2017 – Research Awards

Jody Clay-Warner

ovprweb on April 14, 2017

William A. Owens Creative Research Award 2017

Jody Clay-Warner, Meigs Professor of Sociology, investigates injustice from both basic and applied vantage points, addressing critical problems in our society: injustice, violence, victimization, and the laws and policies designed to control these problems. Her research broadens the understanding of injustice by systematically examining how social structure and contextual factors affect how people perceive and rationalize injustice, as well as the emotional, cognitive and legal processes involved in responses to injustice. For example, she challenged the notion that women are always more likely to perceive gender discrimination than are men, developing a theoretical model that explained how occupational structure affected perceptions of gender bias. Her work on violence against women demonstrates the role of structural and contextual factors on women’s responses to sexual violence and on re-victimization. Carried out in a rigorous way theoretically and methodologically, her work contributes to understanding and perhaps solving some of our most pressing social problems.

Elizabeth Wright

ovprweb on April 14, 2017

Distinguished Research Professor 2020

Elizabeth Wright, professor of Spanish, is an internationally recognized scholar of Spanish “Golden Age” literature and culture. With more than two decades of energetic, influential and innovative scholarship, she has cast a new light on how Spanish empire building after 1492 transformed the writing practices and literary genres with which individuals and communities made sense of a rapidly changing world. Her current book project, Stages of Servitude: Scenes from the Atlantic Slave Trade, examines how slave trafficking was made socially and economically acceptable in the Spanish world even as rulers and the public acknowledged its cruelty and illegality. But the study also explores how both enslaved and free blacks negotiated economic advancement and even claimed artistic validation. She is also editor of the Bulletin of the Comediantes, the premier scholarly journal devoted to the study of Spain’s Golden Age theater and 2019 winner for Best Journal Design given by the Council for Editors of Learned Journals.

Previous Awards

Albert Christ-Janer Creative Research Award 2019
Creative Research Medal 2017

Deepak Mishra

ovprweb on April 14, 2017

Creative Research Medal 2017

Deepak Mishra, associate professor of geography and leading international scholar in the use of satellite remote sensing techniques, co-created the Small Satellite Research Laboratory (SSRL) in January 2016, starting the space research program at UGA. The goal of this program, made possible by funding from NASA and the Air Force Research Lab, is to launch student-built low earth orbit satellites, aka CubeSats, by 2018 that also provide faculty with unique space-based data that will advance research on coastal ecosystems, marine processes and water quality. Mishra and colleagues assembled a 50-member team of faculty and students from physics, mathematics, computer science, marine science, geography, engineering, design and management, among other departments, to guide the missions. These projects will develop cutting-edge technologies, including running “structure from motion” techniques from an orbiting platform—something never before attempted. The SSRL is an innovative, interdisciplinary research and experiential learning program that is anticipated to be a cornerstone of a future UGA aerospace program.

George Foreman

ovprweb on April 14, 2017

Creative Research Medal 2017

George Foreman, director of UGA’s Performing Arts Center and associate professor of music, guided the production of “Music for the Tsars: Works from the Russian Institute for the History of the Arts,” a CD that significantly advances music education and performance in Russia and the U.S. This massive creative and scholarly undertaking began in 2012 with the goal of highlighting the Russian Institute for the History of the Arts’ rich and largely unknown collection of 19th century wind band music. Foreman coordinated all components of production and recording, while also capturing the original intent and nature of the music. In 2014, the works were recorded in UGA’s Hodgson Concert Hall by Hodgson School of Music faculty and over 100 student musicians. This wonderful recording will have a lasting impact on the world of band literature, the lives of students and others who contributed, and the global perception and reputation of the university.

Katrien Devos

ovprweb on April 14, 2017

Distinguished Research Professor 2020

Katrien Devos, professor of plant genetics with joint appointments in Plant Biology and Crop and Soil Sciences, is an internationally recognized plant genomics researcher. She studies the structure, function and evolution of grass genomes, with a focus on cereals, bioenergy crops and halophytic turfgrasses. She helped lead the development of the “crop circles” concept, which demonstrates relationships among different grass genomes at the genetic level. Her laboratory combines basic and applied research to understand the genetics and evolutionary biology of crops such as wheat, switchgrass, seashore paspalum and millets. Millet species such as finger millet and pearl millet are important to food security in Africa and India. Devos works with East African breeders to design more resilient and sustainable cereal varieties. She and her colleagues recently led the sequencing of both the finger millet genome and its main fungal pathogen, blast, and now are searching for genetic factors that could enhance finger millet’s resistance to blast.

Previous Award

Creative Research Medal 2017

Xiangyu Deng

ovprweb on April 14, 2017

Creative Research Medal 2017

Xiangyu Deng, assistant professor of food microbiology, is recognized for creating a bioinformatics tool that is helping transform global laboratory surveillance of salmonella, the most prevalent bacterial foodborne pathogen in the U.S. and worldwide. His creation, SeqSero, is a powerful web-based tool that offers a novel and rapid approach to serotyping salmonella strains obtained from infected humans, animals, foods and the environment during epidemiological investigations. His innovation replaces a complicated and time-consuming laboratory protocol with whole genome sequencing that allows accurate, fast “fingerprinting” of any salmonella strain. The impact of Deng’s creation on public health is enormous. As a result of his rare combination of bioinformatics expertise, epidemiology know-how and food microbiology background, SeqSero has cut analysis time from days to seconds, while adding no additional cost. The tool has been adopted by U.S. federal agencies and state health departments, as well as laboratories and regulatory agencies in other North American countries, Europe and Asia.

Sun Joo “Grace” Ahn

ovprweb on April 14, 2017

Charles B. Knapp Early Career Scholar Award 2017

Sun Joo “Grace” Ahn, assistant professor in the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication, studies how user experiences in virtual worlds shape and transform individual attitudes and behaviors in the physical world. Ahn was among the first in her field to call attention to the need to re-examine and extend classical theories and models of persuasion and communication in a digital era. Her work, which has advanced the scholarship of persuasive communication by integrating communication, psychology, computer science and public health, makes unique and timely contributions to our understanding of how virtual reality systems can impact attitudes and behaviors of children and adults in ways that were difficult or impossible with traditional media systems. Widely recognized as a rising star of her field, Ahn’s work will have a profound influence on our understanding of how virtual communication technologies transform the way people learn, relate and play.

Richard Chandler

ovprweb on April 14, 2017

Fred C. Davison Early Career Scholar Award 2017

Richard Chandler, assistant professor of wildlife ecology and management, researches how to narrow the divide between ecological theory and application to advance knowledge about wildlife population dynamics and enhance conservation efforts. His unique approach fuses theoretical models with hierarchical statistical models to understand how populations respond to environmental change and management. In addition, Chandler is co-inventor of open-source software used by thousands of wildlife ecologists around the world to study the abundance and distribution of focal species. His quantitative focus has enhanced his core ecological research, which includes studies of population dynamics at range margins, in fragmented habitats and in agricultural landscapes. His contributions to quantitative wildlife biology are highly regarded worldwide, and his accomplishments have contributed to wildlife management in Georgia and throughout the Southeast.

Jamie Kreiner

ovprweb on April 14, 2017

Michael F. Adams Early Career Scholar Award 2017

Jamie Kreiner, assistant professor of history, is an accomplished historian of the early Middle Ages. Her research focuses on the mechanics of culture, including how medieval communities thought that knowledge and commitments were communicated, adopted and affected by other forms of power. Kreiner’s first book, The Social Life of Hagiography, was published in 2014 by Cambridge University Press, the most distinguished press in medieval European history. The book introduces a new way to read a 2,000-year-old literary genre, reshapes our understanding of society in medieval Europe, and shines fresh light on the development of law, finance and ethics in Europe, exposing the very foundations of Europe’s intellectual inheritance. Kreiner has already established an international reputation, and her scholarship has been praised as “pathbreaking” by noted European and American historians for its inspired use of anthropology, narratology and cognitive science to draw new insights from old sources.

Biao He

ovprweb on April 14, 2017

Entrepreneur of the Year 2020

Biao He, GRA Distinguished Investigator and the Fred C. Davison Distinguished University Chair in Veterinary Medicine, is a renowned virologist and vaccine developer who has founded numerous biotechnology companies to develop new vaccines. His UGA research has led to four issued U.S. patents and 19 foreign patents. He’s work on the virus known as PIV5, which has an excellent safety profile, has been translated into vaccines and treatments for deadly infections such as rabies, tuberculosis and HIV. University of Georgia earned the patent for the PIV5 vaccine platform that He developed, and many companies have since licensed it. The Georgia Research Alliance-funded startup company CyanVac is developing vaccines against several animal and human diseases based on He’s research. More recently, he founded Blue Lake Biotechnology, Inc., to develop PIV5-based vaccines for human disease with an initial focus on respiratory syncytial virus. In 2019, Blue Lake secured private investment of $6 million to fund RSV vaccine development.

Previous Award

Inventor of the Year Award 2017