Lisa Godbey Wood, United States district judge for the Southern District of Georgia and 1990 graduate of the University of Georgia School of Law, will deliver the fall undergraduate Commencement address on Dec. 13 in Stegeman Coliseum. The ceremony will begin at 10 a.m., with the graduate ceremony to follow at 2:30 p.m.
John Anthony Maltese, associate dean of the School of Public and International Affairs and the Albert B. Saye Professor of American Government and Constitutional Law in the Department of Political Science, will deliver the graduate ceremony address.
Wood obtained her undergraduate degree from UGA, finishing in 1985 as First Honor Graduate.
While at law school, Wood served as managing editor of the Georgia Law Review, chief justice of the Honor Court and was the recipient of the Isaac Meinhard Award for maintaining the highest academic average throughout all three years of law school.
Wood served as a judicial law clerk for the Honorable Anthony A. Alaimo for one year before joining the Brunswick law firm of Gilbert, Harrell, Sumerford and Martin in August 1991. She became a partner in the firm in 1995. While in private practice, she was appointed to serve on the Georgia Public Safety Board, the United States District Court Advisory Committee, the State Bar of Georgia Judicial Evaluation Committee, and the State Bar of Georgia Disciplinary Review Panel. She is a Fellow in the American College of Trial Lawyers.
In 2004, Wood was unanimously confirmed to serve as the United States Attorney for the Southern District of Georgia. In 2007, she was unanimously confirmed to serve as United States District Court Judge for the Southern District of Georgia. In 2023, she was appointed to serve on the United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review.
Wood is an emeritus member of the University of Georgia Athletic Association’s Board of Directors. She also serves on the Board of Visitors for the UGA Law School. In 2015, the Young Lawyers Division of the Georgia Bar Association presented her with the Distinguished Judicial Service Award. In 2023, she received the University of Georgia Blue Key Service Award. In 2024, she received the Distinguished Service Scroll Award from UGA’s School of Law.
Graduate speaker Maltese was named a Josiah Meigs Distinguished Teaching Professor in 2004. He was also named a University Professor in 2023 for making a significant impact on the university beyond his normal academic responsibilities.
He earned his bachelor’s degree from Duke University in 1982 and his Ph.D. in political science from Johns Hopkins University in 1989. He joined UGA as an assistant professor in January 1989.
He directed a major conference at UGA, “The Carter Presidency: Lessons for the 21st Century”, in January 2007 on the 30th anniversary of the inauguration of President Jimmy Carter, which brought Carter, Vice President Walter Mondale, most members of their administration, leading historians and political scientists, and members of the media to campus. C-SPAN provided nationwide coverage of the conference, which won the Grand Award for Institutional Events, District III, from the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education.
Maltese founded the SPIA at Oxford Study Abroad program in 2003, for which he was named Study Abroad Director of the Year by UGA’s Office of International Education (the precursor to the Office of Global Engagement). He was also named U.S. Professor of the Year for the state of Georgia by the Carnegie Foundation and CASE in 2004. He served as a contributing editor to “The Cook Political Report” in 2015-2016 and has published editorials in The Washington Post.
In his spare time Maltese writes about music, for which he won a Grammy Award from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences in 1996. As an expert on music, he has appeared on National Public Radio’s “Performance Today” and as a commentator on a documentary on violinist Jascha Heifetz that aired on the PBS television series “American Masters.”
He served as department head of political science from 2008 to 2016, during which time he shepherded the creation of the highly successful Applied Politics Program and facilitated six major conferences in eight years organized by members of his faculty. He has served as associate dean of SPIA since 2016.
For more information about Commencement logistics, please visit commencement.uga.edu.
