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Juliet Chu with blueberry CAES News
UGA Boosts Georgia
The University of Georgia contributed $8.4 billion to the state’s economy in fiscal year 2024, an increase of $300 million from the previous year and a record for the state’s flagship university. The increased economic impact was powered by growth in the number of degrees conferred at the graduate and undergraduate levels, an increase in externally funded research and the positive effects of UGA’s public service and outreach efforts across the state.
Bhabesh Dutta examines an onion plant in a greenhouse. CAES News
R&D Expenditures
For the first time in its history, the University of Georgia topped $600 million in research and development expenditures in fiscal year 2024. Its $628.1 million in expenditures represents a 10% increase year over year and yet another record high in R&D activity, marking the sixth consecutive year of growth for the university. “The University of Georgia is embracing its role as one of America’s top public research universities, and I am grateful to everyone who is helping us advance this vital mission,” said President Jere W. Morehead.
Composite Image Excellence 2025 CAES News
2025 Alumni Association Awards
Five alumni from the University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences will be honored next month at the 69th annual CAES Alumni Association Awards banquet on March 21 at the Classic Center in Athens, Georgia. The annual ceremony honors college alumni for their outstanding achievements. The event also includes recognition of new inductees into the Georgia Agricultural Hall of Fame. “Agriculture and agribusinesses are vital to many of our communities and vital to each of us in our daily lives,” said Carlton Self, CAES Alumni Association board president.
CAES researchers explore ways to abate PFAS in water and soil CAES News
Perilous Flow
In April, the Environmental Protection Agency announced the nation’s first drinking water standard for “forever chemicals,” a group of persistent, human-made chemicals that can pose a health risk to people at even the smallest detectable levels of exposure. The new rules are part of efforts to limit pollution from these per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, which can persist in the environment for centuries. Supported by a nearly $1.6 million grant from the EPA, researchers from the University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences are developing improved, cost-effective treatment systems with advanced technologies for removing PFAS.
Rural Engagement Workshop participants in the 2023 cohort visit Hillcrest Dairy Farm to see how research has impacted dairy farming in Georgia. (Baker Owens/ UGA) CAES News
Rural Engagement Workshop
A new cohort has been selected for the Rural Engagement Workshop for Academic Faculty. The award-winning interdisciplinary program leverages the community engagement experience of UGA’s public service and extension faculty to support collaborative academic research that benefits rural Georgia. The primary aim is to enhance partnerships with communities throughout Georgia by fostering collaborative, rural-focused research and scholarship.
As a graduate student at UGA, Dean Kopsell helped construct a greenhouse that still stands at the Riverbend Greenhouse Complex and is used by the UGA Horticulture Club. CAES News
Root and Branch
For Dean Kopsell, associate dean for academic and faculty affairs for the University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, moving to Athens has been like coming home. Kopsell assumed leadership of the Office of Academic and Faculty Affairs one year ago, following the retirement of former Associate Dean Josef Broder, who served as a faculty member at CAES for more than 40 years.
UGA Blueberry Series CAES News
Field to Pancakes
From bringing more than 50 varieties to market to monitoring the growing economic impact of the blueberry, this series dives into the multidisciplinary University of Georgia research behind the top-10 Georgia commodity. “The UGA blueberry breeding program has been a key to the success of launching a significant commercial blueberry industry in Georgia in the 1980s and helping sustain it for four decades,” said Scott NeSmith, professor emeritus in the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.
A microplitis demolitor wasp parasitizes a soybean looper caterpillar by injecting eggs and bracovirus. Braconid wasps use a class of viruses called bracoviruses that can hijack the cells of their hosts without destroying them, expressing genes important to the survival and development wasp’s offspring while they feed on the live host. Photo by Jena Johnson.  CAES News
Viral Protection
Supported by a $1.1 million award from the National Science Foundation, University of Georgia entomologists Gaelen Burke and Michael Strand are seeking answers about how parasitic wasp biology has developed to use viruses passed down from parent to offspring to ensure survival. Scientists have been able to trace the relationship between the wasps and their viruses back 100 million years. Today about 55,000 types of wasps carry these types of inherited viruses.
January is Radon Action Month CAES News
Radon Action Month
Radon Action Month, observed every January, is a reminder to protect your home and family from the dangers of radon exposure. Radon is a colorless, odorless, and tasteless radioactive gas that forms naturally from the breakdown of uranium in soil, rock, and water. It can seep into homes through cracks in foundations, construction joints, and other openings, building up to dangerous levels indoors. Prolonged exposure to high levels of radon is the second-leading cause of lung cancer in the U.S., surpassed only by smoking.
Colby Ruiz CAES News
A Doctor's Journey
Dr. Colby Ruiz was a teenager when he watched his first surgery. He volunteered in the operating room at Valdosta’s South Georgia Medical Center, where his parents worked as nurses. Ruiz could have ended up in any of the hospital units except, at 14, he really didn’t want to wear the pink “candy striper” uniform of most hospital volunteers. When Ruiz learned that OR volunteers wore green, he was all in.