Calling all chicken wranglers: If you raise free-range or pastured chickens on your commercial farm, researchers at the University of Georgia want to know what your feathered friends are eating. To find out, the research team at the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences wants your chicken poop for the Chicken Ecology and Ecosystem Services, or ChickEES, study.

University of Georgia professors C. Robin Buell and Daniel R. Perez have been elected to the National Academy of Sciences, the organization announced on April 29. Members are elected to NAS in recognition of their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research. Membership is a widely accepted mark of excellence in science and is considered one of the highest honors a scientist can receive.

It’s a Thursday morning in the Perry Events Center, a high-ceilinged, white-walled open room that used to serve as an armory. It’s filled with just shy of 150 attendees of the second Integrative Precision Agriculture Conference hosted by the University of Georgia’s Institute for Integrative Precision Agriculture.

For the 20th consecutive year, the University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences hosted the prestigious E. Broadus Browne Research Awards competition, resulting in three new graduate students being honored for their outstanding efforts in research and communication. In recognition of former Georgia Agricultural Experiment Station Director Edmund Broadus Browne, the annual competition highlights some of the best graduate research from departments within the college and challenges contestants with an oral presentation. 

Meet George Vellidis, director of the University of Georgia's Institute for Integrative Precision Agriculture. UGA launched the institute in 2022 to leverage interdisciplinary faculty expertise and industry ties to advance this field. “As researchers, it’s easy for us to work as individuals to solve a particular task,” said Vellidis. “But when we work together to look at problems from different perspectives, we come up with optimal solutions for even bigger challenges.”

Angela Dupree’s office is overflowing with elfin magic. Her office mate is Ernie the Elf, the Hollow Tree conference room is around the corner, and it’s her job to make sure the cookies you buy in the store are perfect, batch after batch. Dupree, who graduated with a bachelor’s degree in environmental health and a minor in environmental soil science from the University of Georgia’s College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences in 1992, is the food safety and quality manager at Ferrero Bakery in Augusta, Georgia.