UGA Columns July 16, 2018

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Marketing & Communications University of Georgia 286 Oconee Street Suite 200 North Athens, GA 30602-1999

Researcher’s work brings greater insight into how trees react to stress RESEARCH NEWS

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Georgia Museum of Art exhibition focuses on Southern women artists Vol. 46, No. 1

July 16, 2018

www.columns.uga.edu

UGA GUIDE

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Alumni Association unveils 40 Under 40 class for 2018 By Kelundra Smith kelundra@uga.edu

Dorothy Kozlowski

Brenton Credille served as faculty mentor for a project—a drone that can detect illness while flying over a herd of animals—based on alumnus David Balinsky’s idea.

From dreamer to doer Innovation Gateway has moved more than 100 projects through its pipeline

By Allyson Mann tiny@uga.edu

If you’ve got an idea for a startup, Ian Biggs and the Innovation Gateway team can help you turn it into reality. “Our team has a lot of commercialization experience, and we can guide you in ways that will give you the best chance of success,” said Biggs, lead for UGA’s I-Corps accelerator program and senior associate director of Innovation Gateway, which focuses on translating UGA research discoveries into

products and companies. Biggs has the numbers to back up that claim. A year ago, there were about 60 projects in the Innovation Gateway pipeline. That number has nearly doubled—to a record high of 112—and there’s a good reason for this growth. “We’ve invested time in reaching out to faculty, staff, students, industry and the community, and we’ve made it easy to start a project,” Biggs said. “That generated a huge increase in the number of early-stage projects.” In the pipeline now are such

projects as a drone that can detect illness while flying over a herd of animals, a catheter holder that prevents the instrument from slipping, a self-cleaning nonslip examination mat for veterinarians, a game to teach kids about engineering and a urine test to detect liver complications in dogs, negating the need for an MRI. In the past, the Georgia BioBusiness Center led UGA’s startup efforts, which mostly were limited to faculty research outcomes. Despite the narrow scope, the program See INNOVATION on page 4

COMMIT TO GEORGIA CAMPAIGN

Family honors patriarch with faculty chair position By Sharon Dowdy sharono@uga.edu

To honor Morris Pulliam’s legacy in agricultural education, Dr. Michael and Elaine Pulliam and family have gifted $1 million to create the H.M. (Morris) Pulliam Chair Fund in the University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. This endowed chair position will be awarded to a currently tenured professor or a tenure-track faculty member. The Pulliam Chair faculty member must have an outstanding record in externally funded research and/or scholarly publications and be engaged in teaching, research and public service. The decision to fund the endowed chair was fueled by lifesaving surgery Elaine Pulliam received at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. “A chair was being created for the surgeon, Andrew Warshaw (at

the Institute for Pancreatic Cancer Research), and we helped with that for several years. Once that seed was planted in our minds, we decided to do something that would memorialize my father’s life,” Michael Pulliam said. A lifelong resident of Newton County, Morris Pulliam loved his family, his community and his students. He became a teacher during the Great Depression to provide a better way of life for rural youth. “In the post-Civil War period, Georgia was a terrible place to be a grade-schooler,” said Pulliam of his father’s childhood. “He was the son of an illiterate, hard-working farmer. His mother and father both died when he was young, and he was raised by his siblings.” The elder Pulliam didn’t let his difficult upbringing hold him back. He enrolled at UGA, taught school while he attended college and, at 29, earned a bachelor’s degree from the UGA College of Agriculture.

Pulliam became the principal and agriculture teacher at HeardMixon High School in Covington in 1937. In 1956, he became the agriculture teacher and FFA adviser at Newton High School. He led award-winning FFA chapters from the 1930s to the 1960s. He also alternately served as the FFA camp caretaker from 1943 to 1951. “My father was a dedicated schoolteacher who gave everything he had to his family and to others,” said Pulliam, who is an established ophthalmologist in Covington. Morris Pulliam’s contributions to the Covington and Newton County community also include the vocational building and canning plant, which was chosen as a pilot demonstration project for the state’s vocational agriculture program. He retired in 1968 after 45 years of teaching but continued to be involved in the local school system See PULLIAM on page 4

The University of Georgia Alumni Association has unveiled the 40 Under 40 Class of 2018. This program began in 2011 and celebrates the personal, professional and philanthropic achievements of UGA graduates who are under the age of 40. The honorees will be recognized during the eighth annual 40 Under 40 Awards Luncheon on Sept. 13 at the Georgia

Aquarium. This year’s class includes alumni from a variety of industries ranging from medicine to music. Among the honorees are Hulu’s Emmy Award-winning producer Chase Cain, Georgia football alumnus Mohamed Massaquoi, Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta Complex Care medical director Dr. Margaux Charbonnet Murray, vice president of Mercedes-Benz Stadium Corporate Partnerships

See ALUMNI on page 4

AU/UGA MEDICAL PARTNERSHIP

First class of doctors graduate from internal residency program By Mary Kathryn Rogers mk.rogers@uga.edu

Georgia needs more doctors. In fact, the entire country does. The University of Georgia and Augusta University are working to address that need. On June, 10 residents from the initial class of the Medical College of Georgia at the Augusta University/University of Georgia Medical Partnership Internal Residency Program marched in recognition of finishing their three-year residency program. The U.S. is expected to face a shortage of between 40,800 to 104,900 doctors by 2030, according to a 2017 study by the American Association of Medical Colleges. This is fueled by a growing population and an increase in the amount of aging Americans and retiring physicians. To meet the national average of 36.6 physicians per 100,000 people, Georgia needs an additional

1,456 graduate medical education positions in various specialties such as family medicine, internal medicine and general surgery. The Internal Medicine Residency Program, a joint effort of the AU/UGA Medical Partnership and St. Mary’s Health Care System, received accreditation from the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education in January 2014, becoming Athens’ first medical residency program. This program takes three years to complete and concentrates on producing community-based physicians. Since the inception of the Medical Partnership residency program, an additional internal residency program has been established at Piedmont Athens Regional bringing an additional 15 residents to the Athens community each year. Combining the two programs, the total number of resident positions in Athens is now 85. See DOCTORS on page 4

SCHOOL OF LAW

New Veterans Legal Clinic offers assistance to those who served Veterans living in Georgia can receive legal assistance they may not otherwise have access to or be able to afford through the University of Georgia School of Law’s new Veterans Legal Clinic. Georgia has the ninth largest population of veterans in the U.S., many of whom return home with service-related disabilities and therefore rely on benefits from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, according to 30-plus-year public service lawyer and educator Alexander W. “Alex” Scherr, who directs the clinic’s operations. “Law students will work directly with veterans and their

dependents to ensure access to both benefits and services, especially for those with mental or physical disabilities resulting from their time in the military,” he said. “No veteran should be denied benefits simply because they cannot afford legal assistance. We know that the involvement of an attorney can make a tremendous difference in outcome with regard to denied or deferred claims before the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs,” Scherr said. “Our No. 1 goal is to improve how former servicemen and women receive assistance from the nation they have served.” See VETERANS on page 4


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