Breaking the poverty cycle • tracking rattlers on jekyll

F a l l 2 0 1 4

The University of Georgia’s two productive “technology transfer” entities have merged into one unit with a promising future in moving UGA

researchers’ discoveries and inventions into the marketplace.

When UGA scientists aim to do business,

who they gonna call?

6 When Uga scientists aim to do business, who they gonna call?

features

18 Breaking the poverty cycle

By Helen Fosgate

A UGA researcher documents how some disadvantaged families of the rural Deep South promote a more affluent future for their children; and he educates others in these strategies for success.

26 tracking eastern diamondback rattlers on jekyll island

By Beth Gavrilles

Researchers are gathering data on these charismatic but rapidly disappearing snakes in order to identify their preferred habitats and aid in conservation efforts.

ugaresearch is published by the Office of the Vice President for Research at the University of Georgia. The magazine is printed with funds from the University of Georgia Research Foundation, Inc., a nonprofit foundation that supports UGA research.

Jere W. Morehead, PresidentPamela Whitten, Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost David C. Lee, Vice President for Research

ugaresearch staff

Editor: Helen Fosgate (hfosgate@uga.edu)Circulation: Carey LovelaceMedia Shelf: Molly BergContributing editor: Steven MarcusDesign: Lindsay Robinson

Writers: Rebecca McCarthy, Helen Fosgate, Beth Gavrilles, Jason Colquitt, James Hataway, Sandi Martin, Molly Berg, Laurie Anderson

Photographers: Nancy Evelyn, Beth Gavrilles, Helen Fosgate, Andrew Tucker, Peter Frey, Breanna Ondich, and Robert Newcomb

Articles may be reprinted with permission. For additional copies of the magazine or address changes, please contact Research Communications at 706-583-0599 or rcomm@uga.edu. Access the electronic edition at www.researchmagazine.uga.edu.

POSTMASTER: Please send address changes to Research Magazine, OVPR, University of Georgia, 708 Boyd GSRC, Athens, GA 30602-7411.Call 706-583-0599; or email rcomm@uga.edu.

In compliance with federal law, including the provisions of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Sections 503 and 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, the University of Georgia does not discriminate on the basis of race, sex, religion, color, national or ethnic origin, age, disability, or military service in its administration of educational policies, programs, or activities; its admissions policies; scholarship and loan programs; athletic or other University-administered programs; or employment. In addition, the University does not discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation consistent with the University non-discrimination policy. Inquiries or complaints should be directed to the director of the Equal Opportunity Office, Peabody Hall, 290 South Jackson Street, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602. Telephone 706-542-7912 (V/TDD). Fax 706-542-2822

On the cover: TIfEagle turfgrass on Palmetto Golf Course, The Landings, Savannah, Georgia. Released by internationally recognized USDA/ARS plant geneticist Wayne Hanna, TifEagle is the third generation of bermudagrass developed exclusively for golf greens at the Coastal Plains Experiment Station in Tifton GA. Photo by Clive Barber.

By Rebecca McCarthy

The University of Georgia’s two productive “technology transfer” entities have merged into one unit with a promising future in moving UGA researchers’ discoveries and inventions into the marketplace.

departments

24 interview

David Okech studies ways to prevent intergenerational poverty and related problems such as human trafficking.

16 media shelf A sampling of books, recordings and other

creative works by UGA faculty, staff, and students.

32 viewpoint

By Jason Colquitt

Business practices should be informed by evidence, not fads, benchmarks, or intuition.

Fall 2014 Vol 44, No. 2 ISSN 1099-7458

newsbriefs2 UGA researchers

question the assumed fate of methane from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill

4 UGA scientists studying

Earth’s “critical zone” in South Carolina’s Sumter National Forest

Want to support Uga research?If you would like to support research featured in this issue, contact Kim Gentry, director of

development for research at: kgentry@uga.edu

To see back issues of ugaresearch, visit us online at: www.researchmagazine.uga.edu

2 ugaresearch

newsbriefs

Not so fast: Scientists question the assumed fate of methane from Deepwater Horizon spill

Over a period of 84 days, the April 2010 Deepwater Horizon blowout

discharged some five million gallons of oil and up to 500,000 tons of natural gas into the Gulf of Mexico’s offshore waters. In the face of a seemingly insurmountable cleanup effort, many were relieved by reports following the disaster that naturally occurring microbes would consume much of the oil and gas.

But a team of researchers led by University of Georgia marine scientists published a paper online in the journal Nature Geoscience (May 11, 2014) that casts doubt on this conclusion. Their study provides evidence that microbes face limitations on removing contaminants as quickly and easily as once believed.

“Most of the gas injected into the Gulf was methane, a potent greenhouse gas that contributes to global climate change, so naturally we were concerned that it could escape into the atmosphere,” said Samantha Joye, senior author of the paper, director of the study, and professor of marine science in UGA’s Franklin College of Arts and Sciences. “Many assumed that methane-oxidizing microbes would simply consume the methane efficiently, but our data suggest that this isn’t what happened.”

Joye and colleagues from other research institutions measured methane concentrations and the activity of methane-consuming bacteria for ten months, starting before the blowout with collection of an invaluable set of pre-discharge samples taken in March 2010.

The abundance of methane in the water allowed the bacteria that feed on the gas to flourish in the first two months

immediately following the blowout, but their activity levels dropped abruptly despite the fact that methane was still being released from the wellhead.

These data suggest that the sudden drop in bacterial activity was not due to an absence of methane but rather to constraints that made it difficult or impossible for bacteria to consume methane at anticipated rates.

“For these bacteria to work efficiently, they need unlimited access to nutrients such as inorganic nitrogen and trace metals,” Joye said. “The bacteria in the Gulf were probably able to consume about half of the methane released, but we hypothesize that an absence of essential nutrients and the dispersal of gas throughout the water column prevented such consumption.”

Joye insists that while her group’s conclusions differ from those presented in previous studies, there is no serious conflict between their analyses.

“The issue here is short-term sampling versus long-term time-series sampling,” she said. “I hope our paper clearly relays the message that long-term sampling is the only way to capture the evolution of a natural system as it responds to large perturbations such as oil-well blowouts or any other abrupt methane release.”

“It’s only a matter of time before we face another serious incident like Deepwater Horizon,” Joye noted. “The key is understanding the things that regulate how fast bacteria can [actually] consume methane, and that will give us insight into the ultimate fate of this potent greenhouse gas in our oceans.”

UGA marine scientist Samantha Joye (above) and colleagues say the sudden drop in bacterial activity was not due to an absence of methane, but a host of environmental, physiological, and physical constraints that made it difficult for bacteria to consume methane effectively.

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Other authors of the paper include M. Crespo-Medina, C.D. Meile, K.S. Hunter, and J.J. Battles of the University of Georgia; A-R. Diercks, V.L. Asper, A.M. Shiller, and D-J. Joung of the University of Southern Mississippi; V.J. Orphan and P.L. Tavormina of the California Institute of Technology; L.M. Nigro of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; J.P. Chanton of the Florida State University; R.M.W. Amon of the Texas A&M University; A. Bracco and J.P. Montoya of the Georgia Institute of

Technology; T.A. Villareal of the University of Texas, Austin; and A.M. Wood of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA’s) Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory.

Support for this study included funding from NOAA, the U.S. Department of Energy, the National Science Foundation, and the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative.

Contact Samantha Joye at mjoye@uga.edu. —James Hataway

CREDIT

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Looking back today, it’s easy to see where farmers in the 19th century went wrong. Attempting to grow cash crops—and reap big profits—from a lush

environment, they cleared entire forests across the South. But primitive farming techniques devastated the landscape, and when the profits dried up, farmers abandoned the barren land. Now researchers want to understand the continuing repercussions of this bygone era.

Five UGA researchers are joining with U.S. Forest Service scientists on a project to assess the influences of past Southern land use on the region’s environment. Others in the five-year study include researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology, the University of Kansas, Mississippi State University, and Roanoke College.

As part of a $5-million National Science Foundation (NSF) grant led by Duke University, the investigators are setting up one of 10 national observatories focused on the thin outer layer of the planet most important for human life. Geologists have dubbed this layer Earth’s “critical zone,” which begins just above deep bedrock and extends to tree tops. The NSF and the European Commission fund critical zone observatories (CZOs) for interdisciplinary research regarding the planet’s surface in order to better understand how human interactions, and land use in particular, affect

the vital ecological services—including air, water, food, energy, mineral resources, natural habitats, and other environmental conditions in support of our basic needs—that the critical zone provides.

The UGA researchers, together with their collaborators, will establish the new Calhoun Critical Zone Observatory in the Calhoun Experimental Forest, a unit of the Sumter National Forest in South Carolina.

A 200,000-acre forest in the southern Piedmont, the Sumter National Forest was created in the 1930s on abandoned farmland and heavily logged forestland, and the Forest Service spent decades developing management practices to help restore the land. The agency set up experimental watersheds, planted trees, and monitored progress on what scientists say typified the “poorest Piedmont conditions” at the time.

Each UGA principal in the new project brings his own special strengths to this interdisciplinary CZO:

• Alexander Cherkinsky, a senior research scientist at the Center for Applied Isotope Study, will analyze the soil’s carbon-turnover rates—as a result of anthropogenic and climate changes—by studying its isotopic composition, in part through radiocarbon analyses.

• Daniel Markewitz, a scientist in the Warnell School

UGA scientists studying Earth’s “critical zone” The new Calhoun Critical Zone Observatory is located in the Sumter National Forest in South Carolina, a 200,000-acre forest created in the 1930s on abandoned farmland and heavily logged forestland in the southern Piedmont.

A new project based in Sumter National Forest explores impacts of the South’s historical land use on the region’s past, present, and future environment.

Fall 2014 5

of Forestry and Natural Resources, will calculate spatial patterns from historical soil erosion and link soil attributes with forest stand conditions.

• Don Nelson, an anthropologist in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, will define historical and current human interactions with the land; and, in partnership with land managers and forest users, he will evaluate ways to effectively communicate critical-zone science.

• Paul Schroeder, a geologist in the Franklin College, will study long-term climate changes—as recorded in the rocks and soils of the area—to determine how quickly shifts in the landscape took place.

• Aaron Thompson, a soil scientist in the College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences, will examine the chemistry of soils at the molecular level to determine how human activities influence the way soil minerals and carbon interact to form either stable soil organic matter or carbon dioxide gas.

In addition to the UGA investigators, Mac Callaham, a research ecologist with the U.S. Forest Service’s Southern Research Station (and an adjunct professor in UGA’s Odum School of Ecology), will evaluate how soil-based organisms such as ants and earthworms affect the ways in which water moves through the soil.

The researchers already have a wealth of archived Forest Service data from the 1940s through the 1960s (some of the original monitoring equipment is still in place in Sumter forest), but “recent advances in Earth system science allow us to collect much more sophisticated data than was available to the Forest Service in the 1940s,” said Thompson. “Still, the value of the historical data cannot be overstated. It is the combination of new advanced techniques and rich historical data that will allow us to design more accurate models of how land use influences ecosystem function and ecosystem-human relationships.”

For example, Cherkinsky noted, “the [historical] period of study at the Calhoun Critical Zone Observatory overlaps with above-ground nuclear testing in the 1960s that dramatically increased the atmosphere’s radiocarbon concentration. This isotopic spike allows us to trace carbon through the soil on the time scale of years and decades.”

All in all, this project “is a wonderful opportunity for UGA to have a CZO located in the Southeast and so close to campus,” Thompson said. “There are substantial long-term benefits for UGA students, researchers, and the public.”

For more information on the critical zone observatories, see http://criticalzone.org.

Contact Daniel Markewitz at dmarke@uga.edu, Aaron Thompson at aaront@uga.edu, or Alexander Cherkinsky at acherkin@uga.edu. —Sandi Martin

U.S. Forest Service scientists spent decades developing management practices to restore the degraded land by setting up watersheds, planting trees, and launching a number of studies to monitor progress on land they say represented “the poorest Piedmont conditions.”

phoTos CouRTEsy of u.s. foREsT sERvICE

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Bred to flourish in a variety of environments, the Tifton Bermuda grass hybrids, like this TifGrand turf on the World Cup Arena da Baixada Curtiba, Brazil, dominate golf courses, sports stadiums, and lawns throughout the world. Photo courtesy of Marcelo Matte.

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The University of Georgia’s two productive “technology transfer” entities have merged into one unit with a promising future in moving UGA

researchers’ discoveries and inventions into the marketplace.

By Rebecca McCarthy

When UGA scientists aim to do business,

who they gonna call?

hELEN fosGATE

8 ugaresearch

For Wayne Hanna, the stars of the 2014 World Cup weren’t Mario Gotze, Tim Howard, or Lionel Messi. They were TifGrand® and Tifway 419, grasses that greened the playing fields of

several Brazilian World Cup soccer stadiums. These two robust turfs belong to the Tifton Bermuda (“Tif™”) family of grasses developed by a team of researchers, including Hanna, at the University of Georgia and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service (USDA-ARS) in Tifton.

“TifGrand was tested on 25 locations in 19 states, and we had 16 years of testing,” says Hanna, a turf breeder with UGA, now retired from the USDA-ARS. “When you’re working with turf, you’ve got to be patient.”

Bred to flourish in drought, cold, shade, and even a saltwater spray, the many Tifton Bermuda grass hybrids now dominate golf courses, sports stadiums, and lawns throughout the world, from the largest golf facility on Earth (in Shenzhen, China) to Sanford Stadium here on campus. Sales of these grasses bring Georgia farmers revenue of $75 million annually, with an economic impact to the state that exceeds $1 billion.

The Tif grasses are just one part of a 35-year-old University of Georgia program—the Technology Commercialization Office (TCO)—that transfers inventions and discoveries to industry, the marketplace, and ultimately to consumers. Since its beginnings, this entity licensed research findings to partners in industry and helped generate hundreds of products for improving the lives of Georgians while greatly benefiting the regional economy. Peanuts, blueberries, and hydrangeas, for example—all bred by UGA scientists—have generated hundreds of millions of dollars in sales, and vaccines developed at the university protect and enhance Georgia’s colossal poultry industry.

In 2013, some 400 TCO-granted licenses contributed $8.3 million in royalty revenue to the university, most of which was reinvested in the research enterprise. The money helps cover the costs of outfitting new labs, purchasing new equipment, and providing seed grants to help fund early-stage research, among other uses.

While plants bred in the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences currently account for the majority of UGA license revenue, other emerging technologies, such

as a patented platform to manufacture therapeutic proteins in eggs for use in treating rare diseases, hold great promise, says Derek Eberhart, director of TCO and the Georgia BioBusiness Center (GBBC). Combining the two offices has “put everything under one umbrella to facilitate moving discoveries from labs and fields into the marketplace,” says Eberhart. “This arrangement will be more efficient and leverage the expertise of our team and network of partners.”

The combined team expects to build on past successes, and explore new opportunities to stimulate technology-based economic development in Georgia.

Derek Eberhart, director of UGA’s Technology Commercialization Office (TCO) and the Georgia BioBusiness Center (GBBC) (standing) with associate directors Stefan Schulze (left front), and Cory Acuff (right).

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Plant breeder Wayne Hanna (right) collaborated with the late agronomist Glenn Burton for decades, and together their turfgrass research led to revolutionary new varieties—and to Tifton, Georgia being known as the bermudagrass capital of the world. Turfgrass varieties (above) are first tested in small containers in the greenhouse before being planted outdoors.

BRAD hAIRE

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turning the peach state blue

UGA had a blueberry-breeding program long before anyone began to tout the tiny fruit as a nutritional powerhouse. Today, UGA-developed blueberries grow on every continent in the world save Antarctica, and Georgia grows and ships more blueberries than any other state except Michigan. Several years ago, the blueberry passed the peach as the state’s number-one fruit crop.

In 1945, UGA horticulturist Tom Brightwell began tinkering with the rabbiteye blueberry, a Georgia native, and continued until he retired in the 1970s. For the last 25 years, UGA plant breeder Scott NeSmith has been improving Brightwell’s blueberry varieties, and creating new ones, in response to the needs of industry. Farmers want blueberries that can be harvested by machine, are pest- and disease-resistant, grow to a larger size so that harvesting is easier, and boast a longer shelf life.

“The challenge is to make a berry firm enough so you can harvest it by

machine but also make it appealing to consumers,” says NeSmith. “It’s a long process. You’ve got to stay ahead of the industry and anticipate its needs.” For example, it took him more than 15 years to develop the Titan® blueberry, which has the diameter of a quarter—as opposed to a dime, like most rabbiteye cultivars. It takes just a dozen of these behemoths to make a pie.

The 13 UGA varieties developed and patented since 2001 have helped transform the blueberry industry from a $4-million enterprise in 1990 to the $250-million business it is today. NeSmith says that in 1990 there were fewer than 3,000 acres of blueberries in the state of Georgia; today there are some 22,000 acres.

TCO secures intellectual property (IP) protection for the blueberry varieties, including patent and trademark protection. The licensing team issues IP rights to dozens of industry partners in Georgia and around the world, allowing them to propagate and sell the UGA varieties. Royalties are then re-invested in UGA research.

the cash cow of georgia’s plant kingdom

Since 1951, the university has had a peanut-research program in Tifton, with plant breeders developing varieties that outshine those that came before.

The peanuts have to be disease-resistant and productive, or else the farmers won’t plant them. They have to be easy to shell or the shellers won’t tolerate them. They have to be tasty, with a nice flavor when roasted, or the manufacturers who turn them into peanut butter, candy, and snacks won’t use them. And they have to pack a nutritional wallop, or consumers won’t buy them. It’s a difficult balancing act to please all of the people all of the time, but UGA peanut breeders and researchers manage to keep doing it.

The peanut varieties developed in Tifton have helped make the state the biggest producer of peanuts in the country, with a 2012 crop of 3.3 billion pounds and a farm gate value of $892 million. About half of Georgia peanuts are turned into peanut butter, says Bob Kemerait, a plant pathologist on UGA’s peanut team in Tifton.

The runner peanut variety Georgia-06G, a Tifton-developed cultivar, is the most widely grown peanut in the Southeast. In Georgia alone, Georgia-06G constitutes more than 80 percent of the peanuts grown in the state, and other UGA-developed peanut varieties add another 15 percent to the product mix.

Plant breeder Scott NeSmith (above), has been breeding improved blueberry varieties for some 25 years, including the huge Titan® blueberry he holds, which has the diameter of a quarter. Blueberries are now a $250 million industry in Georgia.

UGA researchers have been developing new and improved peanut varieties since 1951. The various varieties bring in more revenue than any other plant, generating royalties to UGA of more than $3 million

in 2013 and pumping about $2 billion into the state’s economy annually.

ANDREW DAvIs TuCKER

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Fair winds for fowl

Begun in 1912, the poultry program at UGA expanded in the 1920s; the boll weevil had ravaged cotton fields after World War I, and desperate farmers turned to raising chickens as a new way to make money. After World War II, production became more efficient, and farmers and business leaders enlisted the University of Georgia to help build the industry yet further, says poultry scientist Mike Lacy.

Over the years, UGA scientists, both in the College of Veterinary Medicine’s Poultry Diagnostic and Research Center, and in the College of Agricultural and Environmental Science’s Poultry Science Department, have developed technologies and vaccines to help keep chickens healthy. And for good reason: the poultry industry in Georgia is a $28-billion enterprise.

One new vaccine, HatchPak Cocci III, prevents coccidia parasites from damaging and destroying a bird’s intestines; before the vaccine, it would sometimes wipe out an entire large flock. Scientist Lorraine Fuller says that she and colleague Larry McDougald, now retired, partnered with professionals from Merial (a global animal health company with North America headquarters in Duluth, Georgia) to work on the coccidiosis vaccine—a collaboration lasting 10 years.

The resulting HatchPak Cocci III is attenuated, Fuller says, meaning the vaccine contains parasites that have been rendered less virulent. Thus farmers who spray the vaccine on baby chicks don’t have to administer the typical long course of antibiotics to young birds to protect them from the debilitating disease.

“Anytime you can come up with technology to cut the use of antibiotics, you’re doing something good,” says Fuller.

Georgia Bio and the Metro Atlanta Chamber recently presented the Phoenix Award to UGA and Merial in recognition of a long-standing collaboration leading to worldwide contributions to animal health and significant economic impact in Georgia and beyond. The UGA-Merial partnership has produced more than 100 collaborations, ranging from exchange of materials, to sponsored research and license agreements. So far, four commercial poultry vaccines based on UGA technologies have generated over $2 million in royalty revenue.

The TCO team ensures that UGA varieties receive IP protection and then licenses the rights to peanut producers in Georgia and across the southeast so they can reap the benefits from the elite varieties developed at UGA.

The various peanut varieties bring in the most revenue of any plant for the UGA Research Foundation, generating royalties of more than $3 million in 2013. And the peanuts themselves are the basis of an industry that pumps about $2 billion into the Georgia economy each year.

Poultry researcher Lorraine Fuller (above) holds day-old chicks, which have just been vaccinated against coccidia, a parasitic disease that used to wipe out entire flocks. Fuller and colleague Larry McDougald, now retired, partnered with Merial, a global animal health company based in Georgia, to develop the spray on vaccine.

The HatchPack Cocci III vaccine means that poultry producers don’t have to administer antibiotics in the feed of young birds (right)to protect them from the debilitating disease, another benefit.

UGA and Merial were recognized last year for their long-standing collaboration and contributions to animal health.

hELEN fosGATE

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a “cogent” approach to science education

It’s one thing to spend a career creating a cultivar or scientific procedure that the university will patent and then license to a company that sells the product to consumers eager to have it. It’s a completely different undertaking to venture out from the confines of the lab and create a company from the ground up, say those who have done it. Besides licensing new technologies and finding buyers, the TCO and GBBC staff also help scientists seek patent protection, provide incubation space for start-ups, and secure funding.

One of its many success stories involves a company with a suite of software programs that emulate a video game, complete with bells, whistles, and interactivity. But these programs are designed to teach students scientific concepts such as osmosis, cell pathways, and the scientific method itself. All topics are presented in case studies

that engage learners so that they may acquire critical thinking skills, and information is presented in a visual way to make it easier for students to learn and understand.

Tested on 1,500 students across north Georgia over a three-year period, software products developed by Cogent Education (formerly IS3D) could, if things go well, soon be found in high schools virtually anywhere

in the world. Currently, the products are being used in 25 school districts across the country, including a dozen in Georgia.

Every product the company makes has first been requested and vetted by a group of classroom teachers and studied for efficacy by science-education experts. For teachers, there is a patent-pending system, called Skills Assessment Based Learning

Every 3D lesson Cogent creates is vetted by a group of classroom teachers (above). The teachers use a patent-pending system that provides real-time information about how students are doing on various lessons, like the lesson below about neurons.

phoTos CouRTEsy of Tom RoBERTsoN

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Environment (SABLE), that provides real-time feedback on how their students are doing on the case studies. If a student is struggling to understand a particular concept, the teacher can see immediately where the problem is and step in.

Cogent cofounder Tom Robertson, a former professor in the UGA College of Veterinary Medicine, believes his educational software company couldn’t have started anywhere but on a university campus. Involved in its collaborative beginnings were members of many of UGA’s different disciplines, departments, and schools, including the New Media Center, the theatre, digital arts, and computer science departments, the College of Education, and the vet school.

Moreover, he says that without the help of TCO and GBBC, the company wouldn’t have found the wherewithall to get things up and running. The UGA VentureLab assisted Cogent in acquiring seed funding from the Georgia Research Alliance (GRA), a nonprofit organization that works closely with the state’s research universities, and the Georgia Department of Economic Development. The funding allowed Cogent to improve its technologies and secure more than $3.7 million in Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) funding.

Cogent Education co-founder Tom Robertson (above), a former professor in UGA’s College of Veterinary Medicine, now works full-time overseeing the development of new products, which include interactive educational books, guides, and apps for smart phones, tablets, and laptops.

vaccine attacks cancer’s “candy coating”

Sugars, which are one class of carbohydrate, are not just the bane of dieters. They are critical parts of every cell. And when cells become cancerous, the sugars on their surface proteins change in a characteristic way. This fact prompted UGA chemistry professor Geert-Jan Boons to ask the question: What if you could prime the immune system to recognize those altered sugars and therefore enable it to home in on cancerous cells and attack the tumors that bore them?

Using that idea as the basis for a new research program, he eventually found that it is indeed possible to use such an approach to shrink cancer tumors in mice. In fact Boons’s research, conducted both with his own laboratory staff and scientists from the Mayo Clinic in Arizona, may well lead to a vaccine for various types of human cancers. Breast, pancreatic, and ovarian cancer in particular each manifest a specific, targetable carbohydrate signature.

The striking results of his team’s research have prompted Boons to start a company to produce and market the vaccine. Named Viamune, the company is a GBBC affiliate. Through UGA’s VentureLab, the company successfully applied for GRA seed funding and has been able to access a network of mentors and consultants to help guide next steps. GBBC helped the company identify opportunities to present their company’s story in a variety of forums including investor conferences. Boons says that he and his partner, Alex Harvey, are developing a clinical plan and searching for funding to make a prototype batch of the vaccine.

a promising future

UGA’s technology commercialization and startup programs have built an enviable record, and director Eberhart maintains that with the advent of exciting developments at the University of Georgia, the best is yet to come. “While it’s gratifying to reflect on past successes, we look forward to the opportunities provided by the expansion of UGA’s research programs, including the new College of Engineering and the Center for Molecular Medicine,” he says. “We’re excited about what the future will bring as we partner with UGA researchers and industry collaborators to build on the university’s legacy of providing innovative solutions to needs here in Georgia and around the world.”

(Rebecca McCarthy is a freelance writer/editor based in Athens, Georgia.)

pETER fREy

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West of the Revolution: An Uncommon History of 1776

by Claudio Saunt, Richard B. Russell Professor in American History, Franklin College of Arts and Sciences (W.W. Norton & Company, 2014)

This panoramic account of 1776 explores North America beyond the thirteen British colonies in the year of our nation’s founding. From the Aleutian Islands to the Gulf Coast and across the oceans to Europe’s imperial capitals, Saunt reveals an interconnected web of history that spans not just the forgotten parts of North America but the entire globe.

Baseball on Trial

by Nathaniel Grow, assistant professor, legal studies program, Terry College of Business (University of Illinois Press, 2014)

The controversial 1922 Federal Baseball Supreme Court ruling held that the “business of base ball” was not subject to the Sherman Antitrust Act because it did not constitute interstate commerce. In Baseball on Trial, legal scholar Nathaniel Grow explains why the unanimous Supreme Court opinion authored by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, which gave rise to Major League Baseball’s exemption from antitrust law, was correct given the circumstances of the time.

Jasper Johns

by Isabelle Loring Wallace, associate professor of contemporary art, Lamar Dodd School of Art (Phaidon Focus, 2014)

This richly illustrated survey spans the artist’s prolific career from the early Flag and Target paintings to the compelling compositions of the recent ‘Catenary’ series—works that testify to Johns’s continuing artistic ambition at the start of the twenty-first century. As Wallace demonstrates, Johns has consistently challenged ideas that have often been taken for granted in the process of revitalizing painting for an era that has been quick to proclaim its obsolescence.

mediashelf

Service-Learning in Literacy Education: Possibilities for Teaching and Learning

edited by Valerie Kinlock, associate professor in literacy studies, Ohio State University, and Peter Smagorinsky, Distinguished Research Professor of English Education, University of Georgia (Information Age Publishing, 2014)

This edited collection will stand as the first volume that specifically describes service-learning programs and courses designed as part of teacher education programs in the fields of literacy education, secondary English education, elementary language arts education, and related fields. The contributing authors describe the programs they have developed at their universities and/or local communities, providing information about the rationale for their initiative, the design of the course, the outcomes of the experience, and other matters that will help literacy educators develop similar courses and experiences of their own.

(Media Shelf compiled and edited by Molly Berg, graduate assistant in UGA’s Office of Public Affairs and a master’s degree candidate in the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication.)

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Send suggestions for Media Shelf of work by UGA personnel to

James Hataway at jhataway@uga.edu.

AUDIO

Gainesville Tornado

The 1936 Gainesville Tornado, part of the fifth deadliest tornado outbreak in U.S. history, was actually two tornados that merged. It destroyed the downtown area and killed more than 200 people. Debris was found as far as 70 miles away, in Anderson, S.C. Film clips, most likely shot for insurance purposes, show the damage.

http://dlg.galileo.usg.edu/tornado/

TOOLS

UGA Mobile

The official UGA mobile app is a one-stop spot for the Bulldog Nation. Primarily geared to students, campus visitors may also find this new app for Apple devices useful for tracking campus buses, searching for buildings on campus, retrieving athletic scores, and searching the campus directory. The official UGA mobile app for Android is now available in Google Play.http://t.uga.edu/Tr

Knotacle

Developed by Royce Baptist, a junior majoring in risk management, Terry College of Business.

For the past two years, Baptist has been developing a new app called Knotacle, which allows users to locate nearby drink specials and secure cabs home. Unlike most social media, the app keeps the activity of the user entirely anonymous.

Kanga

Founded by UGA alum Everett Steele (religion, 2006, Franklin College of Arts and Sciences), Kanga offers delivery on demand. Now available on iPhone, Android, and online, the Kanga app allows clients to post items they need delivered and the price they’re willing to pay. Soon after, a driver will be dispatched to pick up and deliver the item. Currently based in Atlanta, Kanga hopes to expand to Athens in 2015.

PHOTOGRAPHY

Historic Farm Photos

Over the past 100 years, UGA Extension agents and photographers gathered a collection of more than 60,000 sleeves of negatives. For the first time, some of these photos are available online to the public through the Digital Library of Georgia. The first set of photos includes shots of grain crops, livestock, and forage fields across the state. Most of the prints date from the 1930s to the 1960s, though some are from the early 1900s.

http://dlg.galileo.usg.edu/CollectionsA-Z/caes_search.html

Cell Membrane Transport

by Tom Robertson, associate professor of physiology and pharmacology, College of Veterinary Medicine (IS3D LLC, 2014)

Understanding cell transport mechanisms is one of the more difficult topics students struggle with while learning biology. In collaboration with his students, Robertson created a new iBook to help students learn about the nervous system. Available through iTunes, the book also offers learners interactive elements, like rotatable 3D animations.

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Some 40 percent of this country’s poorest people, mostly African Americans, live in

the rural Deep South—in the small communities of the sandy Coastal Plain that stretches like a belt across the belly of the Southeast from North Carolina to Mississippi. Formerly farmland, Georgia’s Coastal Plain now supports little but pine trees, gas stations, and fast food restaurants frequented by travelers from metro Atlanta bound for sunny seaside vacations. Poverty and unemployment rates here are among the highest in the United States.

Few academics venture to this region. But in 1987, Gene Brody, founder and codirector of the University of Georgia’s Center for Family Research, visited in his capacity as associate vice president for research. He spoke to a group of African American businesspeople about the role of research in economic development—and also about his own work on how families promote well-being, mental health, and resilience in children. “That’s nice, Dr. Brody,” said one man politely. “But what do you know about our families?”

Brody had established himself early in the field of human development by investigating issues such as parent-child relationships that avert difficulties at home and school—processes that do affect rural African American families. And although it would take him a few years to design the studies, secure funding, and earn the trust of his future research subjects, Brody would, some 25 years later, know more about the struggles and triumphs of the people of the Coastal Plain than any other researcher in the world.

Ashley Thomas, 24 (left), and her mother, Sonita Foston Hood (right), completed the SAAF Program 12 years ago. Ashley, who works as a Certified Nursing Assistant, said the program helped her to better communicate with her parents and open up about difficult subjects.

A UGA researcher documents how some disadvantaged families of the rural Deep South promote a more affluent future for their children; and he educates others in these strategies for success.

story by Helen Fosgatephotos by Nancy Evelyn

Breaking the poverty cycleBreaking the poverty cycle

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From rejected proposal to model program

“Because isolation defines rural poverty,” says Brody, “these families and communities were invisible. There is no transportation system to carry people to and from jobs in cities, nor are there parks, recreational facilities, or medical services for the poor. And because there were no agencies to help us identify families, we had no support in trying to learn about their needs.”

His first grant proposal “was swiftly and soundly rejected,” Brody recalls. But he persisted. In 1989, through funding from a private foundation and several entities of the National Institutes of Health, Brody initiated the first large-scale longitudinal studies of rural African American families living in the Southern Coastal Plain. He laid the groundwork by meeting with leaders in some of the poorest counties of South Georgia.

Working through schools, churches, extension offices, and civic groups, he found families willing to participate in the studies. He set up focus groups, and established an African American community liaison in every county. Soon, hundreds of families were allowing researchers into their homes, where the interviews were conducted by African American researchers and graduate students from UGA.

Today, Brody and his team oversee not only multiple large research projects but also protective prevention programs that grew out of their long-term findings. For example, the Strong African American Families Program (SAAF),

featuring a seven-week interactive course for parents and their pre-adolescent children, has, over time, enrolled more than 1,000 families across 20 rural Georgia counties, many of whom Brody still follows. The original program, and others that grew out of it, have been so successful in protecting young people against pitfalls such as drug and alcohol abuse that they have been adopted by numerous cities, including San Francisco, Houston, Denver, Detroit, Pittsburgh, Atlanta, and Washington, D.C.

learning the secrets of success

Initially, Brody set out to address two important questions: “What creates success in the midst of such overwhelming challenges?” and “What are the psychological and biological consequences of poverty for children, parents, and indeed, whole communities?

“Despite the difficulties of their situations, most families were raising competent young people who weren’t having problems,” he says. Yet many others were struggling with depression, discrimination, alcohol and drug abuse, and HIV.

The successes, Brody found, often derived from “competence-promoting parents, who applied very high levels of control and set clear limits for their children,” Brody came to learn. “But they coupled that control with high levels of emotional support. Rural African American parents called this approach ‘no-nonsense parenting.’ These same parents

Center for Family Research founder and co-director Gene Brody (left). Researcher Rico McCrary (above) works with a pre-teen enrolled in the SAAF Program.

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were also teaching their children strategies for dealing with racial discrimination. They particularly emphasized not letting racial slurs define who the young people were and not accepting discrimination. By contrast, we found that discrimination caused emotional and health problems for children who didn’t get this emotional support.”

Children’s resilience also derived from a unique cluster of family practices among rural African Americans, including child care provided by extended family members, especially grandmothers, as well as the informal networks of neighbors who monitor each other’s children. And parents’ involvement in community organizations (including churches)—especially in working with the rural school systems’ teachers—benefited children as well, the researchers discovered.

To arrive at these and other findings, Brody approached his research like a bench scientist, developing and empirically testing theories about how specific social interactions—especially those within families and communities—promote or undermine family health and functioning, especially children’s emotional health.

“Gene Brody is a sophisticated methodologist,” says Steven Beach, a colleague and former director of the Owens Institute for Behavioral Research. “As a result, his work has been groundbreaking. It melds traditional developmental psychology with social psychology, clinical psychology, and stress biology to generate new directions for prevention science.”

the price of growing upin poverty

In addition to the original prevention program for pre-adolescents, Brody’s team developed others, such as the Strong African

American Families Teen Program and the Adults-in-the-Making Program for young adults.

More recently, Brody and his team studied the most resilient kids later in their lives, looking at how economic hardship and stress affect not only their psychological well-being as adults but also their biological health. The researchers asked these former participants for blood and urine samples in order to check their levels of stress hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline as well as to look for markers

of inflammation such as cytokines and C-reactive protein. Most were glad to oblige.

Brody had speculated that if disadvantaged kids were succeeding academically and emotionally, they might also somehow be protected from chronic health problems common in low-income youth. But he found that there was actually a biological cost to overcoming the odds. Young adults who grew up in poverty yet nevertheless were excelling in school, attending college, and showing low

Researchers found that children’s resilience derived from a unique cluster of family practices among rural African Americans, including child care provided by extended family members—especially grandmothers—as well as the informal networks of neighbors who monitor each other’s children.

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levels of problems such as depression, drug abuse, and obesity also had elevated blood pressure, high levels of circulating chemicals that promote inflammation, and significant concentrations of stress hormones. They were at high risk for developing diabetes, heart disease, and stroke, among other health problems.

“Most people believe that chronic diseases start in middle age,” says Brody. “But for rural African Americans living in poverty, these conditions may well begin in childhood and adolescence. Even those youths who are psychologically resilient—people who have seemingly beat the odds—look very different under the skin.”

In addition, “most participants in our study were the first in their families to attend college,” says Brody. “They felt tremendous internal pressure to succeed, and many felt socially isolated and disconnected

from peers with different backgrounds. Some also encountered racism and discrimination.”

a lifetime commitment

In July, a team of scientists in the Center for Family Research received two new grants from the National Institutes of Health that together provide more than $7 million for more research and prevention programs of the kind outlined above. One grant supports ongoing work in the Strong African American Families Healthy Adult Project, which has followed 493 African Americans since they were 11 years old. The other provides renewed funding for the Center for Translational Prevention Science, where researchers will focus on how stress alters neuroendocrine and immune systems as well as the brain in ways that affect drug use and risk behavior. Both projects involve

collaborations with researchers and participants across the nation.

“The success of these programs is a testament to the trusting relationships my colleagues at the Center for Family Research have formed with these families—and the families’ trust in what we do,” says Brody. By the time this [latter] project ends in 2019, the participants in these studies will be 30 years old. “So you could say we’ve grown up together.”

Contact Gene Brody at: gbrody@uga.edu

To learn more about the Strong African American Families Project or UGA’s Center for Family Research, visit: www.crf.uga.edu.

(Helen Fosgate, who has served as editor of ugaresearch for the past eight years, retires in December after covering research at UGA for more than 30 years.)

Brody says most people’s longest-lasting relationships in life are with siblings. So, “parents who promote loving, supportive relationships between their children give them a gift that lasts a lifetime,” he says.

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Victoria Flagg, 24 (left), and her grandmother Sandra Flagg of Milledgeville, Georgia, participated in the original SAAF Program some 13 years ago. Victoria is currently studying fashion merchandising in Atlanta.

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For David okech, associate professor in the school of social Work, social issues are economic issues. the kenyan native, who directs the school’s master’s degree and global studies programs, talked with laurie anderson about interventions for preventing intergenerational poverty and related problems such as human trafficking.

HELEN FOSGATE

interview

Q: What is the current focus of your research?

a: My colleagues and I are studying issues related to the economic condition of poorer households, and particularly the interventions—policies and programs—that may help them improve their well-being. For example, we are looking at the effects of the economic recession on low-income families in the United States and Kenya, as well as at what can be done to ameliorate those effects. We also are evaluating the statuses of more than 400 girls in Ghana who were trafficked for labor or sex. We’re trying to build the capacities of the rescuing agencies as well as to enhance the long-term well-being of trafficking survivors.

Q: What are the challenges in addressing international human trafficking?

a: Human trafficking is perhaps the greatest tragedy of our day. It is a lucrative business around the world, generating an estimated $32 billion per year, with an estimated 600,000 to 800,000 people trafficked each year. Eighty percent are female and up to 50 percent are children. Children from poor families are more likely to be trafficked because of the financial allure.

Identifying the perpetrators and even the victims—who often are reluctant to seek help—is the biggest hurdle. And there is a general lack of public awareness of the problem. So we need to educate communities about trafficking, including warning signs, rights of

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victims, and available resources. In addition, coordinated efforts across borders are needed to verify the authenticity of employers who prey upon vulnerable populations, and trafficking survivors should be empowered to help identify the traffickers. There is also a significant need for specialized housing and services to meet the rehabilitation needs of victims. More generally, increased economic capacities of countries and families, stronger law-enforcement and judicial institutions, and political stability can all foster an environment that is less conducive to trafficking.

Q: What is asset building, and why is it so important for poor families?

a: Asset building is the process of amassing financial assets that can be passed down from one generation to the next. One option involves child-development accounts, based on established or innovative institutional mechanisms, to save monies that children can later use for college education, home purchase, or starting a small business.

Q: What are the obstacles to building assets?

a: Poor people encounter many different types of obstacles. Most are institutional—for example, a lack of policies that can help poor people save without losing eligibility for public benefits. Sometimes, however, the problem is at the individual level, including the lack of education, of correct information, and of an income large enough to allow the person to save. But “financial socialization”—learning healthy financial behavior—can be of great help to the individual.

Q: What strategies do poor people use to cope in a bad economy, and how do these strategies vary internationally?

a: In the developed nations, there is heavy reliance on public or formal assistance. Unemployment insurance, for example, is a great source of help for many poor people in the United States. In poorer nations, the welfare state is still in the formative stages, as these countries do not have the resources to provide assistance. As a result, there is generally more reliance on informal sources of support, such as families, friends, and the local community. Informal support is critical to poor families in the United States as well, where it includes such things as childcare provided by grandparents.

Q: In the course of your research, what discoveries have surprised you?

a: Three things: • Although poverty is the main cause, or consequence, of most social problems, efforts to fully address this persistent issue worldwide and over the long term are not sufficient • Poor people can save money if given the opportunity • Poor people around the world are remarkably resilient and optimistic.

Contact David Okech at: dokech@uga.edu

The Okech fileHometown: Nairobi, Kenya

Education: Ph.D., University of Kansas, 2008

At UGA: Since 2008

Courses taught: Social Welfare Policy and the Social Work Profession; Theories of Community and Organization Practice; Statistics, Advanced Policy Analysis; International Social Work; Global Perspectives in Social Welfare Issues; Children and Family Services in Ghana

Research Areas: Socioeconomic development for families and children living in poverty; effects and responses to national economic recessions among poor families; improving the economic and social well-being of people who would otherwise be vulnerable to problems such as human trafficking

Selected Honors: • World Social Work Day, March 19, 2013

Most-read article: Okech D., W. Morreau, and K. Benson. 2012. “Human trafficking: Improving victim identification and service provision,” International Social Work 55(4):488–503

• MSW Instructor of the Year, University of Georgia School of Social Work (Athens campus), 2011

• Best-Managed Child Development Program Worldwide, FH International, 2000

Teaching philosophy: Inform, inspire, and involve

Interests outside work: Soccer, spending time with people I like, good documentaries, making a full meal for my family

Recommended book: Anyway: The paradoxical commandments—Finding personal meaning in a crazy world, by Kent M. Keith.

An eastern diamondback rattlesnake (Crotalus adamanteus) in ambush position, patiently awaiting a meal. This snake is part of a radio tracking study on Jekyll Island to learn about rattler’s habitat use patterns and spatial ecology.

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researchers are gathering data on these charismatic but rapidly disappearing snakes in order to identify

their preferred habitats and aid in conservation efforts.

story by Beth gavrillesphotos by Breanna ondich

Tracking eastern diamondback rattlers

on Jekyll Island

J

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Joseph Colbert carefully makes his way through a tangle of thick brush on the southern tip of

Georgia’s Jekyll Island, looking for an eastern diamondback rattlesnake. His colleague Katie Parson, an AmeriCorps researcher with the Georgia Sea Turtle Center, is nearby, slowly sweeping a hand-held radio antenna in a wide arc. The radio Colbert carries is receiving signals from a tiny transmitter that was surgically inserted into the snake in 2013 at the Center.

The signals grow louder as the pair closes in on its quarry. Beep … BEEP … BEEEEEEP! “He’s over there,” says Parson, pointing to a clump of wax myrtle.

Colbert, a graduate student in UGA’s Odum School of Ecology, is studying the ecology of eastern diamondbacks, a species found only in

the Coastal Plain and barrier islands of the southeastern United States. The largest rattlesnakes in the world, adult eastern diamondbacks typically grow from three to six feet long and can weigh more than 10 pounds. They are impressive predators—capable of striking at distances up to a third of their body length.

They are also in decline. A 2011 petition to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, seeking its protection under the Endangered Species Act, estimated the eastern diamondback’s current population at a mere three percent of its historic size. While some of this severe drop is attributable to the loss or fragmentation of native habitat as coastal areas are developed, rattlesnakes also face other, more direct threats from people—wanton killing, capture, and road mortality all take a toll.

Master’s degree candidate Joseph Colbert (left) uses radio telemetry to locate a rattlesnake on Jekyll Island with the assistance of AmeriCorps member Katie Parson (right).

BETh GRAvILLEs

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Eastern diamondbacks are not naturally aggressive toward humans. “Although rattlesnakes are powerful, charismatic animals, a lot of people are far more afraid of them than they need to be,” says Colbert. “The eastern diamondbacks have suffered a lot of unnecessary persecution as a result.”

Colbert hopes his research will help change that situation by informing conservation efforts and helping to manage—or better yet, prevent—conflicts between rattlesnakes and people.

tracking palehorse and his ilk

“We’re right on top of him,” says Colbert, carefully pushing aside a wax myrtle branch to peer into the thicket. “There he is.”

The snake, a large male dubbed Palehorse, is coiled in ambush posture. The brown and beige diamond pattern of his scales mimics the play of light and shadow in the brush—a perfect location for an eastern diamondback to encounter the small mammals that are its chief prey while remaining hidden from its own predators.

Colbert notes the snake’s precise location, using GPS coordinates, and records the date, time, weather conditions, surface temperature, and the snake’s body temperature.

He describes the density of cover (thick) and the adjacent habitat—in this case, vines, shrubs, and grasses, with no tree canopy to speak of. Palehorse does not appear to be enjoying the scrutiny; he flicks his tongue repeatedly and then uncoils, quickly sliding deeper into the scrub and out of sight—fortunately, not before Colbert has finished collecting the data. Colbert adds a note about the snake’s non-aggressive behavior and desire to retreat.

As Parson retunes the antenna to the unique signal for the next snake on their list, Colbert explains to a reporter that they are currently following 14 snakes—down from the original 20 they started with in 2011. Six have been lost, either from encounters with humans or other possible causes. He and Parson track twice per week, gathering enough information to delineate each snake’s home range. They are interested in how much space the snakes need, what habitats they prefer, and any other habitats they will use.

Colbert outlines their objectives for the study. “We’re asking, ‘What is most important from a conservation-management standpoint?’ ‘What makes these snakes successful in some habitats versus others?’ and ‘How does development impact their prey base?’”

With development limited to approximately 35 percent of its land area, Jekyll Island provides a natural laboratory for answering these questions. The island provides a mix of natural habitat types, including open beach, secondary

the eastern diamondback’s current population is estimated at a mere three percent of its historic size.

*according to a 2011 petition to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

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advisor and a faculty member in the Odum School of Ecology, was hired to establish an ecological research program on Jekyll Island. She suggested that Colbert join her team as one of the Georgia Sea Turtle Center’s AmeriCorps members.

The Center, founded in 2007 and operated by the Jekyll Island Authority, promotes coastal conservation through environmental education, wildlife rehabilitation, and research. Each year since 2009 the Center hosts about 20 AmeriCorps members who help in all aspects of its mission. To date, they have helped educate many thousands of visitors, cared for nearly 2,000 turtles, and participated in more than 50 environmental research projects. Under Andrews’s leadership, the scope of the research program has expanded to include not only sea turtles but also rattlesnakes, alligators, frogs, and other reptiles and amphibians.

Colbert’s AmeriCorps duties included using radio telemetry to track alligators, box turtles, and rattlesnakes; coordinating general wildlife inventories; giving public presentations; and developing educational materials. He also represented the Sea Turtle Center at the state AmeriCorps Leadership Council. “Joseph’s work ethic, dedication, and innovation allowed us to build this research program much faster than we dreamt possible,” notes Andrews.

Colbert entered the ecology graduate program at UGA in January 2014, becoming UGA’s first Tillman Military Scholar.

Highly competitive—only 60 recipients are selected each year out of thousands of applicants—these scholarships are awarded to veterans and spouses by the Pat Tillman Foundation. Established in 2004, the foundation honors the life and service of the National Football League all-star who joined the U.S. Army in the wake of the September 11 attacks and was killed while serving in Afghanistan. Tillman Military Scholars are chosen on the basis of academic excellence, leadership, and character—all traits that Andrews says Colbert exemplifies.

“It’s my most meaningful affiliation after the Marine Corps,” Colbert says. “The Tillman Foundation exemplifies service, and I hope to make its people proud.”

Part of Colbert’s present service is with the UGA Chapter of the Student Veterans Association, of which he is vice-president, and the Student Veterans Resource Center, a department within the division of student affairs. His commitment to service extends to his research on Jekyll, and to public-education programs as well. “People want to live in rural areas and want to connect with nature, but they generally feel afraid when the nature in their backyard involves animals like rattlesnakes,” he says. “People consider them nuisances, or worse, but I’ve seen our education programs change people’s minds.”

dunes (as opposed to primary dunes, which lie adjacent to the shoreline), salt marshes, forested wetlands, meadows, and thick maritime forest. Some of these habitats are close to residential and commercial areas; others are more isolated.

colbert is Uga’s first tillman Military scholar

A South Carolina native, Colbert joined the U.S. Marine Corps in 2002 and served two deployments in Iraq. After completing active duty, he earned a bachelor’s degree in biology from the University of South Carolina, graduating in 2011. A National Science Foundation-sponsored internship with UGA herpetologist Kimberly Andrews (a researcher at the Savannah River Ecology Laboratory) immersed him in the world of wildlife. Working on a project tracking the movements of canebrake rattlesnakes, he knew he’d found a calling.

“Wildlife research got in my blood, and I couldn’t see myself doing much else after that,” he says.

During that time, Andrews, who is Colbert’s major

Researcher Kimberly Andrews (sitting) and graduate student Joseph Colbert (with cap) assist with the UGA Savannah River Ecology Lab’s annual program, Touch An Animal Day. Here, they hold a canebrake (timber) rattlesnake in a plastic restraining tube so attendees can safely observe and touch the snake.

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Where the small mammals are

As the sun beats down and mosquitoes whine, Colbert and Parson start tracking the next snake on their list, a female they call Elvira. On the way to Elvira’s last known location, they take a short detour to check on another phase of the project that is just getting underway.

Colbert has set up a series of motion-sensitive cameras along several narrow trails, which crisscross the dunes, to gather data on mammal abundance. He placed a “scent station”—a small container of aromatic food designed to attract

passing animals—at each camera. Marsh rabbits, squirrels, mice, small rats, and raccoons—all potential prey for snakes—are among the wildlife photographed so far.

Colbert notes that eastern diamondbacks are found in all types of habitats on the island but seem to favor secondary dunes, possibly because small mammals also prefer habitats that combine open areas with those offering plenty of cover.

Small-mammal abundance may be key to understanding eastern diamondback rattlesnakes’ habitat preferences, which will be critical for developing an effective conservation-

management strategy. “In many ways, Jekyll is a model

community for achieving that goal,” says Colbert. “We’re able to look at how wildlife can exist in harmony with people, and we hope that what we learn here will help species such as alligators and rattlesnakes to persist for generations to come.”

With that, Colbert tests the cameras, which appear to be in working order, and with the radio retuned as well, he and Parson set off in search of Elvira.

Contact Joseph Colbert at: jocolb@uga.edu.

(Beth Gavrilles is communications coordinator at UGA’s Odum School of Ecology).Joseph Colbert (below left) and Jay Walea present the annual snake program at

Palmetto Bluff Conservancy, Bluffton, SC. This program teaches people about identification and behaviors of southeastern snakes.

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The science of good management

How should you manage your people? A few decades ago, a manager had few options

for finding reliable answers to that fundamental question. A management course in college likely used a textbook more catchy than valid. The business aisle at the bookstore probably offered several titles, all written by former CEOs or management gurus, most of whom had moved on long ago from the management’s front lines. Practitioner-oriented

journals were available, but they tended to emphasize simplistic prescriptions with little justification. Scholarly journals existed too, of course, but they weren’t exactly written for the manager in question. In the end, the manager had to rely on his or her own gut, which may produce excellent results but just as often does not.

Today, the situation is better and is further improving by the year. Textbooks have begun emphasizing

By Jason Colquitt

Business practices should be informed by evidence, not fads, benchmarks, or intuition.

hELEN fosGATE

viewpoint

hELEN fosGATE

scientific rigor, substituting catchy formulations with more rigorous theories of motivation and satisfaction. The business titles on Amazon.com are often science-based, using empirical studies in management, psychology, or sociology as jumping-off points for narratives. Likewise, practitioner-oriented journals—such as the Harvard Business Review—synthesize research streams rooted both in the lab and the field. Scholarly journals still aren’t written for traditional managers, but more and more companies—Google, for one—are staffing groups with PhDs who keep one foot rooted in the academic community, with the aim of quickly transforming important research findings into state-of-the-art practice.

All of these trends have triggered a movement toward “evidence-based management”—the principle that business practices should be informed by scientific evidence rather than fads, benchmarks, or intuition. Just as physicians are, or should be, aware of the relevant science when treating a patient, so too should managers be familiar with the empirical evidence when diagnosing problems with morale, motivation, efficiency, or innovation. Unfortunately, the researcher-practitioner gap has always been wider in management than in medicine, partly because of management’s slower evolution from a vocational area to a scientific field. The “evidence” in management also remained murky for quite some time, with one study’s findings seemingly at odds with another’s. Fortunately, the rise of meta-analysis—a technique for aggregating findings across studies—has clarified “what we know” in several corners of the management domain.

So, what do we know? Although incentives are not unimportant, current research suggests that employees are more affected by the work they do—whether there’s a purpose to that work, whether they are empowered in doing it, and whether they can craft job tasks to match their strengths. Employees also are motivated by the depth of the relationship they have with their employer—does it go beyond a traditional contract to include mutual investment, customized adjustments, high levels of trust, and a sense of fairness? In terms of managers’ own behavior, contemporary models of leadership deemphasize task-focused concepts such as role assignments and procedure creation in favor of articulating an optimistic vision, leading by example, encouraging nontraditional ideas, and developing employees as individuals.

My own experience in teaching undergraduates, MBA students (both full- and part-time), and participants in executive education courses suggests that today’s students are more receptive to the science of management than ever before, given that their decisions have long been data-driven. They don’t go to a movie because one critic recommends

it—they look for the consensus rating on the website Rotten Tomatoes. They don’t try a restaurant just because a neighbor had one good meal there—they look to see how many stars it has earned on Yelp. And if they are sports fans, they likely prefer a general manager who makes optimal personnel decisions—in the tradition of Moneyball—based on empirical data and analytics. To paraphrase a director who attended an executive education course this past year, “We can get the soft stuff somewhere else—we come to the Terry College [of Business] to see what the science says.”

Of course, if managers really are listening to science more than ever before, the science needs to be good. If the mission of UGA is “to teach, to serve, and to inquire into the nature of things,” then our inquiries at Terry must be rigorous—boasting careful designs, valid and precise measurements, and cutting-edge analyses. As in many other fields, the number of scholarly business outlets has practically doubled over the past decade, with 172 journals now indexed as “management” by Thomson Reuters. Much of the work they publish is good; much of it is not. Our challenge as researchers and educators is to know which is which. Otherwise, the managers who are now listening to us will take their questions elsewhere.

Contact Jason Colquitt at: colq@uga.edu

The Colquitt file

Jason Colquitt is The William Harry Willson Distinguished Chair of Business, department of Management, Terry College of Business

Education:B.S. in psychology (with honors), Indiana UniversityPh.D. in business administration (management), Michigan State University

Research Interests:Justice and fairnessTrust and trustworthinessPersonality and disposition

Research Funding:William Harry Willson Distinguished Chair of Business

Teaching:Organizational Behavior (MBA)Research Methods (Ph.D.)Meso Organizational Behavior (Ph.D.)

viewpoint

Georgia’s economy gets a big boost from retirees. Research from UGA’s Selig Center for Economic Growth shows that Georgia’s mild winters, inviting tax structure, and natural amenities have attracted some 16,000 retirees to the state in recent years who have brought with them some $8 billion.

The study also shows that retirees create jobs. In fact, for every 1.8 retirees who move to Georgia, one job is generated to cater to them. Most jobs are in real estate and home construction, food and beverage services, and health care services.

While many natives stay put after retiring, most retirees migrate from another state. Georgia gets the most retirees from Florida, followed by New York, and third from states of the Upper Midwest.

“A lot of leading-edge baby boomers who have been locked into their current homes by the housing bust are now beginning to move as the nation’s housing market thaws,” said Jeff Humphreys, Selig Center director.

—Matt Weeks

behind the scenes

Office of the Vice President for ResearchResearch Communications708 Boyd Graduate Research CenterAthens, Georgia 30602

www.researchmagazine.uga.edu

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PAIDUniversity of

Georgia

Retirees boost local, state economy