08/07/2026
Feature Friday: Meet Scott Dougan! 🎾
This week's Feature Friday spotlight is on Scott Dougan, whose love of racquet sports started long before he ever picked up a tennis racquet.
Growing up, Scott played racquetball and squash while watching his parents play tennis—and with tennis always on the TV, the sport was never far away. A few years ago, watching Rafael Nadal and Carlos Alcaraz inspired him to finally step onto the court himself, and he's been playing ever since.
Scott loves taking a shot down the alley (even if it doesn't always land where he hopes!) and enjoys being at the net, where years of racquetball muscle memory still come in handy. While he enjoys both singles and doubles, he finds himself playing more doubles because it's easier to find competitive matches at his current skill level.
Away from the courts, Scott is a professor in the Department of Cellular Biology at UGA, where he studies one of life's biggest questions: how cells know where they are in a developing embryo and how that information guides what they become. His research uses zebrafish to better understand the earliest stages of vertebrate development.
When he's not teaching, researching, or playing tennis, you'll likely find Scott with a good book. He's an avid reader of science fiction, fantasy, and historical fiction, with recent favorites including Ring Shout by P. Djèlí Clark, The Reformatory by Tananarive Due, and The Demon of Unrest by Erik Larson.
We're glad tennis found its way back into Scott's life, and we're even happier he's part of the COTA community!
💙 Be sure to say hello if you see Scott out on the courts!
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