The D.W. Brooks Awards recognize faculty who make outstanding contributions to the college's critical mission areas.
The 2022 D.W. Brooks Faculty Award for Excellence in Teaching goes to Kylee Jo Duberstein, an associate professor in the Department of Animal and Dairy Science. Duberstein teaches in the equine science program and also serves as the state equine specialist with UGA Cooperative Extension.
The 2022 D.W. Brooks Faculty Award for Excellence in Research goes to Peggy Ozias-Akins. She is a University of Georgia Distinguished Research Professor and D.W. Brooks Distinguished Professor in the Department of Horticulture on the UGA Tifton campus. From 2012 to 2022, Ozias-Akins served as director of the Institute of Plant Breeding, Genetics and Genomics, which includes faculty and affiliated members at UGA’s Athens, Griffin and Tifton campuses.
The 2022 D.W. Brooks Faculty Award for Excellence in Extension goes to Pam Knox, an agricultural climatologist with UGA Extension. She specializes in weather and climate variability impacts on agriculture. Knox is the director of the UGA Weather Network, managing a group of 88 automated weather stations across the state that provide weather and climate data to farmers, utilities, Extension agents and private citizens. The network also helps support the National Weather Service by providing real-time weather information in hazardous weather outbreaks to support public safety initiatives.
The 2022 D.W. Brooks Faculty Award for Excellence in Public Service Extension goes to Family and Consumer Sciences agent and Tattnall County Coordinator Rachel Stewart. She has been with UGA Extension since 2013. Stewart holds a bachelor’s degree in child and family development and a master’s degree in education with an emphasis in instructional technology, both from Georgia Southern University and began her career in Tattnall County as the 4-H Youth Development agent in 2002.
The 2022 D.W. Brooks Faculty Award for Excellence in International Agricultural and Environmental Sciences goes to Richard B. Russell Chair and Professor in the Department of Poultry Science, Samuel “Sammy” E. Aggrey. He earned his doctoral degree in population and quantitative genetics at the University of British Columbia, Canada, and was a Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada postdoctoral fellow in molecular genetics at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Aggrey joined the UGA faculty in 1999 and has been a faculty member in the UGA Institute of Bioinformatics since 2006. Aggrey is an affiliate scientist at the Biosciences Eastern and Central Africa (BeCA)-International Livestock Research Institute and pillar leader for capacity-building with the African Animal Breeding Network (AABNet). His research includes developing models for genomic selection, nutrigenomics, molecular and cellular bases of stressors (heat and coccidia infections), and poultry breeding.
NOTE: All Signature Lectures are free and open to the public. Requests for accommodations should be made as soon as possible but at least 7 days prior to the scheduled lecture.
