As a part of UGA’s Honors Week, at the Graduate School Honors Luncheon* on Tuesday, April 1, we will celebrate recipients of the awards for Excellence in Teaching and Research by Graduate Students, Outstanding Graduate Mentoring, and the Dean’s Award for Outstanding Contributions to Graduate Education.
Please join the Graduate School in congratulating these exemplary students, faculty, and staff for their contributions to excellence in graduate education at UGA.
*invitation only
EXCELLENCE IN TEACHING AWARD
The Excellence in Teaching Award was established by the Graduate School in partnership with the Center for Teaching and Learning and the UGA Teaching Academy to recognize graduate students who have demonstrated superior teaching skills and innovations and who have made significant contribution to the instructional mission of the University.
Meg Fletcher
Linguistics, Franklin College of Arts and Sciences
Meg Fletcher is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Georgia, specializing in sociolinguistics. Under the mentorship of Dr. Jon Forrest, her research explores how individuals construct and express their identities through language. Her first qualifying paper examined dialect variation among African American English speakers in Georgia, while her second qualifying paper and dissertation focus on language, dialect variation, and identity
construction among Afro-Latines in the U.S.
At UGA, Fletcher has served as an instructor of record for multiple linguistics courses, including Introduction to Linguistics and Phonetics and Phonology. She also developed and taught a novel course in Forensic Linguistics, integrating linguistic analysis with real-world legal applications. Across all her courses, Fletcher prioritizes student engagement, inclusion, and real-world application.
She is a member of Phi Beta Kappa, a recipient of the Presidential Fellowship Award, was selected for the 2024 Future Faculty Fellows Cohort, and participated in the Fulbright-Hays Zulu Group Project Abroad. After her Ph.D. Fletcher plans to pursue a career as a linguistics professor. Beyond academia, she plays water polo at UGA, enjoys watching the Dawgs play football, and loves traveling. She also shares her home with her two cats, Nugget and Mariposa.
Morgane Golan
Regenerative Bioscience Center, College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences
Morgane Golan is a Ph.D. candidate and graduate teaching assistant in the Regenerative Bioscience Center at the University of Georgia. Her major professor is Dr. Steve Stice. In addition to her research in the laboratory, she also conducts discipline-based education research to evaluate the impact of active learning and student engagement on outcome achievement, motivation, and sense of belonging in the sciences.
Golan’s teaching philosophy centers active learning, collaboration, and experiential learning, with an emphasis on enhancing students’ scientific literacy and supporting research skill development. Her dedication to effective teaching is reflected by her pedagogical training. She is actively involved with the UGA Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) and credits the CTL for helping her discover her interest in the scholarship of teaching and learning (SOTL). Additionally, Golan has earned the UGA GradTeach Certificate and completed the Johns Hopkins University Teaching Academy Online Institute, equipping her with advanced strategies for student-centered instruction. She is also involved with the UGA Scientists Engaged in Education Research (SEER) Center and the Engineering Education Transformations Institute (EETI), which have been valuable toward enhancing her skills in STEM pedagogy.
Golan’s contributions to education at UGA have been recognized with the Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award and the 2024 Future Faculty Fellowship Program (3FP). Passionate about bridging research and education, she intends to continue teaching future leaders in the biomedical sciences, aspiring to instruct her own courses in the innovative field of regenerative bioscience.
Beyond her academic interests, Golan enjoys playing board games, building puzzles, and spending time with her friends and family.
María González-Ferrer
Romance Languages, Franklin College of Arts and Sciences
María González-Ferrer is a Ph.D. candidate in Hispanic Linguistics at the University of Georgia, where she also serves as a teaching assistant. Her major professor is Dr. Timothy Gupton. Her research focuses on Second Language Acquisition and Language Variation. Specifically, her dissertation examines pronoun doubling structures in Spanish among learners of Spanish as a second language, Spanish teachers, and native speakers from Argentina, Spain, and Mexico, exploring their implications for linguistic theory and language learning.
A native of Madrid, Spain, González-Ferrer holds a B.A. in Translation and Interpretation from Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and an M.A. in Hispanic Linguistics and Cinema from the University of Georgia.
With extensive experience teaching Spanish at the university level, González-Ferrer has taught a wide range of courses, including beginner, intermediate, and advanced Spanish, as well as specialized courses such as Introduction to Spanish Linguistics, and she has served as a TA for the courses of Service Learning and Latin American Cinema. González-Ferrer has also taken on leadership roles, including serving as the coordinator for the UGA Valencia Study Abroad Program, where she facilitated immersive language experiences for students. Additionally, she has been an active member of the organizing committee for the Spanish short film festival España en Corto and the Women+’s Forum series, which amplifies female voices in academia.
González-Ferrer was honored with the The Wilson Center travel grant to conduct research in Buenos Aires and received the prestigious Sigma Delta Pi Award for International Research, which supported her fieldwork in Mexico City.
Passionate about education, González-Ferrer is committed to developing inclusive, student-centered teaching methodologies that promote linguistic diversity and social and cultural awareness. Outside of academia, she is passionate about arts and crafts, particularly watercolor painting and embroidery. She also enjoys cinema, traveling the world, thrifting, spending time with her cat, Maui, and advocating for social justice initiatives.
Stephanie Hanus-Knapp
Sociology, Franklin College of Arts and Sciences
Stephanie Hanus-Knapp is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Sociology at the University of Georgia, studying family, life course, and aging. More specifically, Stephanie focuses on romantic relationships, media, and healthy aging, publishing her research in the Journal of Gerontology: Series B and Media, Culture, and Society. Her major professor is Dr. Leslie Gordon-Simons.
Hanus-Knapp’s research informs and is informed by her teaching, having been the instructor of record for five different courses at UGA, including Sociology of the Family, Cultural Diversity in Families, Lives in Time and Place, Sociology Research Methods, and Sociology in Film. During her tenure as an instructor of record at UGA, she has had the pleasure of working with over 400 students. In each of her courses, Hanus-Knapp is dedicated to collaborative learning, critical thinking, and connection building to create responsible learners and social citizens.
In doing this work, Hanus-Knapp has become an active member in the community of teacher-scholars. She works as the editorial assistant to First Publics, an online teaching community housed at the University of Georgia focused on the practice and politics of teaching as public sociology. Even more, she has engaged with the scholarship of teaching learning, publishing several pieces in the top teaching journal in her discipline, Teaching Sociology. Hanus-Knapp’s instructional efforts and dedication have been recognized as a recipient of the Graduate School’s 2024 Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award and as a member of the 2024 Future Faculty Fellows cohort, where she engaged in interdisciplinary discussions about the value and practice of teaching.
Alexander Tepper
Mathematics, Franklin College of Arts and Sciences
Alexander Tepper is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Mathematics at the University of Georgia. His major professor is Dr. David Gay. His research is in singularity theory and low dimensional topology, a branch of mathematics that investigates how geometric objects behave under deformations.
Tepper obtained his B.S. and M.S. degrees in mathematics from Florida International University (FIU), and has worked in education at various levels for over a decade. Prior to his enrollment at UGA, he spent one year as a high school mathematics teacher in the Florida public school system before starting as a graduate teaching assistant at FIU. In 2022, he spent a year working in computer graphics research at Microsoft, where he developed computer visualization skills that continue to find regular application in his research, teaching, and outreach projects.
Tepper has served as instructor of record for 12 courses at UGA, and spent three semesters leading the development of Spacing Out: Art and Topology Pop-up Museum in collaboration with the UGA Arts Cooperative and the Lamar Dodd School of Art. This NSF-funded math exhibition featured artworks developed by UGA undergraduates from a diverse range of majors, and was exhibited in the Shirley McBay Science Library for the month of November 2024 as part of Spotlight on the Arts. In addition, he has led workshops in computer graphics and is an active member of the Geometry, Research, Outreach, and Visualization Initiative (GROVI), an NSF-funded project which serves as an umbrella for a variety of interdisciplinary geometry visualization and outreach projects at UGA.
Off campus, Tepper likes to draw, play music, read, and spend time with his spouse and four pets.
EXCELLENCE IN RESEARCH AWARD
The Excellence in Research Award was established by the Graduate School in 1999 to recognize the quality and significance of graduate-student scholarship. Students who graduated the previous year are nominated by their departments in one of five areas: Fine Arts and Humanities, Life Sciences, Mathematical and Physical Sciences, Professional and Applied Studies, and Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences.
Excellence in Mathematical and Physical Sciences Doctoral Research Award
Jarvis Hill
Chemistry, Franklin College of Arts and Sciences
Jarvis Hill is a Postdoctoral Fellow at Yale University. His Ph.D. dissertation research focused on the synthesis and application of trisubstituted hydroxylamines in medicinal chemistry. During his time at UGA, Dr. Hill developed synthetic methods to access trisubstituted hydroxylamines in a direct fashion, which represents the current state of the art for their assembly. He also challenged the widely-held belief that trisubstituted hydroxylamines are “structural alerts” or “red flags” in drug discovery by using trisubstituted hydroxylamines as key structural motifs in the development of novel small-molecule kinase inhibitors for the treatment of metastatic non-small-cell lung cancer and chronic myeloid leukemia.
Dr. Hill earned his Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from the University of Georgia in Spring 2024, with a predoctoral fellowship from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC). His major professor was Dr. David Crich.
He has authored twelve peer-reviewed journal articles and is an inventor on multiple patent applications and one issued patent. During his doctoral studies, Dr. Hill was a recipient of the Grimes Family Distinguished Graduate Fellowship in Natural Sciences and the UGA Graduate Education Advancement Board Fellowship from the Graduate School. He was also named a Medicinal and Bioorganic Chemistry Foundation Scholar and was one of two recipients nationally for the 2024 American Chemical Society Robert M. Scarborough Graduate Award for Excellence in Medicinal Chemistry.
Dr. Hill currently holds a prestigious Jane Coffin Childs Memorial Fund Postdoctoral Fellowship at Yale University where he works with Dr. Seth Herzon to develop novel small-molecule chemotherapies for genetically predisposed cancers.
Ron and Yvette Walcott Excellence in Fine Arts and Humanities Doctoral Research Award
Bill Kelson
History, Franklin College of Arts and Sciences
Bill Kelson is a Postdoctoral Junior Fellow at the Society of Fellows in the Humanities at the University of Hong Kong (HKU), where he is a Visiting Assistant Professor. He is currently working to turn his Ph.D. dissertation, a wide-ranging history of the Chinese financial crisis of the 1880s, into a book manuscript.
His study, researched at archives in Shanghai, Taipei, London, and Hong Kong, explores the ways in which China’s integration into global capitalism in the late-nineteenth century made the Chinese financial system increasingly fragile, as well as the consequences of that financial fragility for Chinese society writ large. Dr. Kelson’s first peer-reviewed publication, “Manias, Panics, & Land: The Property Bubbles of the Great Chinese Crash of the 1880s,” was recently published in a special issue of Business History titled The Global Economy & the Origins of Modern Chinese Business, edited by John D. Wong, Ghassan Moazzin, and Kang Jin-A.
Dr. Kelson was educated at Emerson College, Boston College, the University of Georgia, and IUP Tsinghua. He earned his Ph.D. in History at the University of Georgia in 2024, working under major professor Dr. Stephen Mihm.
His research has been supported by the Luce Foundation, the American Council of Learned Societies, the Fulbright-Hays Program, the John E. Rovensky Fellowships in International Business & Economic History, and the Henry Kaufman Financial History Fellowship Program, as well as a UGA Graduate School Dean’s Award.
S. Jack Hu Family Excellence in Social and Behavioral Sciences Doctoral Research Award
Cydney Seigerman
Anthropology, Franklin College of Arts and Sciences
Cydney Seigerman (they/she) is a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the University of Georgia’s Social Sustainability of Agriculture and Food Systems Lab. They earned their Ph.D. in Integrative Conservation and Anthropology in May 2024 from UGA, where their major professor was Dr. Don Nelson. During their doctoral studies, Dr. Seigerman was an NSF Graduate Research Fellow and a research fellow at the Research Institute for Meteorology and Water Resources – Ceará (FUNCEME) in Ceará, Brazil from 2021 to 2023.
In their work, Dr. Seigerman centers equity and justice in the development of integrative approaches toward sustainable socioecological futures. Their dissertation, titled “Fluid Inequities: The Dynamics of Water Relations and Water Insecurities in Ceará, Northeast Brazil,” integrated theory and methods across anthropology, theatre and performance, philosophy of technology, and hydrology to examine the sociopolitical, technological, and environmental determinants of water insecurity in the semi-arid region of Ceará, Brazil. As a postdoctoral researcher, Dr. Seigerman promotes sustainable food systems through their research on the dynamics of on-farm research and the barriers to adoption of regenerative agricultural practices experienced by U.S. commodity producers.
Dr. Seigerman earned their B.S. with majors in Chemistry and Spanish Language and Literature from the University of Michigan in 2013, graduating Phi Beta Kappa from the Residential and Honors Colleges. Before pursuing their Ph.D. at UGA, they moved to Madrid, Spain, where they served as a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant and studied acting at the theater school La Lavandería. Dr. Seigerman continually draws on their interdisciplinary background to incorporate the arts, physical and social sciences, and humanities into their transdisciplinary research and praxis.
Excellence in Professional and Applied Studies Research Award
Jeongah Shin
Textiles, Merchandising and Interiors, College of Family and Consumer Sciences
Jeongah (Christina) Shin is a Postdoctoral Assistant Professor-Educator in the Department of Marketing at the University of Cincinnati. Her research focuses on consumer behavior and well-being in digital retail environments, with a particular interest in how consumers engage across various channels, including social media, e-commerce, and virtual reality.
Dr. Shin earned her Ph.D. in Fall 2024 from the Department of Textile, Merchandising, and Interiors at the University of Georgia, working under Dr. Yoo-Kyoung Seock. She was recognized for her research contributions as a recipient of the Endsley-Peifer Student Research Award from the College of Family and Consumer Sciences for two consecutive years (2023 and 2024). Additionally, she was awarded a Doctoral Student Research Grant from the Graduate School and the Jan M. Hathcote Social Science Academic Support Award for her dissertation study.
Dr. Shin’s dissertation specifically examined the impact of technology anxiety on shopping well-being in virtual settings. She is also interested in sustainable fashion consumption. Her work has explored generational differences in perceptions and motivations for sustainable clothing purchase, as well as how environmental sustainability consciousness influences the adoption of slow fashion. Dr. Shin plans to integrate these two research areas in future studies by investigating how technological advancements in retail channels may shape consumers’ sustainable consumption behaviors.
Excellence in Life Sciences Doctoral Research Award
Yitang Sun
Genetics, Franklin College of Arts and Sciences
Yitang Sun is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Center for Genomic Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. His research leverages genetic data to unravel the health effects of polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs).
During his doctoral training, Dr. Sun conducted large-scale genome-wide association studies to identify novel genetic loci influencing circulating levels of PUFAs and integrated multi-omics approaches to elucidate their genetic architecture and health impacts. He also explored the shared genetic basis between PUFAs and brain disorders, including major depressive disorder and bipolar disorder. Additionally, he applied Mendelian randomization to assess the causal effects of PUFAs on disease risk and examined how gene-environment interactions, particularly fish oil supplementation, modify genetic predisposition to dyslipidemia and cardiovascular diseases. Dr. Sun earned his Ph.D. in Genetics from the University of Georgia in 2024 under the mentorship of Dr. Kaixiong Ye.
Dr. Sun has published extensively, with 18 research papers, including 8 as first or co-first author. He has received multiple awards to support his scholarship, including the Mary Erlanger Graduate Fellowship and the Graduate Education Advancement Board Fellowship from the UGA Graduate School, as well as the Lois K. Miller Award and the Mote Graduate Support Fund for Biomedical Genetics Research from the Department of Genetics. His work has also been recognized by the American Society of Human Genetics with the Reviewers’ Choice Award.
Currently, Dr. Sun is focused on incorporating functional and structural genomic data into constraint calculations, advancing precision medicine applications in human genetics.
ENGAGED SCHOLARSHIP AWARD
The Engaged Scholarship Award recognizes extraordinary, community-engaged scholarship and public service by graduate students, such as endeavors which advance the public service, outreach, and engagement mission at UGA. This award was established by the Graduate School in connection with UGA Public Service and Outreach and the Office of Service-Learning. Recipients are selected by a committee drawn from Public Service and Outreach-affiliated administrators and graduate faculty.
Summer Fink
Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources
Summer Fink is a Ph.D. student in the Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources at the University of Georgia and an NSF Graduate Research Fellow. Her major professor is Dr. Michel Kohl. Her dissertation research, entitled “Identifying Urban Wildlife Distribution and Conflict to Prioritize Education and Outreach,” focuses on the use of advanced scientific methods to develop wildlife conflict risk maps for Atlanta, GA. This collaborative project between the Georgia Department of Natural Resources and UGA Extension will use the risk maps to implement targeted outreach and education in high-risk conflict areas.
Originally from southern Virginia, she graduated from UGA with a B.S. in Fisheries and Wildlife Science. Before Fink entered her doctoral program to continue her academic journey as a Double Dawg, she conducted wildlife research here in Athens and across the world, including southern Illinois, Chicago, and Namibia.
Fink is passionate about dissolving the barriers between urban residents and the natural world and making wildlife more accessible for all people. Most urban human-wildlife conflicts arise from the lack of exposure to or knowledge about wildlife. In addition, disconnect from nature or natural spaces perpetuates “nature deficit disorder” and negatively impacts mental and physical health. She especially loves engaging with children as they are full of excitement and can be used as bridges into the greater Atlanta community.
Morgane Golan
Regenerative Bioscience Center, College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences
Morgane Golan is a Ph.D. candidate in the University of Georgia Regenerative Bioscience Center. Her major professor is Dr. Steven Stice. Her research focuses on enhancing neural stem cell-derived extracellular vesicle (NSC-EV) manufacturing processes, toward improving the accessibility and efficacy of this regenerative therapy for neurotraumatic and neurodegenerative conditions.
Golan is deeply committed to engaged scholarship and science communication. She spearheaded the Regenerative Bioscience Open House, an outreach initiative designed to connect high school students and teachers in Georgia with cutting-edge research and career pathways in regenerative medicine. She has also led additional community-focused events, including RBC Reads, a partnership with the Athens-Clarke County Public Library, and the Athens ABTA 5K, a fundraiser in support of the American Brain Tumor Association. As a dedicated educator, Golan has been instrumental in shaping undergraduate education in the regenerative bioscience program, contributing to curriculum development and teaching initiatives at UGA.
Originally from New Jersey, Golan earned her B.S. in Pre-Veterinary & Animal Science from the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 2020.
Through her research, teaching, and outreach, Golan strives to bridge the gap between scientific innovation and public understanding. Her efforts have been recognized through numerous awards and honors, including the Achievement Rewards for College Scientists (ARCS) and the 2024 UGA Future Faculty Fellowship Program (3FP). She has completed the Graduate Portfolio in Community Engagement, a distinction awarded by UGA’s Office of Service-Learning, for her commitment to bridging academia and community impact.
Christina Novelli
Communication Sciences and Special Education, Mary Frances Early College of Education
Christina (Tina) Novelli is a Ph.D. candidate in the University of Georgia Department of Communication Sciences and Special Education and a scholar with the National Center for Leadership in Intensive Intervention (NCLII–2), an OSEP-funded doctoral training consortium. Her major professor is Dr. Scott Ardoin. Her research focuses on how readers acquire high-quality word representations, with an emphasis on orthographic learning and interventions for students with or at risk for dyslexia.
Novelli has extensive experience conducting school-based research using single-case and experimental methodologies, including eye-tracking studies examining reading comprehension processes. She has collaborated on multiple large-scale research projects, including an Institute of Education Sciences exploration grant, and has contributed to several peer-reviewed publications and national presentations. Her work bridges research and practice through intervention development and implementation science to improve literacy outcomes for at-risk readers.
OUTSTANDING MENTORING AWARD
The Outstanding Mentoring Award is presented to Graduate Program Faculty members who have demonstrated innovation and effectiveness in mentoring graduate students individually or as a group in their academic, research, and professional development. In 2024, the two awards will be presented in Life and Physical Sciences and Arts and Humanities.
Life and Physical Sciences
Ming-Jun Lai
Professor of Mathematics
Franklin College of Arts and Sciences
Ming-Jun Lai is a Professor of Mathematics at UGA. Dr. Lai immigrated from China in 1984 for his Ph.D. studies at Texas A&M University. After three years of postdoctoral research at the University of Utah, he became an Assistant Professor of the Department of Mathematics at the University of Georgia in 1992. He was promoted to a full professor in 2000. His research in applied mathematics includes approximation theory, in particular, on high dimensional function approximations. He is an expert on multivariate splines which are smooth piecewise polynomial functions over triangulations with a variety of applications. In addition, he is an expert on sparse solutions of linear systems of equations and their applications for graph clustering.
For over three decades, Dr. Lai has contributed to the educational mission of the University of Georgia and has advised 23 Ph.D. students in the UGA Math Department, often placing these students in excellent long-term careers, both academic and non-academic. Additionally, Dr. Lai has co-authored over 50 works with his graduate students and created opportunities to present their work at conferences and other universities. He has also supported countless students with his efforts to secure research funding and connections to potential collaborators at other universities and research institutions. Dr. Lai’s mentorship has had a transformative impact on countless students; his compassion, dedication, support, and guidance make him an outstanding mentor.
Dr. Lai is proud of his two children, both of whom are distinguished in their work fields.
Arts and Humanities
Isabelle Loring Wallace
Associate Professor of Contemporary Arts
Lamar Dodd School of Art
Isabelle Loring Wallace is an Associate Professor of Contemporary Art at the Lamar Dodd School of Art at UGA. Her research ranges from mid-twentieth-century American painting to early twenty-first-century photography, video, and installation. She is the author of numerous articles and exhibition catalogue essays, as well as two books: Jasper Johns (Phaidon, 2014) and a second, recently completed manuscript on the artist that considers his work in conjunction with contemporaneous developments in the fields of genetics and psychoanalysis.
At the School of Art, Dr. Wallace teaches undergraduate- and graduate-level courses on contemporary visual culture and has served as Associate Director of Research and Graduate Studies since 2015. In this capacity, she has provided leadership to the School of Art’s MFA program, while serving as an enthusiastic and dedicated mentor to dozens of students in both art history and studio art.
There are typically 60-70 students working under Dr. Wallace’s supervision. Additionally, over the last 20 years she has been closely engaged with graduate students’ research and education, mentoring an average of 10-12 graduate students per year. She is recognized as an outstanding mentor and distinguished scholar at the forefront of her field of research who guides a diverse range of students from general observation in works of art to deep, curious inquiry, helping them develop truly original ideas from their reflections.
DEAN’S AWARD FOR OUTSTANDING CONTRIBUTIONS TO GRADUATE EDUCATION
The Dean’s Award for Outstanding Contributions to Graduate Education recognizes excellence in service and advocacy on behalf of graduate students and graduate education at the University of Georgia. Established in 2022, these awards are presented to a Graduate Coordinator and a Graduate Coordinator Assistant each year who have demonstrated excellence in advising, supporting, and advocating for graduate students; developing innovative ways to promote graduate education; and making significant efforts toward creating an environment where all students can thrive.
Outstanding Graduate Coordinator
Dr. Jennifer Brown
Professor and Graduate Coordinator in the Department of Communication Sciences and Special Education
Mary Frances Early College of Education
Jennifer Brown, is a Professor and Graduate Coordinator in the Department of Communication Sciences and Special Education. Her research is focused on improving communication outcomes for young children with an increased likelihood of developmental disabilities in natural environments
through collaborative practices. She has peer-reviewed publications, presentations, and service in the areas of early communication intervention, caregiver coaching in family-guided routines, autism, and scholarship of teaching and learning.
Dr. Brown has served as the Graduate Coordinator in the Department of Communication Sciences and Special Education since 2020. She serves as the program coordinator for the department’s Ph.D. programs and acts as a liaison between the graduate students, graduate program faculty, program coordinators, and the Graduate School across programs.
Dr. Brown is a mentor and advocate to students across the department providing guidance, encouragement, and problem-solving. Her commitment is further realized through her mentorship to new faculty on graduate student mentorship. She has instituted processes and systems to support student success and streamline faculty activities. Specifically, she has initiated recruitment efforts to increase visibility, applications, and enrollment; developed processes to support degree progression and timely degree completion; and advocated for student recognition through award and grant applications. Despite the demand of her role, she goes above and beyond what is required to reduce the stress of graduate students, enhance their experience, support their development, and, most importantly, ensure their graduate school success.
Outstanding Graduate Coordinator Assistant
Katrina Neidlinger
Graduate Program Administrator for the Department of Mathematics, Science, and Social Studies Education
Mary Frances Early College of Education
Katrina Neidlinger is the graduate program administrator for the Department of Mathematics, Science and Social Studies Education. She coordinates admissions and enrolled student services for graduate programs offered on UGA campuses in Athens, Griffin, and online. She works as a liaison between faculty, the graduate school, program applicants, and enrolled students while providing unwavering support and guidance from the time of application until graduation.
In 2023, the Mary Frances College of Education awarded Neidlinger the Dean’s Unsung Hero Award. She was described as a “Swiss Army knife” who goes well beyond her job description, willingly and cheerfully stepping in to cover anything and everything that needs to be done. Neidlinger is an incredible problem solver who exhibits tremendous care for the graduate students, faculty, and staff in the department, doing anything she can to help them meet their goals. She makes a positive impact in the lives of the students on a daily basis.
Faculty express that Neidlinger provides a welcoming and inclusive environment in the department. She recognizes challenges that students from diverse backgrounds face and actively works to ease the transition of graduate life. She provides continuous personal support to students, faculty and staff. Neidlinger is often referred to as the backbone of the department.
