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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.

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.

In one of Larry Guthrie’s earliest memories, he’s running across a field, proud to show off the bit of milk he’d collected in a dirty, old pail. Despite receiving a scolding from his mother for not using a clean bucket, Guthrie was hooked. As his father’s dairy operation grew, so did his passion for the industry.