Category: Past News

There are approximately 14,000 full-time, tenured faculty members in the Southeastern Conference, and to be eligible for a SEC Faculty Achievement award the individual must have achieved the rank of full professor; have a record of extraordinary teaching; and have a record of research that is recognized nationally and/or internationally. Administered by provosts at each of the 14 universities in the conference, Ron Simons, Distinguished Research Professor in the Sociology Department in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, has received this honor for 2019.

Simons’ research has revealed the impact of social and environmental conditions on gene expression, aging and health. His longitudinal studies about the impact of persistent family economic hardship and conflict on biological aging and the development of chronic illness, including cancer, diabetes and dementia, have resulted in the creation of programs for at-risk families. His research has garnered more than $45 million in grant funding, which includes continuous funding from the National Institutes of Health for three decades.

“Dr. Simons is an extraordinary scholar who consistently produces high-impact research, has achieved an impressive record of external funding, and has received numerous professional accolades,” said UGA President Jere W. Morehead. “He has brought great distinction to the University of Georgia and is a deserving recipient of the SEC Faculty Achievement Award.”

Simons is a Fellow with the Owens Institute for Behavioral Research and serves as co-director of the UGA Center on Biological Embedding of Social Events and Relationships, which studies the intersections of genetic and environmental contributions to health and health behavior and he is a Fellow in the Center for Research.

To read more about Dr. Simons and his research, go here.

The week of April 1-5 is Honors week at UGA and a great time to celebrate the accomplishments of some of the Fellows and Affiliates with the Owens Institute.

2019 Research Awards:

Nathan T. Carter, OIBR Fellow, Associate Professor, Psychology
Creative Research Medal in Social and Behavioral Sciences, Clarifying the relation of personality to work and life outcomes

Kelly E. Happe, OIBR Affiliate, Associate Professor, Communication Studies
Creative Research Medal in Humanities and Arts, Implications of race and gender in genomic science

Justin A. Lavner, OIBR Fellow, Assistant Professor, Psychology
Charles B. Knapp Early Career Scholar Award

Emilie Phillips Smith, OIBR Fellow, Professor, Human Development and Family Science
William A. Owens Creative Research Award

2019 Service-Learning Excellence Award:
Caree Cotwright, OIBR Affiliate, Assistant Professor, Foods and Nutrition

2019 Richard B. Russell Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching:
Sarah Shannon, OIBR Affiliate, Assistant Professor, Sociology

2019 Instruction Awards:
Grace Ahn, OIBR Affiliate, Associate Professor, Advertising
First-Year Odyssey Teaching Award

Sarah Shannon, OIBR Affiliate, Assistant Professor, Sociology
Creative Teaching Award

Please join us in congratulating these scholars! Read more here.

Dr. Sarah Shannon, OIBR Affiliate and Assistant Professor in Sociology in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, has been named one of three recipients of the Richard B. Russell Award of Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching. This award is the highest honor in early career teaching.

“The 2019 Russell Award recipients engage students with innovative instruction while maintaining the kind of personalized support that defines a University of Georgia education,” said Interim Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost Libby V. Morris. “These exemplary faculty members are respected by their colleagues and committed to the success of their students.”

Nominations for the Russell Award are submitted by deans and considered by a committee of senior faculty members and undergraduate students. To learn more about this award and Dr. Shannon, go here.

Tessa Andrews, OIBR Affiliate and assistant professor of genetics in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, is one of two faculty members in the system to receive a Regents’ Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Award.

Dr. Andrews is a nationally recognized STEM education researcher who has established evidence-based strategies to engage her students and promote scientific thinking skills. She has redesigned introductory biology courses to make the course material more relevant to students by focusing on real-world problems such as antibiotic resistance and climate change. She uses small-group learning and other innovative teaching strategies to help students develop deep understanding.

Andrews, who joined the UGA faculty in 2013, has worked as a senior advisor to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and is a member of the steering committee of the Society for the Advancement of Biology Education Research. She has been a Center for Teaching and Learning Innovative Teaching Fellow, a Lilly Teaching Fellow and was a founding member of the Scientists Engaged in Education Research Center. Andrews also is part of a team of more than 100 UGA faculty who are engaged in a five-year, $3 million National Science Foundation grant-funded project that seeks to transform STEM education on campus and serve as a model for research universities across the nation.

Dr. Andrews received her award at the Regents’ Scholarship Gala earlier this month. The award also came with a $5,000 prize.

Read more

We are bursting with pride for our own Center for Family Research, which has been awarded the inaugural Presidents’ Award of Distinction for Team Science from the Georgia CTSA! This honor is bestowed upon a multi-disciplinary research team in recognition of it’s innovative, high-functioning teamwork and synergy. Teams competed across Georgia CTSA institutions (UGA, Emory, Georgia Tech, and Morehouse School of Medicine) and only one winner emerged – OIBR’s own Center for Family Research.

Since 1985, CFR has made great progress in improving the health of rural African American families by bringing together scholars from diverse disciplines to explore innovative and dynamic ways of examining family life. They will be recognized at the Georgia CTSA Statewide Conference at the end of the February.

Please join us in a huge congratulations to Directors Gene Brody and Steve Beach, as well as all the faculty who affiliate with CFR, the outstanding staff, and many collaborators outside UGA.

Each year, the Consortium of Social Science Associations (COSSA) releases their college and university rankings for federal social and behavioral science research and development. This year, the University of Georgia ranked #28 with $16.3m of funding for social science for FY 2017. This make us the highest ranked school in Georgia! COSSA 2019 Rankings

This data comes from the National Center for Science and Education Statistics’ Higher Education Research and Development (HERD) Survey for fiscal year 2017. The “Federal R&D” column lists combined federal research and development expenditures for social sciences, psychology, law, communications, and social work.

Yan Jin, a graduate of the 2016 OIBR Grantsmanship Development Program and a Georgia Athletic Association Professor in Grady College, was recently awarded an external grant from WhatsApp Research.

Yan Jin (Co-PI). “Misinformation Vulnerabilities among Elderly during Disease Outbreaks”. WhatsApp Research Awards for Social Science and Misinformation. $49,614.00. [PI: Santosh Vijaykumar, Northumbria University,UK; Other Co-PIs: Arun Nair, Health Systems Research India Initiative; Claudia Pagliari, University of Edinburgh; Venkat Chilukuri, Srishti Institute of Art,Design and Technology]
Summary: This study aims to identify the nature of, and find potential solutions to the kinds of vulnerabilities that misinformation imposes on older adults during infectious disease outbreaks with a demographic that is shown to be especially vulnerable to this problem. Situated in Bangalore, India, the study will comprise of two phases: formative research that will use automated social media analytics of news coverage to identify key themes of misinformation that spread during previous infectious disease outbreaks in India, and a factorial survey experiment to test how older adults and their children respond to different levels of misinformation presented in different information formats.
[Public announcement by WhatsApp Research Awards: https://www.whatsapp.com/research/awards/announcement/]