Recent Graduate Jada Smith & Senior Kelly Neighbour Receive Scholarships

Jada Smith, who was a First Honor graduate (BS in atmospheric
sciences) of UGA in Spring 2023, is the lone recipient of the 2023
June Bacon-Bercey Scholarship from the American Geophysical
Union (AGU), the world's largest professional society devoted to the
geophysical sciences. This scholarship is named after the first

female broadcast meteorologist in the U.S. (and the first African-
American broadcast meteorologist), who personally endowed the

first version of this scholarship. Jada is the 2nd student honored with
this scholarship since it was restarted.

With the Fall semester in full swing,
our community will remain busy as
faculty, staff, students, and visitors
navigate our campus. Prioritize your
transportation safety and the safety
of other's by checking out the Watch
For Dawgs official website.

Kelly Neighbour, who is a senior at UGA triple majoring in
atmospheric sciences and geography (B.S. & A.B.), is the recipient of
a Senior Named Scholarship from the American Meteorological
Society. She won the Naval Weather Service Association
Scholarship. Kelly is pursuing the Double Dawgs program in
Atmospheric Sciences and Geography. She is the 11th recipient of
an AMS undergraduate scholarship in the history of our atmospheric
sciences program. This is also the sixth year in a row that UGA has
had a winner of an undergraduate scholarship from the AMS.
Jada is using this scholarship to support her work toward a Master's degree in emergency
management from Millersville University.

In addition to triple-majoring, Kelly is currently working towards an undergraduate GIS
certificate and plans to enter the DoubleDawgs program shortly.

Out of the 70 different colleges and universities whose students have won
undergraduate scholarships from the AMS since 2018, only two universities, UGA and
the University of Oklahoma, have had winners in each of the past six years.
In terms of the number of AMS undergraduate scholarships, UGA students have
earned 7 in the past six years, and this is tied for 4th most out of the 70 schools,
behind only OU, Penn State, and Cornell, and tied with Florida State University. OU and
Penn State are the two largest meteorology programs in the nation, with at least 4
times more undergraduates than UGA's program; and Cornell is the only Ivy League
school with an atmospheric sciences program.
All seven of the UGA recipients are women, and three are African-American or biracial
women.