Browse Profiles and Awards Stories - Page 4

Six alumni from the University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences were recognized at the 67th annual CAES Alumni Association Awards banquet on April 29. Two Georgia agricultural leaders were honored with induction into the Georgia Agricultural Hall of Fame at the event, hosted at the UGA Tate Center Grand Hall.

Dan Suiter, University of Georgia Cooperative Extension entomologist and well-known expert in addressing the needs of pest control operators, has been named the Orkin Professor of Urban Entomology at UGA. Orkin, an industry leader in pest control services and protection, has created the endowment to help strengthen the entomology program in the UGA College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.

Four graduate students in the University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences have been honored with an E. Broadus Browne Award for Outstanding Graduate Research. Given in honor of the former director of the Georgia Agricultural Experiment Stations, the award is presented to outstanding CAES master’s and doctoral students recognized for both their research and effective communication.

Kevin Vogel, an assistant professor in the Department of Entomology at the University of Georgia, has received a prestigious Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program award from the National Science Foundation. Supported by the more than $1 million CAREER grant, Vogel and his team will spend the next five years building upon the still-limited body of research regarding the symbiotic relationship between kissing bugs and a highly specified bacterium that resides in their gut.

Georgia 4-H dedicated the Thomas F. Rodgers Administration Building at Rock Eagle 4-H Center to honor former Georgia 4-H state leader Tom Rodgers for his years of service to 4-H and University of Georgia Cooperative Extension. During his tenure as Georgia 4-H leader, Rodgers championed the renovation of the Rock Eagle 4-H Center, raising more than $2 million to secure Rock Eagle’s status as a centerpiece of Georgia 4-H.

Plantfi, a novel system to track plant moisture, sunlight and overall houseplant health, is the winner of University of Georgia’s 2023 FABricate Entrepreneurial Initiative competition. Alex Breazu, the UGA mechanical engineering student who leads Plantfi, got the idea while on his own “plant parent” journey, during which he overwatered and killed his fair share of houseplants.

An innovator in agribusiness and an exemplary public servant in Extension will be inducted into the Georgia Agricultural Hall of Fame on April 29 during the 67th University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences Alumni Association Awards in Athens.

Georgia is the nation's leading pecan-producing state — and University of Georgia researchers intend to keep it that way. Working with an international team of experts, four faculty from the UGA College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences have received a U.S. Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture award for the second phase of a study to adapt one of Georgia’s top commodities, the pecan.

Two students in the University of Georgia’s College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences were selected to attend the U.S. Department of Agriculture Agricultural Outlook Forum in Washington, D.C., as part of the Future Leaders Program.