2024 Research Awards
March 29, 2024
Distinguished Research Professors
The title of Distinguished Research Professor recognizes senior faculty members who are internationally recognized for their innovative body of work and its transformational impact on the field. The Professorship is awarded to individuals working at the very top of their discipline, who are recognized as preeminent leaders in their fields of study.
Samuel E. Aggrey (Photo by Dorothy Kozlowski/UGA)
• Samuel E. Aggrey, Richard B. Russell Endowed Chair and professor in the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences’ poultry science department, is a global leader in developing and applying emerging technologies of quantitative genetics, molecular biology and bioinformatics to critical issues in the poultry industry. His research interests include genome selection, genomics of nutrient utilization, molecular and cellular bases of stressors, and genetic improvement of poultry. He has made advances in understanding linkages among nutrient components, parasite load and genetics that affect birds’ microbiome and gut health. As part of an international consortium, he helped identify and map 14,000 genes associated with growth and development in poultry, which aid breeders in producing more disease-resistant, feed-efficient and heat-tolerant birds. He has also improved understanding of pressures on poultry production, such as water intake and heat stress.
James E. (Jeb) Byers (Photo by Chamberlain Smith/UGA)
• James E. (Jeb) Byers, UGA Athletic Association Professor in the Odum School of Ecology, is an internationally prominent scientist in the disciplines of population, community and marine ecology. He is best known for his research quantifying and predicting the success of biological invasions. Byers has performed some of the world’s leading ecological studies on interactions among native organisms and nonnative species. He has built mechanistic mathematical models to analyze the impacts of climate change, including expansions of invasive parasites and subtropical species into the state’s marine and freshwater resources. His approach combines experimental work and fieldwork at local, regional and continent-wide scales with computational models, providing critical theoretical insights. His body of research has been cited more than 16,500 times, with 17 papers
exceeding 200 citations each.
Jamie Kreiner (Photo by Jason Thrasher/UGA)
• Jamie Kreiner, professor in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences’ history department, is a historian of Europe and the Mediterranean world in the early Middle Ages (400 to 800 CE). Her research asks how and why cultures changed in societies that remade themselves as the Roman Empire fractured. She questions how ideas and norms—about good government, wealth or nature, for example—were intertwined with different forms of power and influence and attempts to discover how early medieval communities themselves wrestled with those dynamics. These questions have guided her research. Most recently, her book, “The Wandering Mind: What Medieval Monks Tell Us About Distraction” (Liveright, 2023), tracks early Christian monks’ frustrations with distraction and their inventive and sometimes contentious efforts to make themselves concentrate—and it shows how their moralization of the problem foreshadowed a current age of distraction.
Aaron Mitchell (Submitted photo)
• Aaron Mitchell, professor and head of the Department of Microbiology in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, is a world leader in the genetics, molecular biology and virulence mechanisms of pathogenic fungi— particularly Candida albicans, the most prevalent fungal pathogen in humans. Contributing to a greater understanding of biology and infectious diseases, he has enabled modern molecular biological studies of C. albicans, using genetic and genomic tools to explore fungal pathogenesis and drug resistance. His discoveries include a greater understanding of the genetic basis for biofilm formation, which can render microbial pathogens resistant to antimicrobial agents and even physical removal. These advances on fungal biofilms are paradigm shifting. His group’s recent research, drawing on advances in omics, reveals natural variations in the genetic regulation of biofilms and the core network that might be targeted for antifungal therapy.
Robert J. Woods (Photo by Andrew Davis Tucker/UGA)
• Robert J. Woods, professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences and the Complex Carbohydrate Research Center, has received recognition for his innovative research in glycoscience—the chemical biology and biomedical impact of complex carbohydrates (glycans) covering surfaces of cells and viruses. His work applies expertise in molecular structures and computational modeling to understand glycan structure and function. By integrating experimental data with molecular dynamics calculations, Woods has illustrated that the space occupied by glycans in both the HIV envelope protein and SARS-CoV-2 spike protein modulates immune recognition and can help guide vaccine design. He developed a web environment for building complex glycans that allows users to computationally explore the molecular dynamics of glycans and their interactions with other biomolecules.