University of Georgia Magazine Spring 2018 by University of Georgia Alumni Magazine

spring 2018

The Numbers Game Digging Deep for Big Data at UGA

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CONTENTS

Embark Georgia extends a helping hand to the state’s most vulnerable students, p. 16.

the magazine of the university of georgia spring 2018

INSIDE 5

The President’s Pen

UGA to Z

How do Madison Crosby (left) and Gabi Rosenthal help keep UGA’s streams clean? Find out on p. 20

President Jere W. Morehead JD ’80 on the State of the University address.

Accomplishments and accolades from across the UGA community. peter frey

Bulldog Bulletin

On the Bulldog Beat

News and events from the UGA Alumni Association.

The Chapel Bell has been ringing for more than a century.

Class Notes Cooking up barbecue in central Georgia, fighting diseases at the CDC, offering UGA students better off-campus housing options in Athens,

FEATURE

ON THE COVER

16 A Helping Hand

Embark Georgia gives students experiencing homelessness and those in the foster care system the resources they need to succeed.

18 UGA's Green Streak

Students are taking a lead role in building a sustainable campus.

22 Defeating Neglected Diseases A UGA center takes on a public health problem that includes more than a dozen diseases of poverty.

and much more.

Faculty Focus Get to know Libby V. Morris, Zell Miller Distinguished Professor of Higher Education

28 The Numbers Game

The Georgia Informatics Institutes for Research and Education were created less than two years ago, but they are already making a major impact.

Cover photo by Andrew Davis Tucker

Our spring cover takes us down into Dahlonega's Consolidated Gold Mine with Jaewoo Lee, one of the new faculty members in the Georgia Informatics Institutes for Research and Education. You can dig deep into UGA informatics on p. 28.

and director of UGA’s Institute of Higher Education. geo rgia maga z ine | s pring 2 018

Run for the Rose Eclipse sony michel’s 27-yard touchdown run capped a phenomenal comeback and gave the Georgia Bulldogs a 54-48 double-overtime victory overipsum Oklahoma in sit the amet, 2018 Rose Bowl, a game many consider college lorem dolor consectetur adipiscing. Mauris football’s in years. To claim their Rose title, the Bulldogs ultrices nullabest et accumsan eleifend. Nam second pharetra erosBowl at odio overcame interdum. a 17-point deficit, the largest infringilla the game’s history. The Rose pellentesque Quisque enim ante, egestas mi sit Bowl victory was theorci. highest in a season full of them. Onac, Dec. 3, amet, eleifend pretium Sed point non metus finibus, aliquam eros UGApurus. avenged itsnon onlyaugue regular-season loss by defeating to win the sagittis Duis quis nisi tincidunt vehicula.Auburn Morbi at program’s 13th gravida Southeastern title.tempor. By virtue of the Rose Bowl enim mi. Aliquam nisl et Conference nisi scelerisque Praesent themattis Bulldogs earned theirfacilisis first trip tonunc. the College Football antewin, justo, egetalso rhoncus vitae, sed Nam turpis ex, Playoff National sit Championship consectetur amet nulla at.game. It will not be the Bulldogs’ last.

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andrew davis tucker

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spring 2018

VOLUME 97

ISSUE NO. 2

georgia magazine

Editor · Eric Rangus MA ’94 Associate Editor · Aaron Hale MA ’16 Writers · Kellyn Amodeo ABJ ’09, Leigh Beeson MA ’17 Art Director · Jackie Baxter Roberts Advertising Director · Pamela Leed Office Manager · Fran Burke UGA Photographers · Peter Frey BFA ’94, Rick O’Quinn ABJ ’87, Andrew Davis Tucker, Dorothy Kozlowski BLA ’06, ABJ ’10, Chad Osburn Editorial Interns · Katherine Costikyan, Rachel Floyd, Mara Weissinger

marketing & communications Vice President · Karri Hobson-Pape Executive Director · Janis Gleason Brand Strategy Director · Michele Horn

administration President · Jere W. Morehead JD ’80 Senior VP for Academic Affairs & Provost · Pamela Whitten VP for Finance & Administration · Ryan Nesbit MBA ’91 VP for Development & Alumni Relations · Kelly Kerner VP for Instruction · Rahul Shrivastav VP for Research · David C. Lee VP for Public Service & Outreach · Jennifer Frum VP for Student Affairs · Victor Wilson BSW ’82, MEd ’87 VP for Government Relations · J. Griffin Doyle AB ’76, JD ’79 VP for Information Technology · Timothy M. Chester

Change your mailing address by contacting e: records@uga.edu or ph: 888-268-5442 Find Georgia Magazine online at ugamagazine.uga.edu Submit Class Notes or story ideas to gmeditor@uga.edu

advertise in Georgia Magazine by contacting Pamela Leed at e: pjleed@uga.edu or ph: 706-542-8124 fine print

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andrew davis tucker

Georgia Magazine (issn 1085-1042) is published quarterly for alumni and friends of UGA. postmaster | Send address changes to: University of Georgia 286 Oconee Street, Suite 200 North Athens, GA 30602

In compliance with federal law, including the provisions of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Sections 503 and 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, the University of Georgia does not discriminate on the basis of race, sex, religion, color, national or ethnic origin, age, disability, or military service in its administrations of educational policies, programs, or activities; its admissions policies; scholarship and loan programs; athletic or other University-administered programs; or employment. In addition , the University does not discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation consistent with the University non-discrimination policy. Inquiries or complaints should be directed to the director of the Equal Opportunity Office 119 Homes-Hunter Academic Building, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602. Telephone 706-542-7912 (V/TDD). Fax 706-542-2822.

THE PRESIDENT’S PEN

A Story of Transformation

2018 State of the University Address

It is a remarkable time in the history of the University of Georgia. All of the key performance indicators—from student success to research productivity to public service to alumni support—are trending in the right direction. Moreover, our football team finished last season second in the nation after winning the SEC Championship and the Rose Bowl and competing for the national title. So, where does the university go from here? That question was the subject of my recent State of the University address. The answer is that the university will not be satisfied with the status quo. To that end, I unveiled several new initiatives to elevate—even higher—the role of UGA as a force for good in our state, nation, and world:

“As the positive momentum continues to build around our university, I would like to thank our faculty, staff, students, alumni, and friends for their dedication to the birthplace of public higher education in America.”

1. Promote active learning across campus: Initiatives will transform a number of traditional classrooms into active learning spaces and help faculty incorporate active learning strategies into their courses. 2. Expand support for rural students: The newly established ALL Georgia Program will support students from rural areas of the state by combining financial and academic resources with mentorship and leadership opportunities. 3. Help seniors facing financial hardship: A pilot program will award completion grants to keep seniors who are struggling to stay in school because of financial hardships on the path to graduation. 4. Evolve the undergraduate curriculum: Proposals are being developed to strengthen the writing requirement and make data literacy a cornerstone of undergraduate education to ensure our students are prepared for the global economy. 5. Harness the innovation ecosystem: A new presidential task force will establish a long-term strategic vision to expand innovation and entrepreneurship on campus. These initiatives will help to drive UGA forward in 2018. As the positive momentum continues to build around our university, I would like to thank our faculty, staff, students, alumni, and friends for their dedication to the birthplace of public higher education in America. We have so much to look forward to in the coming year.

Jere W. Morehead President geo rgia maga z ine | s pr ing 2 018

THE GEORGIA FUND SUPPORTS THE MOST PRESSING NEEDS ON UGA’S CAMPUSES. TODAY, THAT NEED IS STUDENT SCHOLARSHIPS.

WHAT IS THE IMPACT OF YOUR $100 GIFT TO THE GEORGIA FUND?

36,000 DONORS

GAVE AN AVERAGE OF

$100

TO THE GEORGIA FUND IN FY17

COLLECTIVELY THAT TOTALED MORE THAN

$1.6 MILLION 100% OF GIFTS TO THE GEORGIA FUND SUPPORT STUDENT SCHOLARSHIPS. THAT’S

OUR STATE’S

$1.6 MILLION TO HELP EDUCATE OUR WORLD’S

FUTURE LEADERS

YOUR $100 GIFT CAN MAKE A BIG DIFFERENCE NOW AND FOR YEARS TO COME. SUPPORT THE GEORGIA FUND TODAY.

GIVE.UGA.EDU/GM

UGA Z to

News, accomplishments, and accolades from the UGA community

REDCOAT BAND

I Love a Rose Parade UGA’s football players weren’t the only Bulldogs to return to Pasadena after 75 years. On Jan. 1, for the first time since 1943, the Georgia Redcoat Band marched in the Rose Parade. At 129 years old, the annual Rose Parade is actually older than the bowl game with which it shares the spotlight. The Redcoat Band, joined by the Georgia cheerleaders and Hairy Dawg, who strutted atop a float decorated with nearly 30 types of roses, marched 5.5 miles through Pasadena mere hours before the Bulldogs’ Rose Bowl win over Oklahoma. andrew davis tucker

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UGA to Z NEW HEIGHTS

FRESHMAN RETENTION RATES

Student Success Soars

university of georgia

The numbers don’t lie: Measures of student success at UGA are at all-time highs. The freshman retention rate—an indicator of student success and satisfaction that quantifies the percentage of incoming students who return for their sophomore year—now stands at 96 percent, exceeding the 88 percent average of Southeastern Conference institutions. In addition to recent efforts to reduce class sizes and enhance academic advising for students, President Jere W. Morehead JD ’80 recently announced the Investing in Student Success Initiative to recruit 10 tenure-track faculty members, 10 lecturers, and six academic advisors to support students in fields with rapid enrollment growth.

southeastern conference institutions

96%

88%

chad osburn

JUST BREATHE

Graduates Develop Anxiety-Reducing App

EXCELLENCE ABROAD

Scholarly Send-off A pair of UGA students will continue their studies in China next fall as two of 142 internationally selected Schwarzman Scholars, a program designed to prepare the next generation of leaders with an understanding of China’s role in global trends. Elizabeth Hardister, a CURO Honors Scholar, and Gaby Pierre, a Foundation Fellow alumna, are both Honors students working to finish their master’s degrees at UGA before heading to China. Hardister, from Dunwoody, is completing a bachelor’s degree in international affairs and a master’s in public health, and Pierre, from Kingston, Jamaica, is finishing her master’s in environmental planning and design. The addition of Hardister and Pierre brings the total number of UGA Schwarzman Scholars to three. The fully funded, yearlong master's program in global affairs is offered at Tsinghua University in Beijing. Students live and learn on the Schwarzman College campus and focus their studies on public policy, economics and business, or international studies.

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It may have started as a New Media Institute capstone project, but a new student-created app is now available for download on Apple devices around the world. After the first concept for their final project fell through, Kristyn Hicks ABJ ’17, Madison Hall AB ’17, Clarke Modlin ABJ ’17, and Joe Reisigl ABJ ’16 were scrambling for another idea. Inspired by the anxiety they were feeling, the Grady College students created Ebb, or Evaluate, Breathe, Begin. Using Apple Watch technology, Ebb reduces stress and anxiety by monitoring a user’s heart rate and sending an alert when it spikes. The app then suggests anxiety-quelling exercises and guides the user through them. Reisigl says the team felt validation after they were contacted by an Atlanta-area psychologist, who said she recommends the app to her clients who struggle with anxiety. “That was one of the greatest compliments we could receive,” Reisigl says. “It's pretty cool to see that this could actually make a difference in someone's life.” Gaby Pierre, top, and Elizabeth Hardister will head to China as prestigious Schwarzman scholars.

UGA to Z LEADING BY DESIGN

CED Names a New Dean Sonia Hirt, one of the world's foremost scholars of land use and planning, has been named dean of UGA’s College of Environment and Design. Currently a professor and dean of the University of Maryland’s School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation, Hirt begins her appointment July 1. Hirt is the author of more than 70 scholarly publications, including four books, and her research has been supported by grants and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Association of University Women, the American Council for Learned Societies, and the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts.

ECONOMIC VITALITY

It Starts with Georgia UGA has an annual economic impact of $5.7 billion on the state of Georgia, according to the latest study measuring how the university’s three-part teaching, research, and service mission contributes to the state’s economy. Among other things, the study measures the added earnings of graduates with UGA degrees, how faculty research contributes to Georgia’s economic vitality, and the impact of the university’s public service and outreach programs. Programs like the Small Business Development Center help businesses and communities prosper by bringing them evidence-based advice and expertise.

dorothy kozlowski

Rusty (right) was treated for a broken leg at the UGA Veterinary Teaching hospital before his appearance at the 2018 Rose parade. Sonia Hirt joins UGA from the University of Maryland's School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation.

COMEBACK STEED

Happy New Year, Rusty Hours before the Bulldogs completed their record-breaking, come-from-behind Rose Bowl win, another dramatic comeback wrapped up on the Rose Parade route. Three years ago, Rusty, a horse owned by David Helmuth of Milledgeville, was kicked in the shin by another horse right before pulling a stagecoach in the Savannah St. Patrick’s Day parade. He suffered a broken bone in his front leg and was referred to the UGA Veterinary Teaching Hospital for treatment. At the UGA Veterinary Teaching Hospital, the veterinary team determined that extensive medical care and surgery would be required to treat the injury. Helmuth was told that it was possible that Rusty may never be sound again. “In Rusty’s case, he was very lame, almost non-weight-bearing lame where he couldn’t put weight on that leg,” says Eric Mueller, chief medical officer of the veterinary teaching hospital and a member of the team that treated Rusty. “Initially, we probably would have given him about a 50-50 chance because of the size of the horse, the location of the wound, and the severity of the lameness.” Despite the risks, Helmuth decided to go ahead with the surgery. Rusty came through with flying colors and soon made a 100 percent recovery. On New Year’s Day, the 10-year-old Belgian led the six-horse stage-coach team for Wells Fargo in the Rose Parade.

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UGA to Z UGA STRONG

State of the University According to President Jere W. Morehead JD ’80, the State of the University entering 2018 is, in a word, strong. Morehead delivered his annual address to the UGA community Jan. 24, and he spent the majority of it expanding on the university’s strength and listing the ways it continues to grow. He gave updates on the university's three strategic priorities, and he outlined new major initiatives to support them.

ART HISTORY

Exhibition, Book Explore UGA’s Crafting Past

Nearly 100 years of art education at UGA is highlighted in Crafting History. This rare 1940s photo of faculty member Alan Kuzmicki (second from left) teaching ceramics students is one of the project’s many treasures.

Since the late 1920s, UGA has offered instruction in ceramics, textiles, and jewelry/ metalwork. The program thrived, but much of its early history was undocumented, like the fact that it began in the College of Agriculture before the art department even existed. The Georgia Museum of Art is organizing an exhibition on these craft programs and publishing a book on them, both titled Crafting History: Textiles, Metals and Ceramics at the University of Georgia. The project was authored and curated by Ashley Callahan; Annelies Mondi AB ’84, deputy director of the art museum; and Mary Hallam Pearse, associate professor of jewelry/metals at the Lamar Dodd School of Art. The trio dug deep into archives at the Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library, interviewed surviving craft faculty members and their families, and tracked down objects to put on display. The result is an important work of history and a testament to the program's achievements and influence, including the role women played in its beginnings. The exhibition will be on display at the museum through April 29 and the book available for purchase from the Museum Shop, local booksellers, or Amazon.

see page 5 for more.

Georgia Museum of Art through April 29, 2018 andrew davis tucker

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• Further enhancing our learning environment. Proposals are being developed to strengthen the university’s writing requirement and ensure that data literacy becomes a cornerstone in undergraduate education at UGA. Morehead also announced the launch of a classroom renovation plan and summer institute to help faculty incorporate active-learning strategies into their undergraduate courses. Finally, Morehead announced the creation of the ALL Georgia program, targeted to support students from rural areas in the state. • Solving the grand challenges of our time. In December, a new task force took shape to develop a long-term strategic vision for an innovation district that addresses how to strengthen the culture of innovation and entrepreneurship at the university and “maximize the university’s positive impact.”

Crafting History Exhibition

• Increasing scholarship support for our students. Morehead directed $250,000 in private funds to establish a pilot program to award small completion grants (up to $2,000 each) to students at risk of dropping out due to financial hardships.

UGA to Z A CUT ABOVE

Faculty Fellowship

Students from the Ballroom Performance Group dance during the Spotlight on the Arts Student Spotlight at Tate Plaza.

Three UGA faculty have been named Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), an honor bestowed by their peers for “scientifically or socially distinguished efforts to advance science or its applications.” The selected faculty are among 396 new AAAS Fellows nationally and are all members of UGA’s Plant Center. James H. Leebens-Mack, professor of plant biology, is noted for distinguished contributions to plant evolution and genomics. Wayne Allen Parrott, professor of crop and soil sciences, is honored for his contributions to the implementation of plant transformation technologies. C.J. Tsai, a Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar, is recognized for pioneering research contributions in forestry biotechnology and genomics. “Selection as an AAAS Fellow is a major milestone in a scientist's career, and thus the University of Georgia is enormously pleased that three of our faculty have been selected for this honor,” says David Lee, UGA vice president for research. “This peer recognition is important to our faculty, and it also brings added distinction to the university.

dorothy kozlowski

SPOTLIGHT

Take a Bow

TOY DOCTORING

More than 23,000 people participated in UGA’s 2017 Spotlight on the Arts festival Nov. 1-12. The festival featured more than 100 events and exhibitions, including performances from the University Theatre, the Hugh Hodgson School of Music, and the department of dance; readings from creative writing program students as well as guest writers; special exhibitions; and a popular open house at the Lamar Dodd School of Art. “The response to the Spotlight on the Arts festival has been extraordinary, and it reflects the quality of the arts programs on our campus and the exemplary dedication of the members of the UGA Arts Council,” says Pamela Whitten, senior vice president for academic affairs and provost.

Time for Your Checkup Three-year-old Yi Zheng, right, laughs as his stuffed animal monkey tries out the nebulizer breathing treatment machine with the help of undergraduate student Tricia Malloy at the Child Development Lab at the McPhaul Center, a division of the College of Family and Consumer Sciences. Students studying human development and family sciences put on the Teddy Bear Clinic to make medical equipment and experiences less scary for children.

andrew davis tucker

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UGA to Z HIGHEST HONOR

President's Medal

andrew davis tucker

TRAINING DAY

Simulation Lab Arrives on Campus SimMan can’t complete a touchdown pass, sink a three-pointer, or throw a no-hitter. But he is really good at playing hurt, and that makes him a useful teammate at UGA’s new Athletic Training Simulation Lab. Part of the College of Education’s kinesiology department, the lab is equipped with video cameras and SimMan mannequins that help athletic training students practice what they’ve learned. The high-tech mannequins can be controlled by faculty to mimic a live patient’s symptoms, including irregular heart rate and breathing. The lab’s video cameras record students’ performance so they can be reviewed and critiqued by faculty. “This is where the future is going,” in terms of athletic training education, says Bud Cooper, clinical associate professor and athletic training program director. “We feel the program here at UGA will continue to be at the forefront of athletic training education with the addition of this laboratory space.” The lab’s equipment was made possible by a donation from Susan Harrison and her husband, the late Dr. J. Harold Harrison. The Augusta residents requested the gift, which was part of a larger donation to the UGA Athletic Association, be used for athletic training education.

Athletic training majors (from left) Luke Lammert, Ryan Bussey, and Katie Plummer check the heartbeat on a SimMan Essential simulated patient during a demo in the new Kinesiology Simulation Lab at the Ramsey Center.

One of the university's highest honors, the President’s Medal, recognizes extraordinary contributions of individuals who have supported students and academic programs, advanced research, and inspired community leaders to enhance the quality of life of citizens in Georgia. In January, medals were presented to two worthy recipients. Mary Frances Early MMEd ’62, EdS ’67 was the first African American to receive a degree from UGA. Early went on to work extensively in the public education system, in addition to earning an additional specialist in education degree from UGA. Delmore “Del”Dunn spent 4o years at UGA before retiring in 2006. During his time at the university, he was a Regents Professor of Public Administration and Policy and held many positions throughout campus before retiring as vice president for instruction.

Mary Frances Early and Delmore “Del” Dunn were presented with the President's Medal at the 2018 Founders Day luncheon.

special

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c o m m i t t o g e o r g i a c a m pa i g n

ENHANCING THE LEARNING ENVIRONMENT AT UGA

learning At the University of Georgia, knows no limits.

GA students like Emily Giambalvo are committed to learning at the highest levels. Through private giving, they have opportunities to expand their knowledge and develop stronger skills through experiences beyond the classroom, such as internships, research, study abroad, and service-learning. The Ramsey Honors Scholarship drew the Easley, South Carolina, native to UGA. Nearly four years later, the budding sports journalist has written more than 400 stories (including some published in The New York Times), won multiple awards, visited 30 states, studied in Russia, and reported from the 2016 Paralympic Games in Rio de Janeiro. Much of that is thanks to funding from donors like the late Bernard Ramsey and the academic support of faculty members like Vicki Michaelis. Michaelis is helping ensure the next generation of sports media professionals—like Giambalvo—have high journalistic standards, the skills to negotiate the ever-changing media landscape, and an understanding of how sports mirrors and affects social and cultural change. A generous $1 million contribution from the John Huland Carmical Foundation established her chair in Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication, as well as the Grady Sports Media Certificate program she directs.

WHEN THE WORLD CALLS, BULLDOGS ANSWER.

ii: enhancing the learning environment

EMILY GIAMBALVO CLASS OF 2018 | BERNARD RAMSEY HONORS SCHOLAR, 2017 MCGILL FELLOW

“When I think about what UGA has given me, my thoughts turn to the people who have enriched my time in Athens. Professor Michaelis is always willing to help. Each time I leave her class or her office, I feel excited to be a journalist.”

VICKI MICHAELIS JOHN HULAND CARMICAL CHAIR IN SPORTS JOURNALISM & SOCIETY

“We require that students complete the majority of their class assignments in the real world—the press box at Sanford Stadium, the sidelines at Clarke Central High School, or postgame with the Atlanta Hawks—and those experiences prepare them for the future.” edwin hammond

Through the Commit to Georgia Campaign, the Bulldog family has the opportunity and responsibility to expand and enhance these types of learning experiences. Give to the UGA Experiential Learning Fund and make a positive difference right now and for generations to come. GIVE.UGA.EDU/NOBOUNDS

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HELPING HAND Embark Georgia gives students from the foster care system and those experiencing homelessness the resources they need to succeed. by leigh beeson ma ’17

argaret* hates the word homeless. But when she transferred to UGA in fall 2014, that’s exactly what she was. Her father had been diagnosed with a terminal illness earlier that year. Doctors told the single parent he had less than a year to live, causing him to fall into a deep depression. He stopped paying the bills, and the bank foreclosed on the family’s house. “I didn’t have anywhere to live where my family was at the time, so I told myself I might as well not have a place to live while going to school,” says Margaret, now 25. “I didn’t really have a plan or a place to live when I moved to Athens. A friend was nice enough to let me sleep on their couch, so I ended up sleeping on their couch for about eight months.” The stress of working two jobs, going to school full time, and trying to make ends meet finally got to be too much. Margaret decided that maybe college just wasn’t in the cards for her. Then she found Embark. Launched in 2012 by UGA's J.W. Fanning Institute for Leadership Development,

Embark Georgia is a statewide network designed to identify former foster care or homeless college students and connect them to the resources they need to earn their degrees. Embark partners with representatives from numerous state and social service agencies to provide financial aid and other assistance to help students attend—and afford—college. “Students who have been in foster care are far less likely to graduate from college than the rest of the general population,” says David Meyers MSW ’96, one of Embark’s network directors along with Lori Tiller. Both are faculty members at the Fanning Institute. “And we know that having a college education unlocks all kinds of opportunities in terms of income, leadership opportunities, and more. These students often don’t have the support that makes college seem like an option to them.” In Georgia, there are around 14,000 children in foster care; about 300 of them will age out of the system this year. Another 36,000 students in Georgia have been identified as experiencing homelessness by

* To protect her family's privacy, Georgia Magazine is using only Margaret's middle name.

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the National Center for Education Statistics, with around 1,600 high school seniors designated as either homeless or unaccompanied, meaning they are emancipated or otherwise estranged from their parents. These students are significantly more likely to drop out of school, experience unplanned pregnancies, and end up in jail. “Homeless youth and children in foster care are a very vulnerable population,” says Sara Blake Smith, homeless and foster care liaison for Fulton County. “These kids have so many obstacles stacked against them. The odds aren’t in their favor.” Embark Georgia’s goal is to provide the support—financial and emotional—to stack the deck to ensure that students like Margaret don’t become statistics. Collaborating with contacts like Smith in all the school districts across the state, Embark Georgia bridges the gap between high school and college for these students, giving them not only financial assistance but also connecting them to a caring adult on every University System of Georgia and Technical College System campus. That

“HOMELESS YOUTH AND CHILDREN IN FOSTER CARE ARE A VERY VULNERABLE POPULATION. THESE KIDS HAVE SO MANY OBSTACLES STACKED AGAINST THEM. THE ODDS AREN’T IN THEIR FAVOR.” sara blake smith, homeless and foster care liaison for fulton county

critical assistance is sometimes the difference between a student finishing a degree or dropping out. Georgia leads the way in assigning a designated point of contact for foster and homeless students on every public university and college campus. Some schools, like UGA, have entire programs devoted to assisting these students. Based out of the Student Affairs Department of Student Care and Outreach, UGA’s program is called Embark@UGA. Carrie Smith, assistant dean of students for student care and outreach, runs the campus initiative and is the designated point of contact for UGA. Embark@UGA’s goal is to provide individualized networks of support for homeless students and those who’ve been in the foster care system. Staff help students find scholarships and grants for everything from tuition to health care expenses to rent and connect them to on-campus

services like the UGA Student Food Pantry and Bulldog Basics, a free supply closet in Dawson Hall stocked with detergent, toothbrushes and toothpaste, toilet paper, and more. Embark@UGA also provides something that’s intangible but possibly more important than the physical resources: a supportive adult presence. “David was the one who told me to finish my degree, that it’s something no one can take from you once you have it,” Margaret says. “He was the support system I could call on if I needed anything. Having Embark and people like David, it made a world of difference for me.” Margaret graduated with a degree in public relations in 2017. She now works for a nonprofit that connects youth who have been in foster care to scholarships and college preparatory programs. Embark helped Margaret’s college dreams become a reality. Now, she’s doing the same for others. GM

Overcoming Obstacles

mbark Georgia relies on an ongoing relationship between state and national partners and the J.W. Fanning Institute. In 2017, the program hosted the inaugural Embark Georgia Leadership Conference, where almost 180 higher education, foster care, and other professionals from across the state gathered on campus to learn the challenges facing youth who have experienced homelessness or foster care and how they can help those students overcome barriers to higher education. One of the highlights of the conference was a simulation that placed participants into the shoes of the students, facing the same obstacles confronted by someone who had been in the foster care system or homeless, like missed deadlines for tuition payments, financial aid denials, and other frustrating roadblocks. Former Georgia Gym Dogs head coach Suzanne Yoculan Leebern played the Luck Fairy, randomly bestowing good or bad luck that impacted participants’ ability to make it to school. Leebern’s husband, University System of Georgia Board of Regents member Don Leebern Jr., made a $500,000 donation to Embark in 2015 that established a fund in his wife’s name. This year’s conference, to be held May 16-17 in the Tate Student Center, will feature a new simulation activity, information sessions, and networking opportunities.

Support the statewide Embark Georgia network.

GIVE.UGA.EDU/EMBARK

Help students like Margaret succeed. Support Embark@UGA.

GIVE.UGA.EDU/EMBARKUGA

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peter frey

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UG A'S GREEN STREAK Students are taking a lead role in building a sustainable campus. by aaron hale ma ’16

Jocelyn Carver, an environmental engineering major, leads student volunteers in removing invasive plant species around Tanyard Creek on UGA’s campus. Carver is a student intern with the Office of Sustainability.

hen promoting a sustainable, eco-friendly campus, creating a streamlined recycling system is considered low-hanging fruit. Making it just as easy for someone to recycle a plastic bottle as it is to pitch it in the trash means it’s much more likely that person will recycle it. But with a campus so large (762 acres and over 400 buildings) and complex (17 schools and colleges, and over 7,000 staff), even the easy pickings take careful planning and execution. For UGA’s campus, one student stood up to the challenge. During his internship in the university’s Office of Sustainability, Mason Towe AB ’16 devised and executed a plan for improving trash and recycling collection on the Athens campus, placing about 1,500 bins in nearly 200 buildings. UGA is committed to minimizing its environmental footprint. And while the university leverages faculty and staff expertise in those efforts, students like Towe have consistently been a driving force.

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“It pushes me creatively and makes me feel like I am doing something valuable.”—Gabi Rosenthal, describing her internship with the Office of Sustainability

peter frey

Gabi Rosenthal (right) photographs Madison Crosby during a clean-up of one of UGA‘s watersheds. Rosenthal, a photography major, and Crosby, an ecology major, are interns at UGA’s Office of Sustainability.

VA LUA BL E WORK A

bout 10 years ago, a student coalition called the Go Green Alliance launched a campaign that led to the creation of the Office of Sustainability by then-President Michael F. Adams. UGA students overwhelmingly passed a referendum to establish a new mandatory green fee, which the Board of Regents later approved, to support the office’s coordination and promotion of campus-wide efforts. Now the Office of Sustainability coordinates a range of green campus initiatives— from low-emissions transportation projects to water quality and conservation, from campus composting to green roof gardens. Through the processes of research to

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implementation, UGA students play a vital role in all of it through their passion and innovation. Thanks to a sustainability grants program, students have fueled new ideas such as the Tanyard Creek Chew Crew, a team of goats that gnaws through invasive plants on campus, to the Bulldog Bikes program, which offers free bicycle transportation on campus. The sustainability office also employs 24 interns from a variety of majors. Two of them—Madison Crosby, a student in the Odum School of Ecology, and Gabi Rosenthal, a photography major in the Lamar Dodd School of Art—are working together to raise awareness about water-

sheds on UGA’s Athens campus. The campus is home to multiple waterways, including a stream that runs under Sanford Stadium. To keep trash and other contaminants out of the water, Crosby and Rosenthal are leading campaigns to teach their peers about the watersheds. Rosenthal, an aspiring commercial photographer, runs the Watershed UGA social media accounts. She says her internship gives her a lot of freedom to learn and to apply some of the skills she’s developed in the classroom. “It pushes me creatively and makes me feel like I am doing something valuable,” she says.

MEETING THE CHALLENGE E

arly in his college career, Towe, an economics and sociology double-major, was feeling adrift. He was looking for some inspiration when he met for coffee with Kevin Kirsche BLA ’98, MLA ’08, director of sustainability. Following their conversation, Towe took a waste-reduction internship in the Office of Sustainability. The decision shaped the rest of his college experience and helped lead to a budding career in recycling and waste reduction. For his final project, Towe’s challenge was this: organize trash and recycling bins in all campus buildings, making sure they were side-by-side and convenient. Kirsche says the project was more complicated than

it sounds. Each building has a unique floor plan as well as a building supervisor who needed input on the plans. It took visiting every building on the main campus, looking at blueprints, and working with campus staff to find the best paths to secure, deliver, and install the bins. “We didn’t tell him how hard that is,” Kirsche says. “We gave him this goal and set him loose.” It was a tall order. But Towe completed almost all the buildings on campus. He graduated barely short of the goal, passing the torch to senior Melissa Gurevitch, the Office of Sustainability’s current Zero Waste Intern, who completed the remaining

buildings on campus. “I met pretty much every building supervisor on campus,” says Towe, who got a rare behind-the-scenes look at how campus facilities are run. Towe’s work as a student inspired his career. Now, he is a program education specialist for the Athens-Clarke County’s recycling division, where he informs Athens-area residents how to effectively recycle. His career goals focus on a commitment to reducing waste and finding new ways to reuse the materials that are usually discarded. And it all started with the passion and skills he honed as a student. GM

Mason Towe completed an internship with the Office of Sustainability last year. Now, he’s a program specialist at the Athens-Clarke County recycling division.

ON UGA'S ATHENS CAMPUS

peter frey

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center for tropical and emerging global diseases university of georgia

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To pursue cutting-edge research on tropical and emerging global diseases, train students in the field, and effectively tackle global diseases of poverty

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Defeating Neglected Diseases A UGA center takes on a public health problem that includes more than a dozen diseases of poverty. by leigh beeson ma ’17

ymphatic filariasis. Schistosomiasis. Cryptosporidiosis. They’re some of the world’s most widespread parasitic diseases, but many people have never heard of them. Those who live in Western nations are lucky— these diseases don’t really have to be on their radar. But for more than 2 billion people across the globe, the risk of contracting a disfiguring or potentially deadly parasitic disease is constant. UGA’s Center for Tropical and Emerging Global Diseases (CTEGD) is aiming to change that.

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ounded 20 years ago by Regents Professor of Cellular Biology Rick Tarleton, CTEGD consolidates UGA’s extensive, campus-wide tropical disease knowledge and drug discovery expertise into an interdisciplinary research unit that focuses on finding solutions for parasitic diseases. The center has garnered more than $135 million in research funding, and its 25 faculty, spanning eight departments across four colleges and schools, focus on more than a dozen diseases commonly associated with poverty. Parasite-caused illnesses ravage developing nations across Africa, Asia, and Latin America, especially in areas already afflicted by inadequate housing, poor sanitation and unsafe water supplies, and stagnant or failing economies. In addition to a significant death toll, neglected disease means billions of dollars in lost productivity—the kind of economic hit that can upheave governments. “These diseases cause poverty. Poverty breeds unrest. Unrest breeds political difficulties,” says Daniel Colley, professor of microbiology and the center’s former director. “If you can provide people with good health, you can take away a tremendous amount of angst in people’s lives.” But governments often don’t have the ability or the resources to fix the problem. And, while several pharmaceutical companies donate existing drugs for some neglected diseases, there’s little incentive for pharmaceutical companies to develop new treatments for many of them, says Kojo Mensa-Wilmot, head of the Department of Cellular Biology and CTEGD member. “If a large pharmaceutical company goes to its shareholders and tells them it’s going to invest $300 million to find a drug to treat a disease for people who have it but cannot pay for medication, no board member will vote for that project, and I cannot blame them,” he says. “That’s why we need people in academic institutions who are going to spend their time to try and help prevent or mitigate these very important global diseases.” With infectious disease expert and cellular biologist Dennis Kyle now at the helm, the center’s diverse group of scientists, which includes entomologists, food safety researchers, geneticists, and more, are united in their commitment to vanquishing global diseases of poverty while training the next generation of scientists. “It is a point of pride for UGA that we have this world-class assembly of scientists working on parasitic and neglected tropical diseases,” says David Lee, vice president for research. “Their work is so impressive and impactful because it is multidimensional, encompassing numerous disciplines from molecular and cellular biology to immunology and vaccinology, and extending from laboratory-based investigations to field work in Africa, South America, and elsewhere.” peter frey

Rick Tarleton, founder of the Center for Tropical and Emerging Global Diseases, stands in front of the Coverdell Center where much of the center is housed. Tarleton's research focuses on Trypanosoma cruzi, the parasite that causes Chagas disease.

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dennis k yle 2017 DIRECTOR: center for tropical and e m e r g i n g g lo b a l d i s e a s e s

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Learn more about Dennis Kyle's research at GREATCOMMITMENTS.UGA.EDU/STORY/DRUG-DISCOVERIES

“Most don’t realize how many people are affected by parasitic diseases like malaria, and the effort to try to eliminate those diseases is just not what it should be.” dennis kyle

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Combatting the most important parasitic diseases

or Kyle, Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar in Antiparasitic Drug Discovery, the scope of the problem really hit home when he moved to Thailand in the early 1990s. “I saw people suffering and dying of malaria,” Kyle says. “Most don’t realize how many people are affected by parasitic diseases like malaria, and the effort to try to eliminate those diseases is just not what it should be.” People infected with malaria present with symptoms similar to many viral illnesses: fever, chills, and headaches. The difference is that, left untreated, malaria intensifies after the first 24

hours, ultimately leading to respiratory distress and multi-organ failure. There are more than 200 million clinical cases of malaria every year, with almost half a million people dying from the disease. Of those, three out of four are children. “It sounds like a great decrease from the 2 to 3 million people who died annually from malaria in past decades, but it still means that basically one child under the age of 5 is dying every minute,” Kyle says. “We still have lot of people who are suffering, and we have to come up with better drugs to fight the disease.” In partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Medicines

for Malaria Venture, Kyle developed a drug-testing device in his lab and is using it to test thousands of potential treatments in the hopes of finding the next wonder drug. But it’s an uphill battle, as the disease quickly grows resistant to the drugs intended to vanquish it. “The malaria parasite has adapted to infect us, yet we have to fight it off somehow,” Kyle says. “Resistance is a big problem, and that’s one of the reasons we study it. We’ve identified new ways the parasite avoids the current drugs on the market, and we’re building on that knowledge to create better drug candidates going forward.”

andrew davis tucker

Center for Tropical and Emerging Global Diseases director Dennis Kyle's lab currently focuses on malaria, one of the world's most prolific parasitic diseases, and the diseases caused by free-living amoebae.

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S TAT I S T I C S

Center for Tropical and Emerging Global Diseases

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hat’s going on at the University of Georgia? That’s the question Distinguished Research Professor of Genetics Jessica Kissinger hears at parasitic disease conferences across the nation. “CTEGD put Georgia on the map for tropical disease research,” says Kissinger, who was one of the first faculty to be recruited by the center. “Researchers and graduate students want to come to Georgia because we have CTEGD.” Kissinger is a principal investigator on a National Institutes of Health-funded project known as EuPathDB, short for Bioinformatics Resource Center for Eukaryotic Pathogens. The online resource consolidates genomic information from thousands of datasets on more than 280 disease-causing organisms, enabling researchers to look up others’ lab results to test hypotheses rather than having to do basic, preliminary experiments themselves. This saves both time and resources. The database, which attracts about 50,000 users per month from countries across the globe, has revolutionized how research on parasites is conducted. “It’s taken for granted if you want to plan a trip that there are lots of online databases you can use, and within seconds, you can find flights from competing companies, what seats are free, and hotel and rental car information,” says Kissinger, director of UGA’s Institute of Bioinformatics. “They’ve made your life easier by linking together diverse things. Our EuPathDB database is basically the Expedia or Trivago for research on an important class of human pathogens.”

OV E R $135 M I L L I O N

A common problem

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t wasn’t Briana Flaherty’s PhD ’15 first trip abroad when she went with Colley’s research group to Kenya. It wasn’t even her first trip to a developing nation. But it was the first time she spoke with people who had experienced firsthand the effects of living in areas where the threat of infection with any number of parasitic diseases was constant. A doctoral candidate in CTEGD member David Peterson’s malaria lab at the time, Flaherty worked with Colley’s team to explore the effects of worm-transmitted parasites on immune responses to standard vaccinations. “Tropical diseases are so prevalent in Kenya that it’s almost like the common cold,” says Flaherty, now a postdoctoral fellow at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “Everyone has had one, and everyone knows someone whose life has been taken by one. It’s why the work of CTEGD is so important.” Colley’s work in Kenya is part of a larger global collaboration he founded almost 10 years ago called SCORE, short for Schistosomiasis Consortium for Operational Research and Evaluation. Funded by a grant from the Gates Foundation, SCORE’s mission is to control and eventually eliminate schistosomiasis, a disease caused by worms that leads to anemia and stunted growth and affects at least 240 million people. Another 700 million people are at risk of contracting the parasite, making schistosomiasis one of the major parasitic diseases in the world. It’s not particularly deadly, at least not when compared to malaria, but the adult worms live inside people’s veins, laying eggs that ultimately embed and can cause severe damage to surrounding tissues. “Schistosomiasis contributes to anemia, wasting, and stunting in childhood,” Colley says. “Tropical diseases like schistosomiasis keep children from going to school to learn. They keep people from getting good jobs. “These are important diseases that are vastly understudied. CTEGD is turning that around.” GM

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“We need people in academic institutions who are going to spend their time to try and help prevent or mitigate these very important global diseases.” kojo mensa-wilmot department head, cellular biology

support the ctegd

GIV E.UG A .EDU/CT EGD learn more about the ctegd

CT EGD.UG A .EDU

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the numbers game The Georgia Informatics Institutes for Research and Education were created less than two years ago, but they are already making a major impact across the university. by eric rangus ma ’94

JAEWOO LEE the data miner

andrew davis tucker

aewoo Lee wants to protect your data. In today’s increasingly automated and analytical world, that’s important. Data detailing our shopping habits, likes and dislikes, location at any time of the day or night, and even medical history are easily accessible to anyone with just a mild interest in digging it up. Lee, assistant professor of computer science, is an expert in data privacy. His work involves creating ways to protect an individual’s data that is used to analyze larger groups. That group analysis can be used in a variety of positive ways, like targeting public health efforts, but when sophisticated data mining techniques can identify specific people, the im-

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plications are troubling. Just 10 years ago, data privacy wasn’t a serious concern, but things are changing. Fast. The University of Georgia is making moves not just to keep up with the numbers game but in many ways to stay ahead of it. Lee is part of that effort. “These days, many people talk about ‘big data,’ but where do the data come from?” says Lee, who is one of the eight new faculty members recruited to UGA in 2016 through the Presidential Informatics Hiring Initiative. The ambitious undertaking highlights, expands, and advances informatics efforts—or data science, as it’s commonly known—across the university. “If you think about the sources of

these data, they are collected in many cases from humans,” Lee continues. “If you go to the bank, your activities are entered into a system. If you go to a school, your visits are monitored. If you go to a hospital, your medical status is measured. All of this information is stored in databases with the hope that it will be useful in the future.” It’s estimated that 90 percent of the world’s data has been created in the last two years. There is so much data, that it is nearly impossible to store it all, much less derive usable information from it. The veins in the data mine are getting deeper and deeper every day.

building a network In early 2015, UGA’s senior leaders met to discuss areas where the university was primed to take a leap forward. When President Jere W. Morehead JD ’80 and Provost Pamela Whitten opened the floor for discussion, Alan Dorsey, dean of the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, and Donald Leo, dean of the College of Engineering, answered quickly. “Informatics.” At the time, informatics wasn’t a foreign concept on campus, but it was scattered. UGA’s Institute of Bioinformatics came online in 2003, and faculty across the university were involved in data science, although collaboration was rare. Things moved quickly following the administration’s meeting. In the fall, a seven-member faculty planning

committee was formed and charged with plotting out the creation of what came to be known as the Georgia Informatics Institutes for Research and Education (GII). “We are very much a network,” says Kyle Johnsen, associate professor of engineering. He serves as GII director. Lakshmish Ramaswamy, professor of computer science, is associate director. “We didn’t want to create a college of informatics or a single institute, where everybody who practices informatics is underneath it,” Johnsen continues. “We recognize that the actual work of informatics is in science and engineering and the humanities, so we have a number of academic clusters. To put everything together would be counterproductive.”

That network includes three new entities—the Institute for Cybersecurity and Privacy, the Health Informatics Institute, and the Center for Cyber-Physical Systems—along with the Institute of Bioinformatics, and the Institute for Artificial Intelligence, which was added to the GII in November. The GII is administered by the College of Engineering, but its scope is much larger, encompassing 46 faculty members spread across the UGA enterprise. In all, UGA boasts more than 160 faculty members who apply informatics to their fields of study. That results in a variety of interesting, boundary-pushing research that stretches beyond the hard sciences to health care, the social sciences, and the humanities.

“Data is the foundation of our generation and every single one after us. Learning how to use data and handle it now puts you at a significant advantage.” —DESTINY SIMMS, FIRST-YEAR COMPUTER SCIENCE STUDENT

bigger number s Informatics’ interdisciplinary nature is related to the complexity of data science itself. The data pipeline is a long one. Some disciplines are stronger on the data collection side while others make greater contributions on the analysis side. The way UGA is building the GII is unlike any other institution in the country. One aspect is how informatics is structured horizontally across departments rather than vertically as an overarching entity. Another is the GII’s approach to educating students. To earn an undergraduate certificate, a student must take 15 hours of informatics spread across 74 courses in fields from humanities to the sciences. A student in any major can earn the certificate—another differentiator. A total of 10

students enrolled in the certificate program for the Fall 2017 semester, the first time it was available, and that number is expected to rise. “Data is the foundation of our generation and every single one after us,” says Destiny Simms, a first-year computer science student from Powder Springs who enrolled in INFO 2000, the informatics introductory course, and is pursuing the certificate. “Learning how to use data and handle it now puts you at a significant advantage.” The GII’s immediate goals include growing its undergraduate certificate program and launching one for graduate students. “Employers are looking for employees with skills in informatics. It’s just a part of the modern work force now,”

Johnsen says. That was one of the themes of the GII’s December symposium, Advancing Informatics in Government and Industry. The event brought more than 150 faculty, students, and guests to the Georgia Center for Continuing Education for a daylong exploration on the impact of data science on the job market, the academy, and public policy. In his opening address, Johnsen shared a statistic stating that four of the top 10 trending jobs for 2017 had some form of “data” in their names: data scientist, data engineer, data analyst, and database administrator. He said UGA was working to train students to fill those jobs. Around the room, heads nodded in agreement.

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STEPHEN BERRY the bookkeeper

frances berry

DEEPAK MISHRA the heat seeker

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peter frey

berry Informatics plays a role in humanities and social sciences as well as the hard sciences, and the results can be fascinating. The website CSI: Dixie chronicles 19th century coroners’ reports from six counties in South Carolina. The causes of death revealed in the data offer an insightful view into life’s many perils during that time period. It’s difficult to get more poignant than that. “We’re not the judge, jury, executioner. We are the clerk. We keep the book,” says the website’s creative lead Stephen Berry, Gregory Professor of the Civil War Era and associate director for digital humanities in the Willson Center for Humanities and Arts. “My heroes are people nobody ever heard of: quantifiers who first understood that we would never have a better public health system until we had better data.”

green “In recent years, tracking population health has shifted into something that takes this enormous amount of data that’s been captured from things like doctor’s visits and then uses it for public health purposes, like the prediction of disease outbreaks. It’s different than what someone in the engineering world would call ‘informatics,’” says Dale Green, director of Health Care Informatics in the Health Informatics Institute. That type of electronic data mining wouldn’t have been impossible in the days of paper records, but it would have required manually reviewing thousands of files.

mishr a

DALE GREEN

the data doctor

andrew davis tucker

“The key to success in informatics is to find a project that has broad societal impact,” says Deepak Mishra, associate professor of geography. Mishra’s niche is in his research on integrating sensor networks with satellite data to monitor environmental phenomena such as harmful algae blooms and urban heat islands. Rather than solely relying on the spotty temperature data from distant satellites, Mishra and his students traversed campus with backpack-mounted sensors to measure temperatures on the ground. The data offer a much more detailed look at the urban heat island effect in Athens and also identify the hottest place on campus: the sunny corner of Baxter and Lumpkin streets outside the Bolton Dining Commons. Average temperatures there were more than 10 degrees higher than other parts of campus.

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kissinger “Modern day life sciences require an ability to deal with data,” says Distinguished Research Professor of Genetics Jessica Kissinger, director of the Institute of Bioinformatics. “In research, some need to learn to make an antibody, or purify a protein, or sequence a gene; I needed to learn to program. Georgia, through the GII, is positioning itself to be a leader in this area.” Kissinger, whose lab is based in the Center for Tropical and Emerging Global Diseases (see page 22), describes her informatics-related work as taking disparate data generated by others and putting it in new formats to integrate it, thus making it more useful. Her work impacts disciplines from genetics to drug target discovery to epidemiology.

johnsen “Informatics is the combination of computers, data, and science. It’s a partnership of human and machine,” says GII Director Kyle Johnsen. While the GII crosses college and departmental boundaries, it is based in the College of Engineering, where Johnsen is an associate professor. Ironically, Johnsen’s primary expertise isn’t in informatics. His research focuses on computer systems engineering and virtual reality systems. But when he stepped into his GII director shoes, he dove in head first. He recruited many of the GII’s 46 members himself, flipping through hundreds of CVs and personally reaching out to faculty with informatics backgrounds.

wheeler There isn’t a Bunsen burner or a test tube anywhere near Steven Wheeler’s PhD ’06 computational chemistry lab. There is, however, some pretty powerful machinery. “Ten years ago, we might look at five examples of a given reaction. With modern computing power, we can look at 10,000 examples,” he says. “We now generate data sets that are large enough to apply informatics methods.” Those methods lead to hyperaccurate three-dimensional models of molecules that make up the basis of Wheeler’s research. His work represents the first step in drug development and is a building block used by pharmaceutical companies to design medications.

KYLE JOHNSEN the recruiter

peter frey

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JESSICA KISSINGER the integrator

peter frey

STEVEN WHEELER the molecular modeler

andrew davis tucker

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THE NATION

news and events

2018 Bulldog 100

from the uga alumni association

The 1961 Club

On Jan. 27, the UGA Alumni Association hosted the ninth annual Bulldog 100 Celebration to recognize the 100 fastest-growing businesses owned or operated by UGA alumni. The keynote address was delivered by Amy Smilovic ABJ ’89, creative director and founder of the fashion line Tibi. Congratulations to Christopher Belk AB ’05, MBA ’13, cofounder of Saucehouse BBQ in Athens, on being named the 2018 No. 1 Bulldog 100 business. To view the rest of the list, including photos from the event, visit

On Jan. 9, 1961, Hamilton E. Holmes BS ’63 and Charlayne Hunter-Gault ABJ ’63 became the first African American students to register for classes at UGA, thus changing the University of Georgia forever. This act of courage opened the door to higher education for thousands of students of color who would follow. Today, The 1961 Club, which launched in January, continues this legacy. Led by the Black Alumni Affinity Group, this special group of donors is committed to removing barriers to education for all students through regular and generous giving to the Black Alumni Scholarship Fund. With a recurring monthly gift of $19.61, $196.10, or an annual gift of $1,961, you can commit to ensuring Holmes and Hunter-Gault's legacy lives on at the University of Georgia. More at

alumni.uga.edu/b100/gm.

give.uga.edu/1961/gm.

Alumni Career Resources

The UGA Career Center offers a variety of free virtual networking events and webinars to get—or keep—your career on track. Topics include dealing with difficult co-workers, breaking into careers in consulting, applying to graduate school, and virtual resume critiques. More at

alumni.uga.edu/career/gm.

A BULLDOG BARK TO ...

wingate downs

The Women of UGA Leadership Council hosted a sold-out ”Cookies & Cocoa with Hairy Dawg” in November. The festive holiday gathering featured family photos with the UGA mascot, book readings by famous alumni, and plenty of cookies and hot chocolate. Pictured: Jamie BSED ’07 and Joe ABJ ’07, MMR ’10 Threatt with their daughter, Emma Claire.

drayton mcjunkins

The 2007 UnbreAKAble line of the Eta Xi Chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha made the first group donation to support the Black Alumni Scholarship Fund through the 1961 Club. Learn more about UGA’s newest giving society at give.uga.edu/1961/gm.

contact us: Have you moved? Changed your name? Keep your record up to date at alumni.uga.edu/myinfo. For more information: (800) 606-8786 | alumni.uga.edu

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DON’T MISS OUT SATURDAY, MARCH 31 Senior Signature Deadline All students graduating in May or December 2018 have until March 31 to donate to Senior Signature and ensure their names appear on the Class of 2018 plaque in Tate Plaza. alumni.uga.edu/seniorsignature/gm

SOCIAL MEDIA

Stay connected with @ugaalumniassoc on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. Did you see UGA on the Nasdaq billboard in Times Square on Giving Tuesday on Nov. 28? If not—no worries! The New York City Alumni Chapter snapped a photo.

FRIDAY, APRIL 6 40 Under 40 Nomination Deadline Nominate outstanding young alumni for the 40 Under 40 Class of 2018. alumni.uga.edu/40u40/gm

FRIDAY, APRIL 20 81st Annual Alumni Awards Luncheon Celebrate the achievements of distinguished alumni, faculty, and friends of UGA. alumni.uga.edu/alumniawards/gm

@nycdawgs The DC Dawgs Alumni Chapter hosted a winery tour for 52 alumni and friends in October. The group visited two wineries and a portion of the registration fees supported the Alumni Chapter Scholarship Fund.

SATURDAY, APRIL 21 G-Day Football Game Stay in town after the Alumni Awards Luncheon for the annual G-Day Game in Sanford Stadium. Admission is free and open to alumni and fans of all ages.

THURSDAY, MAY 31

@DCDawgs

Alex Wright BSHP ’08 is a malariologist in Tanzania—more than 8,000 miles away from Athens—but the 2017 40 Under 40 honoree still finds a way to show her UGA pride!

2019 Bulldog 100 Nomination Deadline Bulldog 100 recognizes the fastest-growing businesses owned or operated by UGA alumni. Nominate a business of any size today! alumni.uga.edu/b100/gm @ugaalumniassoc

FRIDAY, JUNE 22 Young Alumni Night at SweetWater Brewing Co. Join hundreds of young alumni for this annual networking event in Atlanta. alumni.uga.edu/youngalumni/gm

For more events, visit alumni.uga.edu/calendar/gm.

burton + BURTON, one of the world’s largest balloon and gift suppliers, is owned by Maxine BSEd ’72, MEd ’78 and Bob BSA ’71 Burton. Their team in Bogart wished UGA good luck in November before the Bulldogs played the South Carolina Gamecocks.

@burton_BURTON

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ON THE BULLDOG BEAT

THAT

GRAND

OLE SOUND A History of the Chapel Bell by kellyn amodeo ABJ ’09

n 1911, the Chapel Bell cracked. Not from excessive winds or other forces of nature, according to accounts, but from relentless ringing after a Bulldogs victory over Georgia Tech. The bell rang for 14 hours straight until, finally, the constant clamoring caused a crack and the sound abruptly stopped. “When the students climbed up to examine it, the bell was red-hot from the constant

ringing. Needless to say, it never rang after that.” —The Red and Black, March 10, 1933 Thankfully for the Georgia faithful, the bell did ring again. Many times. For decades, the ringing of the Chapel Bell has been associated with victories, be they athletic, academic, or personal. But its origin is much more practical. It signaled the

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start and end of classes. Although the original bell has been replaced, the Chapel Bell has always been a fixture on campus, perhaps as early as 1801. Eventually, an electric system was installed to signal class changes, and that’s when its ceremonial significance took over. In 1892, Charles Herty, a chemistry professor and former player at Johns Hopkins University, started UGA’s football program. Games

were held on a small field in North Campus, now known as Herty Field, located directly behind the Chapel. Because of the proximity, students would run directly to the bell to signal a victory. The tradition soon evolved, requiring freshman men to ring the bell from the end of a game until midnight. Rumor has it that if the victory was against Georgia Tech, a bitter rival since the teams’ first meeting in 1893, the bell was to ring until dawn.

“No one feature of the university is so widely known, and so intimately attached to the institution, as the historic old Chapel. The Chapel and the Chapel Bell are almost inseparable in the minds of those who have attended the university.” —The Red and Black, March 17, 1913

andrew davis tucker

“There is no other game that attracts so much attention and causes interest to run any higher than the Georgia-Tech affray.” —The Red and Black, November 11, 1913. But the bell’s toll has also signaled more serious occasions. It’s marked weddings and funerals. On Armistice Day, it signaled relief for the end of the Great War.

“But never in the history of the institution has it rung forth a gladder message than that which swelled in golden notes from out of the sounding cells of the old bell on Armistice Day.” —The Red and Black, November 25, 1921 When the U.S. entered World War II in 1941, Athens needed an air raid signal. So, the city comman-

andrew davis tucker

paul efland

deered the Chapel Bell to the chagrin of students, who couldn’t ring the bell during a football run that included a Rose Bowl victory and national championship. Eventually, the city found another bell and the on-campus ringing resumed. The Bell, which can be heard through campus and downtown Athens, signals all types of milestones for students, alumni, and fans alike. On New Year’s Day, crowds flooded the Bell. The ringing signaled

a milestone that Bulldog Nation will not soon forget, a heart-stopping, comeback victory in the 2018 Rose Bowl, 75 years in the making. Ringing the Chapel Bell is a rite of passage for all members of the Nation. The line to hear “that grand ole sound of a Chapel Bell and a Georgia yell” sometime stretches around the Chapel. The experience is well worth the wait.

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class notes

Compiled by Katherine Costikyan, Rachel Floyd, and Mara Weissinger.

1960-1964

Danny Culbreth BS ’72, DVM

Sam Wellborn III BBA ’64 rep-

’76 retired from practicing

resents the 3rd Congressional

veterinary medicine after 40

District on the State Transpor-

years. Culbreth has owned

tation Board of Georgia.

Thomasville Animal Hospital since 1980.

1965-1969

Susan Waltman AB ’73, MSW ’75

Roger Holden BBA ’68 joined

received the Blue Key Honor

Bernard Williams & Company

Society’s Service Award.

as vice president in September

Waltman is the executive vice

2017.

president for legal, regulatory, and professional affairs and

1970-1974

general counsel for the Greater

Bob Alford BBA ’70 was a

New York Hospital Associa-

recipient of National Under-

tion.

writer Property & Casualty’s

Richard Cupitt AB ’74, MA ’78,

2017 Excellence in Workers’

PhD ’85 is a senior associate

Compensation Risk Manage-

at the Stimson Center in

ment Award.

Washington, D.C., and is a

Tom Poland ABJ ’71, MEd ’75

visiting scholar at the Pritzker

is the author of Georgialina:

School of Law at Northwest-

A Southland as We Knew It,

ern University for the 2017-18

which tells tales of exploring

academic year.

the backroads of Georgia and

Randall Nuckolls BSA ’74, JD ’77

South Carolina.

received the Blue Key Honor

Marie Woodward BSEd ’71 is

Society’s Service Award.

president of the Georgia Alpha

Nuckolls is a partner in the

Beta chapter of Alpha Delta

Washington, D.C., office of

Kappa, an international organi-

Dentons U.S.

zation for women educators. Stewart Bruce BS ’72 retired

1975-1979

as senior vice president from

Mack Cain BLA ’75 is the senior

Graham White in May 2016,

landscape architect at Clark

after 44 years of service with

Patterson Lee design firm.

the company.

geo rg i a mag a z in e | s p r in g 2 01 8

special

PICTURING HISTORY

Putting a Face to a Legacy In 1953, Myers Hall opened on campus, completing a quadrangle of women’s residence halls that included Soule, Mary Lyndon, and Rutherford. Myers’ amenities were notable for the time: a library, sundecks, guest suites, and lounges. Overlooking it all for half a century was a portrait of its namesake, Jennie Belle Myers BSHE ’27. Myers was a groundbreaker in supporting women’s education at UGA—she established a scholarship for home economics majors, one of the first of its kind for female students—and served as head of all campus house directors in the 1940s. At her passing, the Jennie Belle Myers Memorial Scholarship was established in her honor and combined with the home economics scholarship she created. When Myers Hall was renovated in 2003, her portrait went missing. In 2017, members of Myers’ family donated a new one. Myers’ granddaughter, Dare Hartwell, provided the new portrait, and the Nov. 3 dedication included her cousin, Jim Stewart BBA ’72; his wife Angie; and their daughter Paige; a student in the Terry College of Business. The new portrait now hangs in the Myers Hall lobby. Myers Hall was reserved for women until 1974, when men were allowed to live in one of the building’s wings. It is now the magnet residence hall for the Honors Program.

CLASS NOTES APPLAUSE FOR ALUMNI

Potential Realized

Ayan Hussein BS ’12

Top: The family of Jennie Belle Myers, including (from left) Jim, Angie, and Paige Stewart, helped replace a portrait of the groundbreaking leader that decorates the hall which bears her name. Bottom: Students on the quad in front of Myers Hall.

hen civil war broke out in Somalia in the early 1990s and raged on with no end in sight, Ayan Hussein’s parents knew they had to get their five children to safety. The family fled first to a refugee camp in Kenya and then to a community with a significant refugee and immigrant population in Clarkston in 2003. Once in the United States, Hussein BS ’12 realized that something she had only dreamed of was now actually possible: She could pursue higher education. As a child, Hussein had promised herself that education would be her priority, despite being born into a culture that she says doesn’t place much value on women’s schooling. “Even though adversity seemed to follow us, I made sure that nothing stood between my education and me,” says Hussein, now finishing her doctorate in neuroscience at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York. As an undergraduate, she was awarded the prestigious Gates Millennium Scholarship, funded through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which enabled her to attend UGA. But the scholarship wasn’t a panacea for all the obstacles she faced. “Despite a full scholarship and a strong desire to learn, I was poorly prepared for college,” she says, “but I quickly learned that I had to ask for help if I wanted to perform better.” When her academic performance slipped, Hussein sought mentors and tutors, and her grades quickly improved. She augmented her college experience in other ways, like getting involved in campus organizations and taking a part-time job in University Housing. Hussein went on to study at Oxford University through UGA’s visiting scholars program and receive multiple fellowships and awards, including the Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans and a National Science Foundation graduate fellowship for neuroscience research. In her thesis work, Hussein ultimately hopes to inform the development of a new therapeutic for Parkinson’s disease.

special

Recognizing the valuable role mentors played in helping her reach her goals, Hussein became a Gates Millennium Ambassador in 2008, helping connect students to the foundation that helped make it possible for her to become a Bulldog and pursue higher education. “Moving to America changed my life,” she says. “And choosing to attend UGA was the best decision I’ve ever made. The university and Athens helped me realize my potential.”

written by leigh beeson MA '17

peter frey

geo rgia maga z ine | s prin g 2 018

CLASS NOTES APPLAUSE FOR ALUMNI

Divided Loyalties

special

hey call the georgia-georgia Tech football rivalry “Clean OldFashioned Hate.” But for Ronnie Mabra, a former Georgia Tech strong safety and UGA School of Law alumnus, there’s nothing but love for both schools. Sure, he pulls hard for the Yellow Jackets, the team that gave him a shot at bigtime collegiate sports and pushed him academically to his undergraduate degree. But Mabra JD ’04, the lead attorney of Atlanta’s Mabra Firm, wasn’t crying over his Thanksgiving leftovers when the Bulldogs handed a 38-7 loss to his alma mater in November. “My turkey tastes good regardless,” Mabra says. “Whoever wins, I’m happy.” This relative neutrality isn’t just political posturing, although Mabra served in the Georgia House for two terms, representing Fayette County. Mabra built deep ties at UGA that continue today. written aaron hale MA '16

geo rg i a mag a z in e | s p r in g 2 01 8

Ronnie Mabra JD ’04

special

By his senior year at Tech, he knew a pro career was no sure thing. So, he listened to his father, Ron Sr., who played in the NFL with the Falcons and Jets, and to his mother, a public-school teacher who always preached academics over football. The All-ACC Academic honoree decided to forego the NFL Scouting Pro-Day and instead studied for the LSAT. He picked the UGA School of Law because of its stature within the state. In Athens, Mabra said he got the kind of college experience that a student-athlete couldn’t find in Midtown Atlanta, and he met lifelong friends in the law school, including Bulldog football players. Now, he calls UGA his “second home” and is a generous supporter of the law school. “It’s good to see the law school is growing and helping people across the country,” he says.

After a few years at an Atlanta firm, Mabra struck off to start his own practice. He took with him only three cases, all representing his friends in personal injury cases. Unable to afford an office, he met potential clients at a Starbucks in Atlanta. Since then, his firm has twice appeared on the Bulldog 100 list of fastest-growing alumni businesses. As his firm grew, Mabra ran and won two terms in the Georgia House. For now, he’s stepped back from politics, as his wife, Dawn, is going to Morehouse School of Medicine to become a doctor, and he wants to be around for his 2-year-old son, Remiii (short for Ronald Edward Mabra III). But he says he’s always looking for ways to give back to the state that’s given him so much opportunity. “I’m a Georgia boy,” he says. “I love this state more than anything.”

CLASS NOTES Will Harris BSA ’76 is featured

Blue Ridge Area Food Bank in

Wilson is the vice president

Richard Middleton BBA

in Big Chicken a book by

Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley.

for student affairs at UGA.

’84 is a singer-songwriter in

journalist and Grady College

Brad Clark BSPH ’82, PhD ’87

Brian Brzowski BS ’84 serves

Columbia, South Carolina.

instructor Maryn McKenna.

is an associate professor of

on three committees for

Mary Jo Schrade AB ’84 is the

Big Chicken looks at how the

basic pharmaceutical scienc-

the American Society for

assistant general counsel and

use of antibiotics influences

es at High Point University in

Aesthetic Plastic Surgery

regional director of Micro-

the poultry industry.

North Carolina.

and serves as liaison to

soft’s Digital Crimes Unit

David S. Williams AB ’79, MA

Ashlyn Ritch BSHE ’82 was

the American College of

Asia in Singapore.

’82 received the Blue Key

named the 2018 Teacher

Surgeons. Brzowski is also

Billy Stone BSPH ’84 is the

Honor Society’s Faculty Ser-

of the Year for Rome City

recognized as a Top Doctor

owner of Dacula Health

vice Award. Williams is asso-

Schools.

by Castle Connolly Medical

Pharmacy.

ciate provost and director of

Victor Wilson BSW ’82, MEd ’87

and is the owner of Brzowski

the UGA Honors Program.

received the Blue Key Honor

Plastic Surgery in Salt Lake

1985-1989

Society’s Service Award.

City, Utah.

Laura Beachem AB ’85 is the

1980-1984 Malena Cunningham Anderson ABJ ’80 is founder of Newslady Productions. Her film, Little Music Manchild: The Malik Kofi Story, was awarded best documentary at the Bronze Lens Film Festival. The film also received a Merit Award from Impact Docs. Joy Drummond BFA ’80 retired from teaching high school art and is now a docent at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta. David Plunkett ABJ ’80 retired from the Center for Science in the Public Interest in February 2017. Renata Turner AB ’80 is a residing juvenile court judge in Fulton County. Stuart Cofer BBA ’81 was elected to serve on the executive board of the Oconee County Chamber of Commerce. Cofer is the owner of Cofer’s Home and Garden, Georgia’s oldest family-run garden center. Linda Baker BBA ’82, MBA ’84 is chief financial officer of geo rgia maga z ine | s prin g 2 018

CLASS NOTES APPLAUSE FOR ALUMNI

owner of Frogcatcher Farm, a

Building Momentum

horse training, sales, and layover barn in Johns Creek. Mike Dorough AB ’86 is lead Wes Rogers BBA ’99, MBA ’04

pastor at Riverbend Baptist Church in Gainesville, Georgia. Sheila Glaeser ABJ ’86 has been a flight attendant with Delta Airlines for 30 years. Tim Russell BBA ’87 is the president of the National Association of Professional Insurance Agents. Lisa Markowitz Kitchens BSHE ’88 and Ted Robertson ABJ ’80 merged their company Robertson & Markowitz Advertising and Public Relations, with Robmark Web to become RobMark - Web Advertising PR. Jill Mutimer BBA ’88 is the owner of Strategic Consulting Group, a firm that specializes in financial consulting, primarily in the church market.

peter frey

or wes rogers BBA ’99, MBA ’04, real estate development is a family tradition. His father was a small real estate developer, and his grandfather also had a small real estate portfolio, that included billboards, an old gas station, and a few restaurant properties. As his grandfather’s health declined, Rogers transitioned from the banking industry and took over managing the small portfolio. That became the foundation for building an impressive business. Thirteen years later, Rogers is the CEO of the nation’s largest developer of student housing in the country according to Student Housing Business magazine. Landmark Properties was established in 2004 as a way to create more student housing options in the Athens area. “We noticed that students in Athens were living in low-quality properties that were generally far from campus, despite the fact that many of them could easily afford to live in something nicer if it existed,” he says. Rogers partnered with a local real estate agent to provide housing for University of Georgia students and the growing medical community in northwritten by kellyn amodeo ABJ ’09

geo rg i a mag a zin e | s p r in g 2 01 8

east Georgia. Within about a year, the company was exclusively focused on student housing. Since its start, Landmark has grown from three employees to more than 650 across the country with properties in 22 states. Landmark’s most recent project, The Mark in Athens, opened in the fall of 2017 and houses more than 900 students. The luxury property’s amenities include a rooftop infinity pool and indoor basketball and racquetball courts. Last year, Rogers was named the Entrepreneur of the Year by Ernst and Young in the real estate and construction category in the Southeast. As CEO, he is involved in all departments of the company but mainly focuses on finances and planning the developments. “Building the right projects in the right locations is critical to our success, so I get in the weeds on our development deals,” he says. Making the move from corporate America to follow his childhood interest has served him well. “Every day is different and challenging,” he said. “I get to work with an amazing group of intelligent, hard-working people.”

1990-1994 Vickie Harden AB ’91 is the principal of the Washington County Alternative School. Travis Miller BBA ’93 is the president of the board of directors for the Georgia Construction Aggregate Association. Taria Brittian BBA ’94 is a financial analyst at SunTrust bank. Brittian is also co-owner of Sweet Diva L’amour, an event venue and Frenchthemed day spa for girls in downtown McDonough . Kristin Davis AB ’94 is a publisher’s representative at Oxford University Press. 1995-1999 Amanda Davenport BSEd ’95 is

CLASS NOTES a real estate agent in Fairfield County, Connecticut. Jonathan Tuggle BBA ’95 is a partner at Boyd Collar Nolen & Tuggle, which received recognition as a Tier 1 Atlanta family law firm in the 2018 edition of the U.S. News & World Report Best Lawyer and Best Law Firm rankings. Mark Young BSFR ’95 is a vegetation management administrator for NV Energy in Reno, Nevada. Candace Bailey BFA ’97 is celebrating her 17th year teaching at Apalachee High School in Barrow County. Amy Johnson BBA ’97 is district manager at Smith & Nephew in Atlanta. John Brandt AB ’98 is the vice president of operations for FitMetrix, a software as a service company serving the fitness industry in Atlanta. Daniel Lindsey BS ’98 received the NOAA David Johnson Award for his work with National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration satellites. 2000-2004 Justin Michels BS ’01 is a research coordinator at Atlanta Veterans Affairs Medical Center. Tiffany Nimitz BSFCS ’01 is a pre-K teacher at Oak Hill Academy in Duval County, Florida. Cara Turano Snow BSEd ’01 delivered a TedxPeachtree Talk, “When A Penny Means So Much More,” in October. Candace M. Moore AB ’02, MEd ’04, PhD ’11 is the director of the University of Maryland, College Park’s newly developed Center

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CLASS NOTES APPLAUSE FOR ALUMNI

Eat at Mel's

Melinda Allbritton BSFCS ’10

devon mckenna/photosynthesis studio

n early 2016, melinda allbritton took a chance. The owners of The Pork Pit, one of the two restaurants in her no-stoplight hometown of Milner (population 213), were retiring and planned to close the place. Allbritton, who had worked in local banks since she was in high school, had just been offered a management position in Greensboro, Georgia. But she wasn’t sure if she wanted to leave. Then Allbritton learned about the restaurant. “I thought maybe this was my escape from banking. So I sat down with the owners and worked out a deal,” says Allbritton BSFCS ’10, who earned a degree in consumer economics at the University of Georgia Griffin. She credits her UGA education for teaching her the skills and giving her the confidence to enter the challenging restaurant business. written by eric rangus MA '94

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It’s not easy to succeed in it, particularly when you are located in a rural area. (Milner is about 10 miles south of Griffin.) But with the combination of great food (the barbecued pork sandwich is the ideal mix of smoky meat and spicy, vinegarbased sauce) and creative outreach, business is booming. In its first year, Mel’s Pork Pit did three times the business of the previous owners. Allbritton not only works hard on her food, arriving at 7:30 a.m. every morning to prepare that day’s dishes from scratch, she’s become a pillar of her community. Mel’s Pork Pit has developed into Milner’s go-to spot for social activity. Allbritton’s restaurant has hosted church singing groups, book clubs, painting classes, and UGA game-watching parties. She organized a Halloween parade that

brought more than 500 area children to town and has even catered events at her alma mater up the road. In less than two years, she’s grown from two employees to six. She also has designs to further expand her space to add outdoor seating—the first restaurant in Lamar County to have it. She’s already expanded the menu to include barbecued chicken, brisket, and other goodies, and plans to eventually rebrand as “Mel’s” to reflect the increasingly diverse offerings. And everything is done with a sense of fun. Allbritton recently purchased a 1962 International pickup, painted her logo on the doors, and parked it out front to catch the eyes of passers-by. “You want to keep your regulars happy,” she says. “But you also have to get the word out to get new people coming in.”

CLASS NOTES for Diversity and Inclusion in Higher Education. Joe Magyer BBA ’04 is the chief investment officer for Lakehouse Capital in Sydney, Australia. 2005-2009 Matthew Crim AB, BS ’05 received the Blue Key Honors Society’s Young Alumnus Award. Crim is a cardiologist for the Piedmont Heart Institute and an assistant professor of medicine at the Augusta University/University of Georgia Medical Partnership. Grant Mintz AB ’05, MPA ’11 is budget administrator at the Office of State Administrative Hearings in Atlanta. Heather Lundy ABJ ’06 was elected as partner at HunterMaclean. Temeisha Moore BSEd ’06, EdS ’17 is a teacher at Randolph Clay High School in Cuthbert. Carly Brown BSFCS ’07 is a business development specialist at UBS in Atlanta. Watson Bryant BBA ’07 was promoted to senior partner of Cushman & Wakefield’s Southeast Multifamily Advisory Group in Charlotte, North Carolina. Patrick McCarthy BSFCS ’07 joined Sterling Seacrest Partners in Savannah as a client service executive. Leslie McIntosh AB ’07 is an assistant professor of biology at Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College. She married Andrew McIntosh in York, England, in 2016. Joseph Ranieri IV AB ’07 is regulatory compliance director

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CLASS NOTES APPLAUSE FOR ALUMNI

Telling Stories

Sam Starnes ABJ ’89

matt godphrey photo

n the art of storytelling, joe Samuel “Sam” Starnes ABJ ’89 is no novice. If there’s a way to tell a story, he has probably done it. Over the course of his career, Starnes has been a newspaper reporter, a magazine editor, a freelance writer, a teacher, and, now, a novelist and poet. Although his professional path may appear complicated, the inspiration behind it all is simple: a love of writing. “I just like stories,” Starnes says. “I have more ideas for things than I could ever begin to write.” Growing up in Cedartown, Starnes’ parents fostered an early love for reading and writing that inspired him from a young age. This passion led him to enter UGA as a journalism student, where, with an ac-

written by katherine costikyan

geo rg i a mag a zin e | s p r in g 2 01 8

companying English minor, he honed his craft in both fiction and nonfiction writing. “I can’t say enough about my education at the University of Georgia,” Starnes says. “It was a really inspiring time for me, and I look back on it fondly. It helped me to get going down the path I’ve followed.” After college, Starnes worked as a journalist, covering topics ranging from crime to government and even the American South. His freelance work has appeared in The New York Times and The Washington Post, among others, and has been published online by Sports Illustrated. It wasn’t until moving to New York in 2000 that he tried his hand at novel writing and stuck with it. Since 2005, Starnes has published three novels: Calling, Fall Line, and Red Dirt: A

Tennis Novel. His 2011 novel, Fall Line, which tells the story of one pivotal day in the life of a fictional Georgia town, was included on the Atlanta Journal Constitution’s 2012 Best of the South list. Starnes, who now lives in southern New Jersey, doesn’t plan on slowing down his writing anytime soon; with both poetry and fiction pieces in the works and an unending enthusiasm for his craft, his creative future has plenty more in store. “If you’re not enjoying it on some level, you probably shouldn’t be doing it,” Starnes says. “You need to enjoy it, and I’ve been able to enjoy it. I’m happy that I’ve had novels published and found some readers, but I’ve especially just enjoyed doing the work.”

CLASS NOTES and compliance counsel at

corps of the U.S. Public

GreenSky in Atlanta.

Health Service.

Ashley Calhoon ABJ ’08 is work-

Kirk Rogers Jr. AB ’09, EdS ’15 is

ing as an upfronts specialist at

pursuing a PhD at the Universi-

Google in New York City.

ty of California, San Diego.

Kellie Gerbers AB ’08 is the sec-

Scott Schimmel BSES ’09 is

retary on the board of directors

an assistant professor in the

for the Association for Outdoor

School of Communications

Recreation and Education.

at the University of Hawaii at

Jared Grachek BBA ’08 and

Manoa.

Samantha Beare of Atlanta were married June 17, 2017, in

2010-2014

Roswell. Grachek is a CPA at

Jay Cain BBA ’10 is a senior

Ernst and Young.

underwriter at State Farm

Kyle Meloney BBA ’08 founded

Fire & Casualty Company.

Tarsier Technologies while

Cain married Lindsay Stern

pursuing his MBA at Stanford

in September 2017.

University.

Jordan Cohen Felsberg BS ’10 is

Jona Johnson BSEH ’ 09 is

a board-certified cardiovascu-

stationed at the CDC as a

lar and pulmonary specialist in

lieutenant in the commissioned

physical therapy.

CAVALIER AT TITUDE

A New Director in Town Athletics has always been part of Carla Williams’ life. After playing basketball at UGA from 1985-89 and working her way through multiple positions at several Division I administrations, Williams MPA ’91 was named athletic director at the University of Virginia in October. She is the first African American woman to serve as AD at a Power Five school. After graduating, Williams worked as an assistant coach for the Lady Bulldogs. She later held positions in the athletics departments of both Florida State and Vanderbilt universities before returning to UGA in 2004 as deputy director of athletics. Though Williams is eager to dive into her new job, she never put too much focus on reaching such a high-profile position. “This may sound different, but I tried not to think too much about the future,” says Williams, a native of LaGrange. “Even when I was an assistant coach, I wanted to be the best assistant coach in the country, I wanted to be the best recruiting coordinator. I approached each job that way.” Williams says she hopes that her career path can serve as an example to anyone who aims to achieve their goals. “My appointment here at Virginia will show anyone who has doubts about whether or not they can aspire to the senior levels of athletic administration, I hope that this is evidence that it’s possible,” Williams says. “It takes a lot of work, and it takes time and patience, but it is something that can be accomplished. I hope that anyone aspiring to be in this position will see that and pursue it if that’s their passion.” matt riley, uva athletics

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CLASS NOTES APPLAUSE FOR ALUMNI

A Cleaner Clean

Mari Fox ABJ ’89, BFA ’97

ari fox was at a stoplight while on a mission to find a specific brand of environmentally friendly dishwashing liquid when an idea struck her. “I thought, ‘How eco-friendly am I really being?’ I’m driving around, and I’m going to purchase a product that is 99.9 percent water and packaged in plastic,” says Fox, who lives near Asheville, North Carolina. “So I decided right then and there: I think I can do better.” That thought led Fox ABJ ’89, BFA ’97 to create her own line of eco-friendly cleaning products. Passionate about the environment and looking to transition from her corporate marketing career, Fox embarked on two years of thorough research and planning as she worked to get her fledgling company, Shecology, up and running. First, she tested all existing cleaners and laundry detergents to set a benchmark for her products. She also attended events and tradeshows, and it was there that she found her secret ingredient, the soap nut. “It’s called a soap nut, but it’s actually a piece of fruit from the Himalayas, and it’s just loaded with a natural cleaner in the shell,” she says. “I bought some and put that product through the same testing mill that I had been doing before. And its performance was exceptional, so I knew I had found the ingredient that I was looking for.” Fox’s path to starting her own business has taken some interesting turns. Before enrolling at UGA, she served in the army for four years and continued to serve in the Army Reserves during and after her time at UGA. “UGA gave me the opportunity as a non-traditional student to still come in and really excel,” she says. “And I really learned a lot about business and succeeding.” Her innate creativity has fueled her development of new products, including a DIY Home Brew all-purpose cleaner, and she does extensive testing to ensure their efficiency. Fox has two patents filed for her products and is currently focusing on growing her online business and social media presence. special

written by mara weissinger

geo rg i a mag a zin e | s p r in g 2 01 8

CLASS NOTES Mahsa Rivera AB ’10 is pursu-

Evelyn French AB, BS ’12, JD ’15

Chapel. Their reception was

project manager at Clinical

ing a doctoral degree at the

joined the litigation practice

held in Snelling Dining Com-

Pharmacology of Miami

University of California, Berke-

group at Swift, Currie, Mc-

mons, where the couple met

in Florida.

ley School of Optometry.

Ghee & Hiers in Atlanta.

in 2010.

Joel Alvey BSA ’14 married

Eric Bunning BBA ’11 was

Neil Grachek BBA ’12 and Mimi

Adelyn Boleman BBA ’13 joined

Sarah Elizabeth Swann AB ’14

named director of federal

Morton BBA ’14 of Marietta

the general commercial litiga-

in May 2017.

affairs at the National Beer

were married May 20, 2017,

tion practice group at Burr &

Minhnguyen Cao BS ’14

Wholesalers Association.

in Vinings. Morton is a senior

Forman in Atlanta.

is pursuing a doctorate in

Clay Knowles BBA ’11, JD ’14

financial analyst at Home

Megan Gillis BMus ’13 is

clinical psychology at George

joined the coverage and

Depot, and Grachek is a senior

co-founder and general direc-

Washington University in

commercial litigation practice

analyst at Home Depot.

tor of ARE Opera, an opera

Washington, D.C.

group at Swift, Currie, Mc-

Emily Jones BS ’12 placed third

company in New York City

Paige Campbell BSEnvE ’14

Ghee & Hiers in Atlanta.

in the amateur owner 3’3”

that is dedicated to helping

works for Golder Associates in

Ryan Reethof BBA ’11 was

hunter stake at the Pennsylva-

musicians bridge the gap

Denver, Colorado.

named senior associate at the

nia National Horse Show and

between school and a profes-

Matthew Efird BBA ’14 and his

Office Institutional Properties

placed fifth in the Washington

sional career.

father, Steve, signed a four-

Group in Atlanta.

International Horse Show in

Chase Harris BBA ’13 is senior

territory contract with Mos-

Rachel Abney AB ’12 is an

the same division.

regional plant accounting

quito Joe, a national mosquito

underwriting specialist at

Kristen Wahl BSEd ’12 and

analyst at Stepan Company

prevention company.

Humana and lives in Indepen-

Brennen Brown BBA ’17 were

in Winder.

Jessica Kouch BBA ’14 works at

dence, Kentucky.

married in June at the UGA

Shelby Tallon BSFCS ’13 is a

Capgemini US in Atlanta.

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CLASS NOTES

our georgia commitment enhancing the student experience

Baxter BS ’98 and Cristina ABJ ’98 Tharin remember UGA in their living trust.

t was over trays of chemicals and piles of photo paper in a dark room that Baxter and Cristina Tharin first met at the University of Georgia. “As a science major, I stuck out like a sore thumb in that photography class,” Baxter jokes. “My classmates were amused that I’d arrive early to mix the bath of chemicals for developing negatives. I was a chemistry major, after all.” The pair took advantage of all that UGA offered. Cristina was a member of Delta Epsilon Iota and Phi Kappa Phi and served as general manager of WUOG-FM, the student-run radio station. Baxter, an Honors student, spent most of his time preparing for chemistry exams but participated in the Georgia Outdoor Recreation Program, conducted organic chemistry research, and joined University Round Table discussions. The couple now has two sons, Charlie, 11, and Davis, 9. Baxter’s career in the U.S. Air Force Medical Corps led the family to recently relocate from Las Vegas to Anchorage, Alaska, where he serves as a radiologist at Joint Base ElmendorfRichardson. Baxter was named a UGA 40 Under 40 honoree in 2015. “It is gratifying to provide health care to the men and women who protect our freedom,” Baxter says. “UGA prepared me for my career by helping me develop critical thinking skills, honing my interest in scientific exploration, and broadening my understanding of topics ranging from the social sciences to the arts.” As the Tharins planned their living trust, they contemplated which organizations had made the greatest impact

GIVE.UGA.EDU 50

The Tharin family (clockwise from top left), Baxter, Cristina, Davis, and Charlie, may live in Alaska but their hearts are never far from the University of Georgia.

on their lives and would make a similar impact on future generations. UGA was at the top of their list. “A living trust gives us peace of mind that there is a clear plan in place,” Baxter says. “If an untimely event were to happen while our children are young, their care is the priority. Once they are grown, that emphasis shifts to supporting organizations, like UGA, that make the world a better place.” The couple designated their support to three areas of campus: the Alumni As-

special

sociation’s Endowed Scholarship Fund; the Let All the Big Dawgs Eat Food Scholarship, which ensures UGA students in need have access to regular meals; and WUOG-FM. “UGA shaped our personal and professional lives forever,” Baxter says. “When UGA graduates succeed, they should have a sense of pride in giving back to UGA knowing that their support will help others thrive.”

Join the Tharins and leave your legacy at UGA. Learn how gifts donated through a will or trust can meet your financial and charitable goals while supporting UGA in the long term. give.uga.edu/legacy

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CLASS NOTES Oscar La Madrid AB ’14 is the founder of Angels Alive, an organization dedicated to helping Georgia veterans. Megan Strecker ABJ ’14 is the public relations coordinator at Louisiana State University Health Shreveport. Taylor Tanner ABJ ’14 works as a social media strategist for The Home Depot in Atlanta.

gradnotes agricultural & environmental sciences Irfan Tareen MS ’95, MS ’00, PhD ’01 is the vice president of business development for Centercard in Atlanta.

arts & sciences Tom Deaton MA ’64, PhD ’69 retired from his position as

2015-2017 Reagan Gadient-Kaiser BSA ’15

professor emeritus of social sciences at Dalton State

graduated from the University

College.

of Cincinnati nursing program.

Carmen Butcher MA ’87, PhD

Eilidh Geddes AB ’15, BS ’15, MA ’15 is a PhD student at

’91 is a lecturer in the College Writing Program at the Uni-

Northwestern University. Ged-

versity of California, Berkeley.

des is engaged to John Stroud

Karen Williams MA ’95, PhD

AB ’16, BS ’16. Kirby Smith AB ’16 is the

’99 is the co-author of Human Communication Across Cultures:

creative coordinator and junior

A Cross-Cultural Introduction to

creative director at Play It

Pragmatics and Sociolinguistics.

Again Publishing in Nashville,

Daniel Guyton MFA ’04 penned

Tennessee. Morgan Weeks ABJ ’16 is the

Three Ladies of Orpington, a stage-play that premiered in

senior coordinator for social

October 2017 in Chamblee.

media content and platform

Chuck Hemard III MFA ’04 is

strategist for NASCAR. Mallory Wilkerson BBA ’16

an associate professor of art at Auburn University. Hemard

is an account associate at

released his first monograph,

the William Mills Agency

The Pines: Southern Forests

in Atlanta.

in fall 2017.

Ansur Ahmed BBA, BS ’17 is an investment banking

Tammy Yonce DMA ’10 is an assistant professor of music at

analyst at Goldman Sachs

South Dakota State University.

in New York.

She was awarded an academic

Lauren Herbert ABJ ’17 is a

fellowship for two weeks of

digital video producer for

travel to Israel through the

USA Today.

Faculty Fellowship Program in

Hayden Taylor BBA ’17 is an insurance account representative at State Farm in Barnesville.

Israel. Nance Maiorino PhD ’11 is a lecturer in the communication, media & journalism depart-

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CLASS NOTES APPLAUSE FOR ALUMNI

ment at the University of North

Tracking Outbreaks

Georgia.

business Thai-An Nguyen BS ’02

Marcus Meleton MBA ’84 is a Keller Williams Signature real estate agent in Katy, Texas. Jason Porter PhD ’06 was a recipient of the 2017 University of South Dakota Belbas Larson Award for Excellence in Teaching. Porter is an associate professor of accounting at USD’s Beacom School of Business. Brittany McElroy MBA ’14 is a senior solution architect with Capgemini Americas in the financial services strategic business unit in Atlanta.

education Leo Salter MEd ’66 published

s a uga student, thai-an nguyen BS ’02 was torn between exercising the left and right sides of her brain, the centers of creative thinking and logic, respectively. A love of reading and analysis drove her toward majoring in comparative literature at UGA. But a knack for science led her to eventually graduate with a degree in microbiology and pursue a career in public health. She found the right intellectual balance as an epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. Nguyen and her colleagues identify outbreaks of foodborne illness caused by bacteria, like salmonella, E. coli, and listeria, and then track the outbreak to its source. It’s a process based in science but reliant on creative solutions to snuff out what, if left unaddressed, could turn into a public health crisis. “It's definitely an art,” she says. “And it's always something new.” Here’s how it works: The CDC uses a surveillance system to identify where an outbreak occurs by watching data from state health department labs. Using the offending bacteria’s DNA, researchers find clusters of foodborne illnesses to know when and where an outbreak occurs. written by aaron hale MA ’16

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special

“Any time we see a number of cases or illnesses with the same DNA fingerprint, it gives us a clue that the cause is likely linked to a common source or a common contaminated food that they ate,” Nguyen says. Once a multistate outbreak is identified, Nguyen’s team is called in to investigate and find the source of the contamination. Working with affected patients, she asks a multitude of questions to build a profile of the types of people contracting the illness. If they’re into health foods, that could steer Nguyen and her in team in one direction. Or if they’re fast food diners, that could take them in another. Then she works with a smaller subsection of the patients to refresh their memory of what they ate, looking for what links divergent lives to one food source. The tricky part is most people can’t easily remember everything they ate just a few days ago. “Recall is always a challenge,” she says. “It turns into a game finding more creative ways to jog people's memories.” Nguyen’s work, as well as input from states and other agencies, can help identify where the outbreak started—stopping one health crisis and hopefully helping prevent the next.

the book Therapeutic Deception, which deals with psychotherapy. Julia Clark MEd ’68 received the 2016 Distinguished Service Award from the Rutgers University Graduate School of Education Alumni Association. Harold Johnston MEd ’70 is the author of Israel: Walking in Holy Footsteps. Beverly Whitney MEd ’70 is a Realtor in Palm Beach County, Florida. Faye Kirschner MEd ’71 was inducted into the Armstong State University Athletic Hall of Fame. Jesse Bradley Jr. MEd ’74 is the owner and operator of Bradley Tree Farms, located in Tattnall and Screven Counties. William Davis MEd ’79, JD ’83

The University of Georgia’s commitment to academic excellence means our students and scholars don’t just strive—they thrive. We are the No. 16 best public university according to U.S. News & World Report. Among public universities, we are one of the nation’s top three producers of Rhodes Scholars over the past two decades. We’re powering potential every day. And we’re just getting started.

CLASS NOTES APPLAUSE FOR ALUMNI

Meet the Mayor

sarah deragon/portraits to the people

hortly after midnight on oct. 8, rachel hundley received a message asking her if she could see the fire. She stepped out onto her driveway and looked. Two miles away, the hills surrounding her Sonoma, California, neighborhood were ablaze. By 2 a.m., she was at a local fire station, and by 4 a.m., she was at the front door helping evacuees move into a Sonoma high school that had just opened as a shelter. Over the next three weeks, as the fires raged, Hundley worked tirelessly coordinating with firefighters, law enforcement, and first responders to written by eric rangus MA '94

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Rachel Hundley AB, ABJ ’05

keep citizens safe. Because that’s what mayors do—even if they’ve only been on the job for less than a year. “It was weeks of terror,” Hundley says. “The fire never came inside the city limits, but it was everywhere you looked. No one knew what would happen.” Hundley AB, ABJ ’05, a native of Charleston, South Carolina, studied political science, journalism, and speech and communications at UGA; she parleyed that into a law degree. After spending several years in New York as a corporate lawyer, she basically started over, and picked up and moved across the country to Sonoma, just north of the San Francisco Bay Area. She opened a food truck specializing in Southern cuisine, Drums & Crumbs, and slowly began getting involved in her new community. In December 2014, she decided to run for city council and unseated a 16-year incumbent, and in December 2016, the city council unanimously elected Hundley mayor. She still has the food truck. While many of her fire-related efforts were behind the scenes, Hundley also made sure to be a force for calm. To get the word out, Hundley began posting daily Facebook videos to update citizens about the fire’s progress, their safety, and other crucial news that was not being covered by media organizations. By late October, the fires were finally under control, and while the town of Sonoma was not damaged, the surrounding county was devastated. At least 23 people were killed and more than 5,000 homes were destroyed. It was a tragic situation that fortunately, in no small part because of Hundley’s leadership, did not get worse. As mayor, much of Hundley’s job involved meeting one-on-one with constituents. Sometimes they’d meet in her office, sometimes for coffee. Her role didn’t carry a lot of power, but that wasn’t what was most important. “People just wanted to be heard,” she says. “Even if there wasn’t anything I could do about a situation, it was often enough just to be part of a conversation.” Hundley’s term as Sonoma’s mayor ended in December, although her City Council term continues. Her final act as mayor was also something that wasn’t in the job description: She accepted a marriage proposal from boyfriend Sean Hamlin, a senior field representative for Sonoma’s congressman, Mike Thompson. Hundley and Hamlin have set a June wedding. Summer nuptials in northern California make a lot of sense for a variety of aesthetic reasons, but there is a practical one as well. Hundley needs time to prepare for her re-election campaign. “It’s important to be engaged in your community,” Hundley says. “Government is intense and complex, but the human element is crucial. Good people need to get involved.”

CLASS NOTES

was named Reno Lawyer of the

the department of mathemat-

law

social work

Year and a Best Lawyer in real

ics and science education.

Cynthia Wright JD ’77 is a

Ron Scroggy MSW ’85 retired

partner at Boyd Collar Nolen

in June after 40 years in child

& Tuggle, which received

welfare. Scroggy received

recognition as a Tier 1 Atlanta

Voices for Children’s Big Voice

family law firm in the 2018 edi-

award, as well as the Geor-

tion of the U.S. News and World

gia Sytem of Care Lifetime

Report’s Best Lawyers and

Achievement Award.

Best Law Firms rankings.

Philip McRae MSW ’86 is an

JeanMarie Tankersley JD ’12

internal behavioral health

is an attorney at Clawson

consultant on Hunter Army

and Staubes in Greenville,

Airfield in Savannah.

South Carolina.

Laura Silverman MSW ’11 is a li-

estate law by Best Lawyers in Lelia Vaughan EdD ’83 is an

forestry and natural resources

owner and partner in TC Lind-

Kelly Robinson PhD ’11 is an

sey & Company General Store,

assistant professor in the

the oldest continuously operat-

Quantitative Fisheries Center

ing general store in Texas.

at Michigan State University.

Zelha Tunc Pekkan PhD ’08

Cody Luedtke MS ’13 is a faculty

is an associate professor of

member in the life and earth

mathematic education at MEF

sciences department at Geor-

University in Istanbul, Turkey.

gia State University Perimeter

Pekkan also serves as associate

College - Dunwoody.

America 2018.

dean and department chair in

censed clinical social worker in private practice in Brookhaven.

want to reach the bulldog nation? advertise in Georgia Magazine Published quarterly and mailed to the household, your advertising message reaches your audience directly, giving you one of the strongest demographic buys in the region. For information on advertising in the award-winning Georgia Magazine, contact Pamela Leed at 706-542-8124 or pjleed@uga.edu.

send us your notes Help UGA and your classmates keep up with what’s happening in your life—both personally and professionally—by sending Class Notes items to one of the addresses listed below. And please include your hometown to help us keep our alumni database up to date. If you send a photo, please make sure it is a resolution of 300 dpi. Class Notes is the first section we work on, so keep these deadlines in mind: for the Spring (March) issue, submit by December 1; for Summer (June), submit by March 1; for Fall (September), submit by June 1; for Winter (December), submit by September 1.

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FACULTY FOCUS

Libby V. Morris Zell Miller Distinguished Professor of Higher Education and Director of UGA’s Institute of Higher Education

“During my career, I have been intentional about connecting research, instruction, and public service, and I share former Gov. Zell Miller’s belief in the transformative power of education. To me, the University of Georgia is at its best when it combines instruction and rigorous research to address individual and societal goals and needs.”

Morris’ early research focuses on the Southern “Black Belt,” where rural populations and agriculture dominated the landscape in the 19th century and poverty and low levels of education persist in the 21st. Seeing the deep disparities in access to higher education, she launched the Georgia College Advising Corps in 2008 to help lower-income and first-generation students attend college, a commitment the Institute of Higher Education and the university wholeheartedly share.

Endowed chairs, positions that receive supplemental support generated from private donations, are essential to recruiting and retaining leading faculty who are committed to world-changing research and preparing the next generation of problem-solvers, pioneers, and leaders. Learn more about supporting UGA’s leading faculty at give.uga.edu/gm.

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