Three UGA faculty members named AAAS Fellows

 

By Allyson Mann | Columns, UGA | December 4, 2017

Three University of Georgia faculty members have been named Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, an honor bestowed by their peers for “scientifically or socially distinguished efforts to advance science or its applications.”

These three faculty members are among 396 new AAAS Fellows who will be presented with an official certificate and a gold and blue—representing science and engineering, respectively—rosette pin on Feb. 17 at the AAAS Fellows Forum during the 2018 AAAS annual meeting in Austin.

“Selection as an AAAS Fellow is a major milestone in a scientist’s career, and thus the University of Georgia is enormously pleased that three of our faculty have been selected for this honor,” said David Lee, UGA vice president for research. “This peer recognition is important to our faculty, and it also brings added distinction to the university.”

The 2017 AAAS Fellows, all members of UGA’s Plant Center, are:

• James H. Leebens-Mack, professor of plant biology in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, is noted for distinguished contributions to plant evolution and genomics.

Leebens-Mack co-led a team of scientists to sequence the genome of Amborella trichopoda, a small, shrub-like tree found only on the main island of New Caledonia in the South Pacific. Amborella is the sole survivor of an ancient evolutionary lineage that traces back to the last common ancestor of all flowering plants more than 150 million years ago. Just last month, his team published the garden asparagus genome and identified the sex determination genes on the young Y-chromosome of male asparagus plants. Leebens-Mack is leading several other projects aimed at sequencing and comparing the genomes of species distributed across the land plant tree of life to elucidate the genetic basis of innovations throughout plant evolution, including resistance to plant diseases, adaptation to arid environments and storage of carbohydrates.

• Wayne Allen Parrott, professor of crop and soil sciences in the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, is honored for distinguished contributions to the development and implementation of plant transformation technologies and to the discussions of the science and regulatory processes associated with genetically modified organisms.

For nearly 30 years, Parrott has conducted research on the discovery, evaluation and use of agriculturally important genes in crop plants, using both molecular markers and genetic engineering, especially in soybean and switchgrass. His emphasis is on developing the methodology for use and safety assessment of genetically modified crop plants, and he has published a guide for environmental risk assessment of GMOs. Parrott has traveled extensively in Latin America and other countries, advising legislators and regulators on the requisites for a functional regulatory system that ensures the safety of genetically modified products.

• Chung-Jui “C.J.” Tsai, Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar and the Winfred N. “Hank” Haynes Professor, is honored for pioneering research contributions in forestry biotechnology and genomics. Tsai holds a joint appointment in the Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources and the genetics department in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences.

Tsai, a plant biologist with a passion for trees, focuses on creating high-yielding trees for use in biofuel. She dissects the molecular mechanisms that affect tree fitness and biomass productivity, searching for ways to create better-growing trees by making them more resistant to stresses like extreme temperatures, disease and drought. Tsai pioneered the application of CRISPR genome editing technology to forest trees, and her team demonstrated unprecedented efficiency in generating transgenic null mutants. This translates into significant time savings for forest genetics research, bypassing the long generation cycle in traditional crosses.

She also has made significant contributions to genomic resources development for Populus, the model species in tree genomics research.

 

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IOB student,  Annie Kwon, in Dr. Kannan’s Lab is selected for the Franklin-Liverpool Fellowship. Annie will obtain international exposure and training in Dr. Eyer’s lab at the University of Liverpool, UK, through this fellowship. Congrats Annie!!

Dr. Liang Liu and his colleagues produced a genome-scale dataset from representatives of all placental mammal orders to infer diversification timing relative to the Cretaceous–Paleogene (KPg) boundary. The phylogenetic analysis suggested that placental mammals underwent a continuous radiation across the KPg boundary. The results have been published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (USA), which is available at http://www.pnas.org/content/114/35/E7282.abstract

Download your copy HERE

Frank Fan successfully defended his dissertation “Statistical Considerations of Expression Quantitative Loci (eQTL) Mapping with Next Generation Sequencing Data”.

Congratulations Dr. Fan!!

Xi Gu successfully defended her dissertation “Dual Subcellular Localization and Non-Photosynthetic Functions of Phylloquinone in Parasitic and Non-parasitic Plants”.

Congratulations Dr. Gu!!

Dr. Robert Woods, adjunct faculty with the Institute of Bioinformatics, was recently awarded an NIH U01 grant titled “GlyProbity: tools to curate glycan structure pre and post deposition in the PDB”.

Congratulations Dr. Woods!!

 

FEATURE STORIES

Global expert

 

Editor’s note: This video profile is part of a series about UGA faculty who were named Distinguished Research Professors in 2017.

Jessica Kissinger, professor of genetics, is a globally recognized molecular biologist and world expert in bio-computational research whose contributions to the field of eukaryotic pathogen research have helped transform how pathogen research is conducted internationally.

An expert on the evolution of parasite genomes, she conducted the first systematic survey of gene transfer in the Apicomplexa, upending prevailing thought. Her subsequent series of papers on the Apicomplexa also opened a new window into genome evolution and the biology of several other important disease-causing organisms.

Her most recognized and sustained contribution to science has been the co-creation, maintenance and enhancement of integrated omics tools to facilitate research on eukaryotic pathogens.

The databases and program resources developed under Kissinger’s leadership have evolved into a global team continuously supported by NIH for 15 years and designated an NIH Bioinformatics Resource Center. At UGA, she established the pre-eminent bioinformatics group in the area of parasitic diseases.