Athens, Ga. – Four University of Georgia researchers have been named Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Election as a fellow is an honor bestowed upon AAAS members by their peers.

The four UGA faculty members include R. Kelly Dawe, professor and Georgia Research Alliance Lars G. Ljungdahl Distinguished Investigator in Plant Biology and Genetics; Daniel Promislow, professor of genetics; Ying Xu, Regents Professor and Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar of Bioinformatics, all in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences; and Sarah F. Covert, associate professor of forest biotechnology in the Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources.

“The university is enormously pleased that these four distinguished faculty have been honored for their research accomplishments,” said David Lee, UGA vice president for research. “Selection as an AAAS fellow is a major milestone in the careers of our most talented scientists and important recognition of their ground-breaking contributions that also brings distinction to the University of Georgia.”

This year, 471 AAAS members were awarded this honor as a result of scientifically distinguished efforts to advance science or its applications, according to the association. New fellows will be presented with a certificate and a gold and blue rosette pin (the colors represent science and engineering respectively) at a ceremony on Saturday, Feb. 16, during the 2008 AAAS Annual Meeting in Boston.

Covert was recognized for “basic studies in plant pathology concerning plant-fungal interactions and for innovative educational activities in course development for practical skills in becoming a scientist;” Dawe for “distinguished contributions to the field of plant biology, particularly for the molecular cytogenetic analysis of plant centromeres and neocentromeres.”

The AAAS honored Promislow for “distinguished contributions to our understanding of the evolutionary genetics of aging;” and Xu for “distinguished contributions to the field of computational biology and bioinformatics, particularly development of computational tools for gene finding, protein structure prediction and genome studies.”

AAAS (www.aaas.org) is the world’s largest general scientific society and publisher of the journal Science (www.scienemag.org). AAAS was founded in 1848 and includes some 262 affiliated societies and academies of science, serving 10 million individuals. Science has the largest paid circulation of any peer-reviewed general science journal in the world, with an estimated total readership of one million. The non-profit AAAS is open to all and fulfills its mission to “advance science and serve society” through initiatives in science policy, international programs, science education and more.

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