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Category: Creative Research Award

Gregory Strauss

akatki on March 21, 2025

William A. Owens Creative Research Award 2025

Gregory Strauss, Franklin Professor of Psychology in the Franklin College Department of Psychology, is an internationally recognized leader in schizophrenia research, specializing in the study of negative symptoms: deficits in motivation, pleasure, and social engagement that significantly impact quality of life. His work has reshaped the conceptualization, measurement, and treatment of these symptoms, establishing him as a major force in the field. Strauss directs the Clinical Affective Neuroscience Laboratory and the Georgia Psychiatric Risk Evaluation Program, where his team develops innovative assessment tools and targeted interventions for individuals at risk for psychotic disorders. His research has been cited over 13,000 times, and he has secured more than $85 million in grant funding. With over 230 publications, numerous invited talks, and high-impact awards—including the Rising Star Award from the Schizophrenia International Research Society—Strauss continues to advance understanding and treatment of schizophrenia’s most challenging symptoms.

Pejman Rohani

akatki on March 21, 2025

Lamar Dodd Creative Research Award 2025

Pejman Rohani, Regents’ Professor and UGA Athletic Association Professor in Ecology and Infectious Diseases in the Odum School of Ecology and College of Veterinary Medicine, studies the ecology of infectious diseases. Since joining UGA in 2015, he has established an internationally recognized body of work focused on population dynamics, host-pathogen interactions, and the mathematical modeling of diseases. His research has provided critical insights into disease transmission, vaccination strategies, and epidemic forecasting, influencing global public health policy. Rohani serves as deputy director of the Center for Influenza Disease and Emergence Research (CIDER), an NIH-funded initiative advancing the understanding of influenza and emerging pathogens. He has authored over 160 peer-reviewed publications and co-authored a widely cited book on infectious disease modeling. A Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the Ecological Society of America, Rohani’s expertise has been sought by the World Health Organization and the Institute of Medicine.

Scott Merkle

akatki on March 21, 2025

Lamar Dodd Creative Research Award 2025

Scott Merkle, professor in the Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources, is a leading researcher in forest tree biotechnology. A major focus of his work has been the conservation and restoration of the American chestnut, a once-dominant species nearly eradicated by chestnut blight. Merkle’s lab was the first to develop a somatic embryogenesis system for the species, enabling large-scale propagation and genetic transformation efforts aimed at producing blight-resistant trees. His work has supported broader restoration initiatives, including collaborations with the American Chestnut Foundation and the Forest Health Initiative. Merkle has applied similar biotechnological approaches to other threatened species, such as hemlocks and ash trees, and has contributed to phytoremediation research using genetically engineered trees to detoxify contaminated soils. His extensive research, spanning in vitro propagation, conservation, and genetic engineering, continues to inform efforts in forestry and environmental restoration.

Rielle Navitski

akatki on March 19, 2025

Albert Christ-Janer Creative Research Award 2025

Rielle Navitski, associate professor in the Franklin College Department of Theatre and Film Studies, is a leading scholar in Latin American film and media studies. Her research explores the intersections of cinema and transnational exchange, challenging conventional narratives in film history. She has authored two influential monographs: “Public Spectacles of Violence,” which examines sensational cinema and journalism in early 20th-century Mexico and Brazil, and “Transatlantic Cinephilia,” which investigates networks of film culture between Latin America and France during the mid-20th century. Navitski’s scholarship, based on extensive archival research across multiple countries, has reshaped understandings of Latin American film’s role in global media history. She also has co-edited an open-access textbook on Latinx media and an anthology titled “Cosmopolitan Film Cultures in Latin America, 1896-1960.” Recognized with prestigious fellowships and awards, Navitski’s work continues to advance the fields of film history, cultural studies, and Latin American studies, making a lasting impact on those disciplines.

WenZhan Song

akatki on March 19, 2025

Lamar Dodd Creative Research Award 2025

WenZhan Song, Georgia Power Mickey A. Brown Professor in the College of Engineering, is a leading researcher in sensor networks, cyber-physical systems, and security. His work integrates artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things (IoT) to enhance infrastructure security, energy resilience, and healthcare technologies. Song has pioneered breakthrough IoT innovations that enable real-time, non-intrusive health and activity monitoring for humans, animals, machines, and infrastructures. His research in cyber-physical security has led to advanced systems that fuse cyber and physical signals to detect and mitigate threats to smart grids and industrial systems. He has also developed zero-trust IoT data infrastructure to ensure secure, reliable, and privacy-preserving data storage and sharing. Many of his smart IoT technologies have been adopted in real-world settings. As director of UGA’s Center for Cyber-Physical Systems, Song leads interdisciplinary initiatives that drive innovation and industry partnerships. His contributions have earned him numerous accolades, including the IEEE Mark Weiser Award.

Paul Pollack

akatki on March 13, 2024

Lamar Dodd Creative Research Award

paul pollack

Paul Pollack, professor in the Department of Mathematics, is one of the most distinguished experts of his generation in the field of number theory, a branch of mathematics that is thousands of years old and concerned with properties of whole numbers. In his creative research project, he demonstrated how methods from the well-established field of analytic number theory can be brought in to derive powerful new results in the burgeoning area of arithmetic statistics. This kind of synthesis could be carried out by few other mathematicians, making him a world leader in this field. His work has contributed to some of the most significant contemporary research programs in arithmetic statistics: understanding growth rates of number-field-related arithmetic functions and classifying the torsion of elliptic curves. His methods of proof are original and inventive, showcasing his impressive skill in using analytic number theory to answer questions about the statistical behavior of algebraic and geometric objects.

J. Derrick Lemons

akatki on March 13, 2024

Albert Christ-Janer Creative Research Award

J Derrick Lemons

J. Derrick Lemons, associate professor in the Department of Religion, has played a central role in establishing, advancing, and naming a new interdisciplinary sub-field of research: theologically engaged anthropology. A recipient of two major John Templeton Foundation grants, he asserts that theological knowledge can enhance anthropological work on religion, and cultural anthropology can influence theology. His edited book, “Theologically Engaged Anthropology” (Oxford University Press, 2018), is a foundational volume of 20 chapters, many of them authored by senior scholars. This innovative volume places the development of theologically engaged anthropology in an intellectual context and offers a roadmap for developing it. His field-defining success has made him a leading, internationally known mid-career scholar in the humanities and the social sciences. In a new research project, Lemons is developing an ethnographic study exploring relationships between religion and politics in the contemporary world.

Dennis E. Kyle

akatki on March 13, 2024

Lamar Dodd Creative Research Award

Photograph of dennis kyle

Dennis E. Kyle, professor of cellular biology and infectious diseases, is one of the top parasitologists in the world due to his work on multiple parasitic diseases. Kyle also serves as director of the Center for Tropical and Emerging Global Diseases, and some of his most recent and high-impact work focuses on discovery of new drugs that eliminate dormant vivax malaria that can linger in the liver for months, even years. His group has discovered several new drug series that target the dormant liver stages and is moving these novel therapeutics through pre-clinical studies. He also works on Naegleria fowleri, a rare but deadly parasite also known as “brain-eating amoebae.” More than 97% of people infected with these amoebae die within two weeks. Kyle has conducted high-impact research into that pathogen, leading to effective repurposed drugs and the first rapid, sensitive diagnostic method.

Christina Boyd

akatki on March 13, 2024

William A. Owens Creative Research Award

christina boyd

Christina Boyd, Thomas P. and M. Jean Lauth Professor of Political Science, is one of the nation’s most important scholars researching diversity in the courts. She has published 34 refereed journal articles and two books, including “Supreme Bias: Gender and Race in U.S. Supreme Court Confirmations” (Stanford University Press, 2023). In “Supreme Bias,” Boyd and her co-authors examine the dynamics of gender and race at Supreme Court confirmation hearings held before the Senate Judiciary Committee. The authors use extensive new data and qualitative evidence to highlight how female nominees and people of color nominees have faced significantly more challenges during the confirmation process than their white male colleagues, revealing that race and gender bias exist even at the highest echelon of U.S. legal power. With rigorous and empirically credible research, Boyd also has explored how judicial diversity, like gender and race, shapes some judicial outcomes and processes.

Jennifer McDowell

ovprweb on March 22, 2016

McDowell-Jennifer-300x300Creative Research Award 2016

Jennifer McDowell, professor of psychology, is an outstanding researcher who has dedicated much of her professional career to the study of cognition and brain function in healthy humans as well as those with psychiatric disorders. She integrates behavioral and multi-modal brain imaging methods, including electroencephalogram and functional magnetic resonance imaging, to provide comprehensive understanding of cognitive problems and what may be done to treat them. McDowell also conducted a series of methodologically sophisticated studies that documented the nature of cognitive control deficits in people with schizophrenia and their relatives using a particularly informative model based on eye movement performance.  She has published scholarly papers in top journals on cognitive control deficits. These studies demonstrate that impaired cognitive control in schizophrenia is a core feature of the disorder, which may ultimately result in a change of the diagnostic standard or provide a target for functional rehabilitation.