2024 SEC Professor of the Year
2024 Southeastern Conference (SEC) Faculty Achievement Award, University of Georgia
2024 Co-Chair of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine Roundtable on Plastics
2023 Georgia Trend Magazine, Georgia 500: Georgia’s Most Influential Leaders
2023 USA Today Women of the Year
2023 Distinguished Visiting Professor in the Liberal Arts, University of Minnesota Morris
2022 MacArthur Fellow
2022 Appointed as a Founding Board Member of the Marine Debris Foundation (created and appointed by Congress) for a 6-year term.
2021 Invited to contribute to the 50th Anniversary Issue of the National Academy of Engineering publication, The Bridge authoring, “Engineering Interventions to Reduce Plastic in the Environment.”
2020-2021 Scientific Working Group, to inform the Global Plastics Treaty Process facilitated by the UN, From Pollution to Solution: A Global Assessment of Marine Litter and Plastic Pollution, United Nations Environment Programme, Nairobi, Kenya, 2021.
2020-2021 Consensus Committee, National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, (2022). Co-author of committee report, Reckoning with the U.S. Role in Global Ocean Plastic Waste. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
2020 National Academy of Engineering, 2020 US Frontiers of Engineering Session Moderator
2020 Lead, Leveraging Multi-Target Strategies to Address Plastic Pollution in the Context of an Already Stressed Ocean, invited by the High-Level Panel for a Sustainable Ocean Economy, which is comprised of 17 Heads of State, including President Biden.
2019 National Academy of Sciences, Japan, American, German Kavli Frontiers of Science
2018 National Geographic Explorer, National Geographic Society, Fellow 2018 – 2021
2018 Georgia Water Coalition, Clean 13 Award
2016 University of Georgia Public Service and Outreach Faculty Fellowship
2016 University of Georgia Creative Research Medal
2016 University of Georgia College of Engineering Research Award
2015 University of Georgia College of Engineering Instructor Award
2013 National Academy of Engineering’s 5th Frontiers of Engineering Education