By Stephanie Schupska
University of Georgia
Adam J. Davis, a University of Georgia poultry science associate professor, received the D.W. Brooks Faculty Award for Excellence in Teaching Oct. 2 in Athens, Ga.
The award includes a framed certificate and $5,000. It’s given in honor of D.W. Brooks, founder of Gold Kist Inc. and Cotton States Mutual Insurance Companies. Brooks was an advisor on agriculture and trade issues to seven U.S. presidents.
Other D.W. Brooks honorees this year are Terence Centner in research, Peggy Bledsoe in public service extension and Dan Horton in extension.
Before Davis arrived at the UGA College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, students in the biological sciences and animal health majors had limited opportunities for internships.
Davis directed the program, coordinating student internships, helping students with placement and developing business relationships to enhance internships. His efforts have increased both the number and quality of internships for students.
Davis has begun new CAES courses such as “Birds in Our Lives.” This class has become a model for other CAES departments and for poultry science departments nationwide.
In the lab, Davis and his staff focus mostly on how nutrition affects reproduction in poultry. His other areas of research include amino acid interactions, alternative grains and repeated fat synthesis.
Davis earned his bachelor of science in animal science in 1990 and his doctorate in nutritional biochemistry at Cornell in 1995. He started his career as a postdoctoral associate in 1995 at Cornell and became a research associate there in 1997. In 1998, Davis joined the UGA faculty. He was promoted to associate professor in 2004.
His honors include the Milton L. Sunde Award from the American Society for Nutritional Sciences, the CAES Outstanding Academic Advisor Award and the UGA Outstanding Undergraduate Academic Advisor-Mentor Award in 2002.
In 2003, the National Academic Advising Association honored him with a certificate of merit award for outstanding faculty academic advising. In 2004, he earned the Department of Poultry Science Henry Marks Teaching Award.
