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An innovator in peanut breeding whose research revitalized an industry and an ardent champion of agricultural education were inducted into the Georgia Agricultural Hall of Fame at the 68th University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences Alumni Association Awards in Athens. The 2024 honorees are William D. Branch, Georgia Seed Development Professor in Peanut Breeding and Genetics in the Department of Crop and Soil Sciences, and Elzie Argene Claxton, an agriculture educator and 1980 CAES agricultural education graduate.

Seven alumni from the University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences will be recognized at the 68th annual CAES Alumni Association Awards banquet on April 6. Two Georgia agricultural leaders will be inducted into the Georgia Agricultural Hall of Fame at the event, hosted at the Classic Center in Athens. “Georgia’s No. 1 industry — agriculture — is that because of the people that are part of the industry,” said Becca Turner, CAES Alumni Association board president.

Two faculty members in the University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences and UGA Cooperative Extension were named to the Fruit and Vegetable 40 under 40 Class of 2023. The award ceremony will be held during the Great Lakes Fruit, Vegetable and Farm Market EXPO on Tuesday, Dec. 5, at the DeVos Place Convention Center in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

For Dean Kopsell, newly appointed associate dean for academic affairs for the University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, moving to Athens is like coming home. Currently professor and chair of the Environmental Horticulture Department at the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, Kopsell, a two-time UGA alumnus and devoted Georgia Bulldog fan, is eager to return to the Classic City and excited about the opportunity to serve his alma mater and the students of CAES.

Francisco Diez-Gonzalez, director of the University of Georgia Center for Food Safety, has been elected as a fellow into the prestigious American Academy of Microbiology. Diez-Gonzalez was one of 65 new fellows admitted in the Class of 2023 out of a nomination pool of 148.

Kevin Vogel, an assistant professor in the Department of Entomology at the University of Georgia, has received a prestigious Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program award from the National Science Foundation. Supported by the more than $1 million CAREER grant, Vogel and his team will spend the next five years building upon the still-limited body of research regarding the symbiotic relationship between kissing bugs and a highly specified bacterium that resides in their gut.

The University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences has launched a podcast, now available on all streaming services. Cultivating Curiosity will augment existing CAES news and storytelling platforms, including the CAES Newswire, where you are reading this; Almanac, the college's annual publication; and Cultivate, which highlights members of the CAES and UGA Cooperative Extension community.

Four experts at the University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences and UGA Cooperative Extension have been recognized as members of the Fruit and Vegetable 40 under 40 Class of 2022. The list honors 40 early-career agricultural professionals for exemplary accomplishments, representing “the best in the industry.”

Animal geneticist Alison Van Eenennaam, a University of California Cooperative Extension biotechnology specialist in the Department of Animal Science at the University of California, Davis, is the keynote speaker for the 2022 D.W. Brooks Lecture and Awards, to be held Nov. 8 at the University of Georgia Center for Continuing Education & Hotel.

University of Georgia Professor Cesar Escalante has been awarded the 2022 Ketchum Prize — the FINRA Investor Education Foundation’s (FINRA Foundation) highest honor — in recognition of his pioneering research and advocacy to advance financial inclusion and alleviate racial and gender bias in agricultural lending.