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It is the season for accolades, and I am pleased to congratulate our university Research and Discovery & Innovation award winners – Dr. Bettye Apenteng, Dr. Rafael Quirino, and Dr. Kania Greer – on the recognition from their peers for their outstanding scholarly contributions to Georgia Southern. This year, we conducted 40 professional development workshops related to diverse topics in funded research. I am also pleased to congratulate my colleague, Dr. Laura Regassa for her selection into the APLU’s Research Leader Fellowship Program. Many of you have worked closely with Laura during the past three years and know from experience that it is a well-deserved honor.
Additionally, I want to publically thank everyone across both campuses who were involved in supporting our 2023 Research Week activities; they were a tremendous success. Dr. Amanda Townley and Dr. Tilicia Mayo-Gamble were especially instrumental in coordinating the Georgia Southern Student Scholars Symposium (G4), a two-day event which featured 223 student presentations from all of our academic colleges. My admiration and appreciation goes out to all the faculty who mentored and directed these students to provide them with this tremendous learning opportunity. And, indeed, many of these same faculty were heavily involved in making the whole week of research activities come off. Great people doing great things consistently with humility and
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sincerity. Thank you. Start looking forward for more to come in the spring of 2024. Please note that this is the last newsletter of this academic year. We will return ready to go for the fall academic year.
The Office of Research is starting
to put together some numbers to assess our activities over the past year and, while we still have a few weeks left in the fiscal year, I can share a few data points with you about our investments to facilitate research and scholarship at Georgia Southern. In the past year we have funded two cohorts (9 awards) of our Impact Accelerator Awards totaling more than $200,000. To date, the recipients of our initial investment into the first cohort have submitted more than $2.1 million in proposals for external funding and have already earned nearly $500,000 in awards. We were also able to fund nearly $48,000 in highly competitive travel awards. Both the need and the merit were greater than our capacity to support these awards, but we were pleased to be able to offer some assistance. Lastly, we have been able to use some of our non-recurring revenue to invest significantly in repairing, upgrading, and expanding our research lab and equipment infrastructure. It is truly rewarding to be able to serve our faculty researchers through these investments.
In closing, I want to extend a personal note of appreciation to Carol Cox and Sue Ann Crabtree, who are leaving the university after long years of service. Sue Ann retired last month and Carol will be retiring at the end of June. Both of them demonstrated the highest level of professional service. Many of you have worked with them over the past years and have benefitted from their diligence and dedication - I certainly have. They will be missed.
Until next time, stay curious.
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IWH attends CoastFest
The Institute for Water and Health (IWH) joined 6,000 people at Georgia DNR's CoastFest on Saturday, April 22 to talk about regional issues concerning drinking water, flooding, healthy beaches, and more. Taking place on Earth Day, CoastFest brings together environmental groups from all over coastal Georgia and is a perfect place for the IWH to present water monitoring tools, information about current research, and educate children and adults alike about the water challenges in our community. IWH multidisciplinary interns practiced their community engagement skills while talking about their research and impact on the communities. Participating in events like this is part of the IWH's role as a research, education and outreach unit and fulfills Georgia Southern's mission as a public impact research university.
For more information on IWH and its upcoming research, education and outreach events, check out their website.
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CAH receives grant for educational tour of Germany
The Georgia Southern University Fred and Dinah Gretsch School of Music Trumpet Ensemble has been awarded a grant of $43,505 from the Halle Foundation to support an educational tour of Germany.
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Georgia Southern professor awarded Georgia Sea Grant funding to support local teacher training in coastal resilience and sustainability
Georgia Southern University’s Amanda L. Townley, Ph.D., Provost Faculty Research Fellow and associate professor of science education, recently earned more than $9,800 in Georgia Sea Grant program development funding to support local teacher professional learning in authentic contexts in coastal Georgia.
“Coastal resilience and sustainability are local issues with national implications,” said Townley.
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March 2023 Supplemental Travel Funding awardees announced
The Office of Research is pleased to announce the March 2023 cycle of Supplemental Travel Funding awardees. This funding opportunity supports tenure-track and tenured faculty to disseminate their research at disciplinary conferences. With more than 50 applications received, the selection process was highly competitive, resulting in additional funds allocated to meet the need. Faculty awardees, representing all university colleges, will present at international and national conferences.
Awardees include: Drs. Jhy-Charm Soo (Biostatistics, Epidemiology, and Environmental Sciences), Matthew Hashiguchi (Communication Arts), Tyler Cyronak (Institute for Coastal Plain Science), Checo Colón-Gaud (Biology), Jonathan Friedel (Psychology), Jody Langdon (Health Sciences and Kinesiology), Xinfang Wang (Enterprise Systems and Analytics), Maxim Durach (Physics and Astronomy), Stephen Greiman (Biology), Peggy Shannon-Baker (Curriculum, Foundations, and Reading), Virginia Rolling (Human Ecology), and Sue Zhang (Manufacturing Engineering).
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The 2023 Georgia Southern Student Scholar Symposium (GS4) was held April 18 and April 20 on Statesboro and Armstrong campuses, respectively, with overall attendance estimated at 600 participants. The event showcased a range of undergraduate and graduate student scholarly works, with representation from all colleges. The event also highlighted research by University Honors Scholars, College of Science and Mathematics COUR (College Office of Undergraduate Research) Scholars, and College of Graduate Studies Averitt Award winners.
The GS4 event included 223 student research presentations (110 talks and 113 posters), with 75% of the presentations in Statesboro and 25% in Savannah. In addition to participating students, 162 faculty mentors were identified in the presentation submissions.
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Special thanks to those who came out to the GS4 Student Scholars Symposium! | | | | |
