News Stories - Page 20

Since the beginning of the year, University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences graduate student Kristen Dunning has won $35,000 in new capital to expand her growing clean skin care line, Gently Soap. On March 31, a team of judges — all veterans of the consumer products industry — awarded her the top prize of $25,000 in the Collegiate Great Consumer Brands Competition.

The winner of the University of Georgia’s 2022 FABricate Entrepreneurial Initiative competition is a novel automated system designed to help pasture-raised egg producers increase their efficiency. Conceptualized by a team led by poultry science undergraduate student Chris Ayers and biological engineering student Jeffery Whitmire, Chiktopia is an automated chicken tractor designed to move pasture-raised chickens easily and efficiently while preserving the land and saving labor costs.

If you’ve ever scanned a field looking for a lucky four-leaf clover, then perhaps you’ve wondered why they are so rare. It turns out scientists aren’t exactly sure about the mysteries of four-leaf clovers, either.

When Kristen Dunning participated in her first UGA Entrepreneurship Idea Accelerator Program, she was a woman with sensitive skin, a knack for plants and a dream of selling soap to the masses.

Asked what his day looks like on a regular basis, Simer Virk laughed out loud. “There are no average days in research and Extension work — every day is different and every season is different,” said Virk, an assistant professor and University of Georgia Cooperative Extension precision agriculture specialist in UGA's Department of Crop and Soil Sciences.

Sixty years ago, Mary Frances Early blazed a trail as the first Black graduate of the University of Georgia. Robert J. Jones, chancellor of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, followed that trail years later and shared his experiences during the 2022 Mary Frances Early Lecture, held Feb. 22 in Mahler Hall at the Georgia Center for Continuing Education & Hotel.​​​​​​​