Academics

Ron Walcott, University of Georgia vice provost for graduate education and dean of the Graduate School, was first a doctoral student at the UGA Tifton campus. As a UGA administrator and professor in the Department of Plant Pathology, Walcott helps students and colleagues find their sense of place at the university and has a legacy of increasing diversity in the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.

For Dean Kopsell, newly appointed associate dean for academic affairs for the University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, moving to Athens is like coming home. Currently professor and chair of the Environmental Horticulture Department at the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, Kopsell, a two-time UGA alumnus and devoted Georgia Bulldog fan, is eager to return to the Classic City and excited about the opportunity to serve his alma mater and the students of CAES.

For more than a century, generations of researchers in the University of Georgia's Department of Plant Pathology have been at the leading edge of knowledge and innovation. As these researchers pass down their knowledge, their foundational scientific exploration helps safeguard crops, advance agricultural practices and ensure food security, not only in Georgia but far beyond its borders.