Ronald Pegg

2015 D.W. Brooks Award for Excellence in Teaching

Department: Food Science and Technology

College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences Associate Professor Ronald Pegg is thought to be somewhat rare in the world of academics—he’s a researcher who feels equally at home in the classroom and the laboratory.

In addition to inspiring students with the chemistry of chocolate and coffee, he’s become one of the nation’s most sought-after experts on the nutrient content of food and the bioactive compounds that make blueberries, peanuts and other nutritionally dense superfoods so “super.”

Pegg joined the faculty of UGA in 2006. He immediately saw the need for a more hands-on, practical approach to teaching food science.

His work with students in the college’s Department of Food Science and Technology earned him Food Science and Technology Outstanding Undergraduate and Graduate Professor awards five times. Pegg received a major teaching honor from his department, the college or the university every year since 2007.

In 2014, he won the inaugural First-Year Odyssey Seminar Program Teaching Award for his dedication to that program. Since the First-Year Odyssey program started, Pegg has used his coffee technology seminar course to introduce students to the chemistry of the foods that they eat and drink.

Students inside and outside the food science and technology department credit him with keeping them engaged in the sciences as they start their collegiate careers and relighting the spark of curiosity that sometimes fades as students start to pursue career goals.

In addition to his time in the classroom, Pegg has received accolades from producer groups for his research into bioactive chemistry and the health benefits of pecans, peanuts, peaches and other crops.