Can the brain heal itself after a traumatic injury? Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) represent a promising treatment that could help the brain self-repair, and University of Georgia researchers have received a $3.7 million award from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke to study MSCs’ potential for treatment of traumatic brain injury, or TBI.

Krysta Harden, former United States Deputy Secretary of Agriculture and current president and CEO of the U.S. Dairy Export Council, will be the speaker for the 2024 D.W. Brooks Lecture and Awards, an annual event hosted by the University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. From her parents’ farm in Camilla, Georgia, all the way to Capitol Hill, Harden has been a strong advocate for agriculture.

Caroline Hinton wants to foster a love of learning for all students who walk through her door. As the director of experiential learning for the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, Hinton helps students connect with their fields of study outside of the classroom. “I find joy and excitement in getting to watch students experience different parts of agriculture and find a place in our state’s own agriculture industry,” she said.

The Congressional Agricultural Fellowship is a transformative program for students in the University of Georgia’s College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, offering unique opportunities to engage with the legislative process and gain practical experience in agricultural policy. In partnership with the offices of U.S. representatives Sanford Bishop, Austin Scott, Buddy Carter and Raphael Warnock, CAES offers a prestigious 12-week summer fellowship program that provides selected students with firsthand exposure to the legislative process and the creation of agriculture policy. 

In most respects, May 6, 2022, was a typical school day for Amy Paulk Grist. Tift County High School buzzed with end-of-the-year activities. Tift County is the only high school serving Tifton, Georgia, a mostly rural community off I-75, just an hour north of the Florida border. A veteran economics teacher of more than a decade, Amy was wrapping up another successful year at the high school of nearly 2,300 students when her vision started to blur. Something wasn’t right.

You don’t expect it to be here. Not after passing subdivision after subdivision with names culled from the merging of random adjectives and natural objects: Longleaf, Brightwood, Hickory Hills. But travel far enough down Turner Church Road — a smidge north of the burgeoning Georgia town of McDonough — and the tree-lined spiderweb roads of housing developments open to vast farmland adorned with berry crops and little, red-roofed structures.