University Professors receive a permanent salary increase of $10,000 and a yearly academic support of $5,000. Nominations from the deans of UGA’s schools and colleges are reviewed by a committee, which makes a recommendation to the provost.
K. Paige Carmichael is a Josiah Meigs Distinguished Professor in the College of Veterinary Medicine’s Department of Pathology. (Photo by Chamberlain Smith/UGA)
K. Paige Carmichael
Josiah Meigs Distinguished Professor
Department of Pathology
College of Veterinary Medicine
K. Paige Carmichael has a passion for taking complex topics and distilling them into simple learning blocks for her students.
For more than 20 years, Carmichael has been the course coordinator for the core pathology course taught to second-year veterinary students. She teaches this course using a flipped classroom method, where students study the required materials on their own time and come to class ready to use their newfound information in problem solving.
After many years of teaching professional students, Carmichael shifted her focus to undergraduate education.
She began by teaching a Franklin Freshman seminar, then a First-Year Odyssey course, and subsequently developed one of the first undergraduate classes taught at the College of Veterinary Medicine. Introduction to Disease provides a basic overview of the mechanisms of mammalian disease and has become popular with pre-health majors.
Carmichael developed and serves as the director of the university’s Undergraduate Certificate in One Health, which brings together the shared features of human, animal and environmental health. To date, she has created three new undergraduate courses for this program.
“She has established herself not only as an accomplished educator and researcher but also as a dear colleague and friend to many. Her ability to connect with students, faculty and staff on a personal level is a testament to her commitment to building a strong and supportive university community,” one colleague wrote.
Her service to the university goes beyond her college. Carmichael has served on the University of Georgia Athletic Association’s Board of Directors, as well as the University Promotion and Tenure Committee, the Provost’s Advisory Committee and the President’s Faculty Advisory Committee, among others. She is currently the co-director of the Teaching Academy Fellows Program.
Carmichael has been honored with the Faculty Service Award and has served as a Service Learning Fellow, Aspire Fellow, Senior Teaching Fellow and Lilly Teaching Fellow.
“During my 30 years at UGA, I’ve had an incredible journey fueled by passion, dedication and a firm belief in the transformative power of education,” Carmichael said.
Jessica Kissinger is a Distinguished Research Professor in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences’ Department of Genetics. (Photo by Dorothy Kozlowski/UGA)
Jessica Kissinger
Distinguished Research Professor
Department of Genetics
Franklin College of Arts and Sciences
Jessica Kissinger sees herself as a part of a tapestry representing the fabric of UGA.
She is one thread, but also one of many weavers focused on both the local pattern and the larger tapestry image.
Kissinger was a founding member of the Institute of Bioinformatics (IOB), helping weave together life sciences and computing. She led the institute from 2011 to 2019, bringing in eight new faculty members.
Now, the institute spans four colleges and has more than 45 graduate students. This institute unifies the pursuit of genomics and bioinformatics on the UGA campus and provides graduate training in this area that is a unique mix of bioinformatics, computational biology and genome science. The graduate students are embedded in laboratories that do both the bioinformatics and the bench science.
Kissinger continues to innovate in the classroom, too. She has created several new classes, each of which bring computing and data management to audiences that normally do not use these approaches. They include a data management class for Integrated Life Sciences graduate students and a scientific rigor and reproducibility class for genetics students.
“She deserves to be recognized for her research accomplishments, leadership in bioinformatics at UGA and internationally, and her training of the next generation of evolutionary scientists in biological databases and their tools,” a colleague wrote. “She has trained a new generation worldwide in the use of these bioinformatics tools.”
Her service to the university extends beyond the classroom. Kissinger has been a member of the Goldwater Selection Committee since 2015 and was a member of the Provost’s Working Group on Centers and Institutes. She was a member of the USG Health Informatics Alliance and is currently on the UGA Data Management Advisory Council and subcommittee. Additionally, she served as both an SEC and Women’s Leadership Faculty Fellow.
Kissinger is a Fulbright U.S. Scholar and has received several grants to continue her research and has more than 150 publications.
“I believe I have played a critical and innovative role, with the support and assistance of many, in shaping the research, resources and educational tapestry at UGA,” Kissinger said.
