicine, cognitive neuroscience and neuropsychology. His neuroimaging approaches, taught to his trainees, have advanced understanding of neurocognitive risk markers of depression, addiction, stroke, vascular dementia and other conditions. His research has contributed to knowledge of the human lifespan from early-life adversity to aging. He has created an outstanding record of training successful researchers, offering mentorship across disciplines and at every level of career development. His impact is reflected in new generations of scientists across numerous fields.

Zachary Peck

ovprweb on April 9, 2021

James L. Carmon Scholarship 2021

Zachary Peck, a graduate student in the Institute for Artificial Intelligence, is investigating OpenAI’s GPT-3, the most advanced language-processing technology currently available. In addition to investigating how GPT-3 can be trained to do specific tasks using solely natural language instruction, Peck’s research grapples with pressing existential questions, such as how the introduction of such technologies could radically reshape society.

Camila Lívio

ovprweb on April 9, 2021

James L. Carmon Scholarship 2021

Camila Lívio, a doctoral student in the Department of Romance Languages, has co-written three published academic papers and presented at a dozen conferences. Her dissertation project uses computational tools to process and analyze natural language data in Spanish and Portuguese, constructing corpora from various cyber social spaces—social media, online customer reviews—to understand the mechanisms of these languages, as well as develop new technologies for language instruction.

Cecilia Sánchez

ovprweb on April 9, 2021

Robert C. Anderson Memorial Award 2021

Cecilia Sánchez, who completed her Ph.D. in December 2019, is a research scientist at EcoHealth Alliance. She studies viral spillover from bats to humans. For her doctoral research, Sánchez examined how urban living affects wildlife movement, exposure to environmental contaminants, and pathogen transmission, conducting extensive field work on flying foxes in urban and rural landscapes across Australia. She used bench work, mathematical models and synthetic reviews to address important questions in infectious disease ecology and beyond, publishing nine papers—six of which are first-authored—since starting her Ph.D. in 2014.