Sue Roberts, the University of Kentucky’s associate provost for internationalization, is aware each day how much smaller the world seems than the day before.
A professor of geography in the UK College of Arts and Sciences, Roberts is a global thinker. She has dedicated herself to helping students, faculty and staff make international connections that will improve their scholastic standing and
By Gail Hairston
The American Political Science Association (APSA) recently announced that Travis N. Taylor, a graduate student at the University of Kentucky, has been named as a 2017-2018 APSA Minority Fellowship Program (MFP) Fellow, Spring Cycle.
Taylor is a second year doctoral student and teaching assistant in the UK College of Arts and Sciences Department of Political Science. He is studying American political behavior and public
By Gail Hairston
The sweet strains of traditional mountain music still drift on the summer breezes of the Appalachians, reflecting off the hills and flowing through the valleys.
But before Appalachian mountain music was first preserved on wax discs — as the arid winds of the Dust Bowl blew and the soup lines of the Great Depression grew — the musicians played on handmade fiddles, dulcimers, zithers and mandolins, and heard with the hearts of generations.
Until the mid-19th century, the vast majority of musical instruments responsible for the sound of mountain music — dulcimers, guitars, violins or fiddles, banjoes, zithers and mandolins — were handmade and passed down from one generation to the next. The tunes and musical traditions were the inheritance of a melding of English, Welsh, Irish and Scottish ballads with the customs of Germany, Eastern Europe and
By Lori Minter
The University of Kentucky has released its Dean's List for the spring 2017 semester. A total of 6,412 students were recognized for their outstanding academic performance.
To make a Dean’s List in one of the UK colleges, a student must earn a grade point average of 3.6 or higher and must have earned 12 credits or more in that semester, excluding credits earned in pass-fail classes. Some UK colleges require a 3.5 GPA to make the Dean’s List.
The full Dean's List can be accessed by visiting: www.uky.edu/PR/News/DeansList/.
UK is the University for Kentucky. At UK, we are educating more students, treating more patients with complex illnesses and conducting more research and service than at any time in our 150-year history. To read more about the UK story and how
By Jenny Wells and Dave Melanson
The University of Kentucky has received two of three U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) grants for its promising work in the emerging field of rare earth element (REE) research.
DOE’s Office of Fossil Energy recently announced that the three projects have been selected to receive approximately $3 million for research aimed at producing salable rare earth elements from domestic coal and coal by-products. UK’s Department of Mining Engineering is a partner on one of those projects while UK’s Center for Applied Energy Research (CAER) is a partner on another project.
REEs are a series of 17 chemical elements found in the
By Whitney Hale
Trailer for the documentary "Look and See: A Portrait of Wendell Berry."
Next Friday (June 30) a film featuring the work of Kentucky’s own Wendell Berry will enjoy its U.S. theatrical premiere at the IFC Center in New York City. “Look and See: A Portrait of Wendell Berry” is a cinematic account of the changing landscapes and shifting values of rural America in the era of industrial agriculture, as seen through the mind’s eye of writer, farmer and activist Wendell Berry, an alumnus and former faculty member of the University of Kentucky Department of English.
The first documentary about Berry, one of America’s most significant living writers, “
UK Chemistry Researchers Develop Catalyst that Mimics the Z-Scheme of Photosynthesis
LEXINGTON, Ky. (June 22, 2017) — A team of chemists from the University of Kentucky and the Institute of Physics Research of Mar del Plata in Argentina has just reported a way to trigger a fundamental step in the mechanism of photosynthesis, providing a process with great potential for developing new technology to reduce carbon dioxide levels.
Led by Marcelo Guzman, an associate professor of chemistry in the UK College of Arts and Sciences, and Ruixin Zhou, a doctoral student working with Guzman, the researchers used a synthetic nanomaterial that combines the highly reducing power of cuprous oxide (Cu2O) with a coating of
By Jennifer T. Allen
J.C. Eaves made expanding the study of mathematics throughout Kentucky one of his life’s missions.
"I remember my father telling me the story of how he visited high schools in 119 of Kentucky’s 120 counties," said Jim Eaves, his son. "He put a great importance on math education in Kentucky high schools."
J.C. Eaves grew up in Muhlenberg County in a large family with 11 siblings. He came to UK and earned his bachelor's and master's degrees in mathematics before joining the U.S. Navy during World War II. After the war, Eaves earned his doctorate at the University of North Carolina and, eventually, his path brought him back to his beloved state of Kentucky.
Jim Eaves grew up at the University of Kentucky. His family moved to Lexington when he was in the second grade, when his father became head of the Department of
By Amanda Lee
Tiffany Barnes, an associate professor in the University of Kentucky's Department of Political Science, will be honored with the American Political Science Association's (APSA) Alan Rosenthal Prize for her book "Gendering Legislative Behavior." She will be presented with the award at the APSA national meeting in September in California.
This award encourages young scholars to study questions of importance to legislators and legislative staff. These scholars are also expected to conduct research that has potential application to strengthen the practice of democracy.
"I am excited to see research about the important role women play in politics receiving national
By Megan Foltz
Danielle Galyer competed on Kentucky women's swimming and diving team. Photo courtesy of UK Athletics.
Growing up in Greenville, South Carolina, Danielle Galyer did not realize how prominent swimming was in her home state. However, the tough competition didn’t stop her from excelling. She began swimming at the age of 6 and just nine short years later at the age of 15, Galyer competed in her first Olympic trials.
“It was really good for me to go the first time and get the stress level of it all out of the way. It’s a really good experience because it is the elite of the elite,” she said.
With a strong work ethic and sense of commitment instilled by her parents, Galyer decided to attend the University of Kentucky on a swimming scholarship. “It was
By Kathy Johnson
Claire Renzetti, professor and chair of the Department of Sociology in the University of Kentucky College of Arts and Sciences, has been chosen to receive a leadership award from the Society for the Study of Social Problems (SSSP).
The national organization promotes and protects sociological research and teaching on significant problems of social life and encourages the application of scientific method and theory to the study of vital social problems. Renzetti will receive the Doris Wilkinson Faculty Leadership Award at SSSP's national meeting in Montreal in August.
Named for UK Sociology
By Karlie Kinneer
Following the completion of her stellar University of Kentucky career, senior swimmer Danielle Galyer was named to the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA) Academic All-America At-Large First Team for the second consecutive year, the organization announced Thursday afternoon.
“It’s a culmination of her outstanding career both as a student as an athlete at Kentucky,” said head coach Lars Jorgensen. “She’s been a role model for the entire swimming and diving program over the past four years — a perfect example of achieving at the highest level inside and outside of the classroom.”
Galyer is just the second Wildcat in program history to earn First Team Academic All-America in consecutive seasons
By Whitney Hale
Five playwrights have been named finalists for the 2017 Prize for Women Playwrights presented by the Kentucky Women Writers Conference (KWWC). Award-winning playwright
By Julie Wrinn
AS A SENIOR MANAGER IN FINANCIAL RISK MANAGEMENT for the global management and investment consulting firm Accenture, Blair West (B.A. 2007) of Midway, Ky., has traveled a long way in a short period of time. She arrived at the University of Kentucky in 2004 with no Advanced Placement credits and graduated three and a half years later, obtained her M.B.A. in London, and now works in New York City. West credits her mother with advising her to enroll in 18 hours nearly every semester at UK. “Taking 18 hours was not too cumbersome,” she said. “I could still have a life. I did get a lot of parking tickets though.” She even made time to take one purely fun class each year, including scuba diving, racquetball, and ice skating. During her freshman year, West took German 101 and 102 and through those courses learned about the summer EducationBy Jenny Wells
Arnold Stromberg, professor and chair of the Department of Statistics in the University of Kentucky College of Arts and Sciences, has been named a fellow of the American Statistical Association (ASA).
The honor is conferred upon less than one percent of the ASA’s membership, and is comprised of statisticians from academia, business, government and research organizations from around the world.
“I’m grateful to the Department of Statistics, the College of Arts and Sciences, and the university for providing an environment that allowed me to achieve this honor,” Stromberg said.
Stromberg will be officially recognized at an awards ceremony in August during the Joint Statistical Meetings in Baltimore with the other 2017 fellows. He will be recognized for
By Shana Hutchins and Jenny Wells
It’s a material world, and an extremely versatile one at that, considering its most basic building blocks — atoms — can be connected together to form different structures that retain the same composition.
Diamond and graphite, for example, are but two of the many polymorphs of carbon, meaning that both have the same chemical composition and differ only in the manner in which their atoms are connected. But what a world of difference that connectivity makes: The former goes into a ring and costs thousands of dollars, while the latter has to sit content within a humble pencil.
The inorganic compound hafnium dioxide commonly used in optical coatings likewise has several polymorphs, including a tetragonal form with highly attractive properties for computer chips and other optical elements. However, because this form is stable only
By Whitney Hale
The University of Kentucky Office of Nationally Competitive Awards has announced four UK students have been awarded
By Gail Hairston
University of Kentucky Associate Professor of Psychology Will Gervais is the lead author of the study “How many atheists are there?,” which appears in the current issue of the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science. Gervais’ study asserts that there may be many more atheists in the U.S. than society believes.
It's tough to figure out just how religious or nonreligious different populations of people are. Widely cited telephone polls (like Gallup and Pew) suggest U.S. atheist prevalence ranges from 3 percent to 11 percent. But, there's heavy stigma leveled against religious disbelief in the U.S., which might make people reluctant to disclose their lack of belief over the phone to a stranger. Using a subtle, indirect measurement
Middle school students are awed when they get the chance to turn a banana into a percussion instrument at the 2017 Expanding Your Horizons STEM workshop for girls.
Sometime during the transition from middle school to high school, girls often find their early interest in science and math steered in other directions, often toward careers that fit comfortably into a box of more “traditional” women’s roles. A recent daylong workshop at the University of Kentucky sought to stem that tide by introducing 120 Kentucky middle school girls to a challenging STEM career.
A multidisciplinary project, Expanding Your Horizons, focused on countermanding some of the possible reasons that girls’ interest in the sciences flag at a certain age, such as peer pressure or a lack of female role models. During the workshop, the young students met many
By Jenny Wells
The University of Kentucky’s #IAmAWomanInSTEM project has awarded scholarships to 11 UK students for project proposals that promote STEM education and careers for women.
Females are less likely than their male counterparts to pursue an education in the STEM disciplines, which include science, technology, engineering and math. The #IAmAWomanInSTEM initiative, which launched at UK last year, seeks to change that by recruiting hundreds of female student ambassadors who are encouraging the study of STEM and health care among women at UK, and empowering them to persist in those fields.
“As a public research institution and the state's flagship, UK has an important role in promoting graduation of women in STEM majors,” said Randolph Hollingsworth, assistant provost and advisor of the program
