Tore Olsson

on February 18, 2016

Robert C. Anderson Memorial Award 2014
Graduate Student Excellence-in-Research Award 2014

Tore Olsson, a recent doctoral graduate in history, has made numerous important contributions to the fields of modern U.S. and Mexican political and diplomatic history and transnational history, and he has conducted interdisciplinary scholarship in food, agricultural and environmental studies. His dissertation, “Green Revolutions: The American South, Mexico, and the Twentieth-Century Remaking of the Rural World,” examines the intertwined histories of U.S. and Mexican agrarian reform programs from the early twentieth century to the early Cold War period. Olsson’s multi-sited and multilingual archival research convincingly demonstrates that the roots of the so-called “Green Revolution” were first planted not in the minds of post-World War II development technocrats, but instead in the Rockefeller Foundation’s efforts to tackle rural poverty in the U.S. South during the Progressive Era. Olsson is now working on a book manuscript, and he is an assistant professor at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

Daniel Streicker

on February 18, 2016

Robert C. Anderson Memorial Award 2013

Daniel Streicker, a doctoral graduate in ecology, made extraordinarily important contributions to the field of infectious diseases while studying at UGA, where he continues his fine work as a postdoctoral researcher. Streicker’s research focuses on viruses that “jump” between species, such as influenza and HIV. He led a team of scientists to measure the extent of cross-species transmission in host communities, using a dataset of rabies virus sequences from over 20 bat species. His studies provided the first empirical evidence that even rapidly evolving viruses are constrained to more easily infect closely related host species–work that could help predict which viruses are most likely to jump between species. Streicker’s follow-up work explained that the extent of evolutionary changes needed to infect new host species predicts how quickly viruses establish a permanent foothold in the new host species. Finally, he identified potentially counterproductive effects of bat culls on rabies transmission in Peru, which may have policy implications for rabies control programs throughout Latin America.

Ying Wai Li

on February 18, 2016

Graduate Student Excellence-in-Research Award 2013
Robert C. Anderson Memorial Award 2013

Ying Wai Li, a doctoral graduate in physics, was an outstanding graduate student researcher while at UGA, and her many accomplishments led to her current postdoctoral fellowship at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. For her PhD research project, Li worked at the interface between physics, computational science and biochemistry. She carried out very detailed simulations of the hydrophobic-polar protein folding model, which examines how proteins become functional in space. Her painstaking work led to the identification of a small number of “universal classes” of protein folding behavior. Understanding the folding behavior of proteins under diverse conditions is key to interpreting their functional properties, and Li developed a number of novel approaches to speed up the simulations and to permit her to access system sizes necessary to reveal the relevant physics. Her work explores and maps new territory, and the conclusions she has drawn may lead to new design principles for proteins or peptides used in nanotechnology and a range of real-world applications.

Franklin Leach

on February 18, 2016

Graduate Student Excellence-in-Research Award 2012
Robert C. Anderson Memorial Award 2012

Franklin Leach, a recent doctoral graduate in chemistry, developed and refined new mass spectrometry methods for the structural characterization of glycosaminoglycan (GAG) carbohydrates, a particularly difficult target for such analysis. These biomolecule chains exist on the surfaces of most cells, and the pattern contained within each chain, in particular that of sulfation, determines how individual cells interact with each other and the outside world. One of Leach’s papers reports the first ever complete sequencing of intact glycosaminoglycan chains derived from a proteoglycan, and the unexpected finding of a well-defined pattern of sulfation within the glycan chains, which supports the existence of a sulfation code for cellular communication. Leach is author or co-author of 13 papers and two book chapters. He is currently a postdoctoral researcher at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, where he is working on the design and construction of a next generation mass spectrometer.

Junwen Chen

on February 18, 2016

Robert C. Anderson Memorial Award 2012

Junwen Chen, a recent doctoral graduate in management information systems, investigates the role of mobile devices in blurring the temporal and geographic boundaries between work and personal life domains. Her work examines the ways in which mobile technology is both beneficial and deleterious. More specifically, she examines how interruptions through mobile devices lead to positive and negative performance consequences in both work and personal life and how coping strategies may mitigate these consequences. Chen’s research aims to inform practice through organizational interventions and design guidelines for device-automated coping strategies that will provide users with more control and reduce unwanted interruptions. Chen has also been actively conducting research on green information systems to explore how information systems can be used to mitigate environmental degradation. Her research has been published in top journals and presented at prestigious conferences. She has co-authored 13 journal articles. Chen is currently assistant professor at Nanyang Technological University.

Haibao Tang

on February 18, 2016

Robert C. Anderson Memorial Award 2011

Haibao Tang, senior bioinformatics engineer, J. Craig Venter Institute, devised a novel ‘top-down’ computational method to clarify the evolution of angiosperms (flowering plants). His work set the stage for dramatic improvements in the precision of translational genomics, since his method can be applied to many plants, from botanical models to major crops—and even more complex systems.

While working in the lab of plant biologist Andrew Paterson, Tang realized that to apply mammalian comparative genomics to flowering plants was fundamentally flawed. Tang’s method revealed surprising properties of the earliest angiosperm genomes, and dramatically improved scientists’ ability to discern correspondence between the genomes of monocots and dicots in the deepest branches in the angiosperm tree.

Tang published several first-author papers in top journals and has coauthored 16 additional publications on this work. His research also provided the foundation for a grant of more than $400,000 from the National Science Foundation to enhance the online database he helped create.

Yuchen Liu

on February 18, 2016

Robert C. Anderson Memorial Award 2011

Yuchen Liu, postdoctoral candidate, Yale University, has made major contributions to scientists’ understanding of methanogenic Archaea. She investigated a regulatory histone-like protein in the methanogenic archaeon, Methanococcus maripaludis, which required her to develop new methods and modify others specifically for the project. The project involved a wide variety of measurements, including real-time PCR, proteomic analysis, enzyme assays, DNA foot-printing, and gel mobility shift assays on knock-out mutants with wild type organisms. Liu identified the DNA-binding motif of this protein, which suggests that the protein function in mesophilic methanogens is greatly diverged from homologs in thermophiles. She also solved a major problem involving the metabolism of sulfur in methanoccoci, demonstrating an unexpected pathway. Both of these projects resulted in first-author publications in major journals.

Darren Grem

on February 18, 2016

Robert C. Anderson Memorial Award 2011

Darren Grem, postdoctoral research associate, Yale University, investigated the complex dialogue between conservative Christianity and business in the Sunbelt after World War II. Rather than accepting the old trope that conservative Christianity arose out of a grassroots backlash against the political and cultural radicalism of the 1960s and ‘70s, Grem demonstrates how close ties between evangelicals and corporations served their mutual interests during the Cold War and since.

Grem’s original dissertation, titled “The Blessings of Business: Corporate America and Conservative Evangelicalism in the Sunbelt Age 1945-2000,” examines how evangelicals have marketed and promoted their beliefs through private businesses, missionary work, films, schools, children’s books and other vehicles to promote the growing economic, cultural, and political influence of the evangelical movement.

Kaushlendra Singh

on February 18, 2016

Robert C. Anderson Memorial Award 2010

Kaushlendra Singh, an assistant professor of wood science and technology at West Virginia University, developed novel technology for fractionating poultry litter to re-use in beneficial ways. Through fractionation, pyrolysis, and pelletization, Singh produced several value-added products from poultry litter. The smaller fraction, which is rich in nutrients, can be pelletized for use in both solid and liquid fertilizers and soil amendments. The larger size can be used as the raw material for bioenergy production. His innovative work, which has already gained the interest of private industry, is likely to lead to new, less-costly storage and transportation solutions—and to new value-added, income-producing products from poultry wastes. Singh has published five research papers, with four more under revision for various academic journals.

Previous Award

Graduate Student Excellence-in-Research Award 2009

Brant Faircloth

on February 18, 2016

Robert C. Anderson Memorial Award 2010

Brant Faircloth, a post-doctoral scholar in ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of California in Los Angeles, used molecular techniques to demonstrate a flexible mating system and social integration in Bobwhite quail. Contrary to the accepted dogma that the ground-nesting Bobwhites are monogamous, Faircloth showed that their mating and social behavior may include monogamy, polygamy, and polyandry. He also documented intra-specific nest parasitism and brood amalgamation as important social behaviors. Over three years he captured, genetically sampled, and radio-tagged more than 600 adult birds over three years. He linked that data with an additional 600 newly hatched chicks to create a social and genetic matrix of his study population. Faircloth and his collaborators at UGA and UCLA are creating models for testing this newly discovered flexible social system in other bird species. His work has already resulted in 14 published papers.