Researchers from UGA’s Franklin College of Arts and Sciences have been recognized with one of the Ecological Society of America’s top honors in plant ecology and environmental science. Congratulations to Jill Anderson in genetics and the Odum School of Ecology, Megan DeMarche in plant biology, recent plant biology Ph.D. graduate Derek Denney, and their collaborators on receiving the 2026 W.S. Cooper Award from the Ecological Society of America.…

In Covina, California, just outside Los Angeles, education shaped Summer Blanco’s family for generations. Her great-grandfather earned a bachelor’s degree in 1940, followed by her grandmother, mother, and siblings. Raised by a Tejano mother who works in payroll processing and a Nicaraguan father employed by a major airline, Blanco grew up in a household where college was expected. Graduate school had not yet been part of that path. Now, as a Ph.…

Riley Thoen grew up in Bloomington, Minnesota, a suburb of Minneapolis, in a family shaped by rural roots. Both parents were raised in farm country before choosing a more urban life. Thoen found a way to bridge those worlds, returning often to rural landscapes through fieldwork in plant ecology. “I was fascinated by the plant diversity in rural areas,” Thoen says. “But seeing those landscapes fragmented by agriculture sparked my interest in…

Growing up in Sartell, Minnesota, Franklin Ph.D. candidate Justin Scherer developed an early appreciation for the natural world, shaped by his close-knit community and the surrounding landscape. What began as curiosity grew into a commitment to understanding how living systems work and how that knowledge can help address real-world challenges. After earning his B.S. in plant biology from University of Minnesota, Twin Cities in 2021, Scherer will…

The Franklin College of Arts and Sciences has awarded eight seed grants to support multidisciplinary research and teaching projects through its Rapid Interdisciplinary Proposal (RIP) and Innovation in Interdisciplinary Instruction (I-Cubed) programs and seven seed grants through its Research-Intensification System (RIS) program. RIP supports early-stage research through rapid idea generation, data collection, and team building. The I-Cubed…

New research from the University of Georgia suggests our familiarity with yeast traces back to the footsteps of our ancestors. Humans domesticated baker’s yeast as early as 7000 BCE to make bread, beer, wine and sake. However, wild varieties of the same yeast species also live on trees. These domesticated and wild yeast look different genetically, but UGA researchers wanted to explore possible links between the two: “Other studies had just…

The evolutionary lineage leading to Amborella diverged from all other flowering plant lineages approximately 150 million years ago. In 2013, an international research team co-led by UGA Plant Biology faculty member Jim Leebens-Mack and collaborators announced the newly sequenced genome of the Amborella trichopoda plant became the foundation for comparative analyses of genes tracing back to the origin of flowering plants and earlier.…

In a terrific story combining genome analysis, a love for the hedges and UGA history— a Franklin College faculty member and his students found that the same family of hedges have stood tall for nearly 100 years: Plant biology professor and hedges researcher James Leebens-Mack decided to sequence the genome of the Sanford Stadium hedges. His goal was to combine service-learning with his own areas of research, comparative genome biology and the…

As responses to climate change move toward adaptive solutions, plant genetics research faculty at the University of Georgia are seeking plant-based solutions. Some of these colleagues – from across campus, within and beyond the Franklin College – conduct studies at the cellular level, while others investigate plants as whole organisms. Still others are exploring how epigenetics shape entire ecosystems. And while a number of UGA geneticists…

University of Georgia faculty member Bob Schmitz was honored with the 2024 Charles Albert Shull Award from the American Society of Plants Biologists (ASPB). The award, initiated in 1971 by the Society to honor Dr. Charles A. Shull, is a monetary award made annually for outstanding investigations in the field of plant biology by a member who is generally under forty-five years of age on January 1st of the year of presentation, or is fewer than…

University of Georgia faculty member Michelle Momany is one of 65 new fellows elected to the American Academy of Microbiology, Class of 2024. Fellows of the American Academy of Microbiology, the honorific leadership group within the American Society for Microbiology, are elected annually through a highly selective, peer-review process, based on their records of scientific achievement and original contributions that have advanced…

Like the heart has four chambers, the Franklin College as the heart of UGA consists of five divisions. We want to begin the new year by highlighting this element of our organizational structure and the academic units contained in each division.  We begin today with the division of BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES! Spanning the broad field of natural sciences concerned with the study of life and living organisms, the Division of Biological Sciences…