Student Success Stories

Melissa Cynders

Department of Psychology Ph.D. Student

Melissa Cyders has a supervisor who always says, “When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.”

Well, in Cyders’ case, the student and the teacher are both blossoming.

Since her arrival at the University of Kentucky to earn her doctorate in clinical psychology, Cyders’ skills as a teacher, clinician and researcher have grown by leaps and bounds.

“I think that, for me, those skills all work hand-in-hand,” Cyders said. “The goal in each of these positions is to learn, to teach and to help. I need to learn about...
Edward Kobraei
Edward Kobraei

Biology Senior

Not many would have passed on a full scholarship to their hometown university, but that’s exactly what Edward Kobraei did.

A graduate of Calloway County High School in western Kentucky, Kobraei could have stayed at home while attending Murray State University. But “Eddie” decided to follow in the footsteps of his older brother and sister and enroll at the University of Kentucky. And it was his “intrinsic curiosity about biological and chemical phenomena” that led him to UK’s College of Arts and Sciences.

Once there, Kobraei knew he had...
Patrick Murphy Conlon
Patrick Murphy Conlon

Linguistics and Political Science Senior

A native of Cincinnati and a graduate of Tates Creek High School, Patrick Conlon liked the idea of going to college, but he and his family were unsure of his prospects.

Conlon wasn’t concerned about grades or entrance exams. He needed to find a school that had the appropriate accommodations and services for disabled students. And he found that in the University of Kentucky.

“I was not the first in my family to attend college, but there was a worry before I started at UK that college would not be...
Cynthia Isenhour
Cynthia Kline Isenhour

Anthropology Doctorate Student

Cynthia Kline Isenhour grew up in Germantown, Ohio, where she graduated from Valley View High School. She was raised one of two daughters primarily by her mother, who, though earning a modest salary, did everything in her power to provide more than just life’s necessities for her children.

“I suspect that my mother’s occasional conflation of love and material goods influenced my decision to study marketing in college (at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio),” Isenhour said.

Isenhour’s education at Miami U. and...
John Crowell
John Crowell

Undergraduate Student

by Robin Roenker

Undergraduate senior John Crowell stumbled into pursuing a minor though UK’s Gender and Women’s Studies (GWS) Program as a junior, when he read a few books from his fiancée’s GWS coursework and was intrigued.

He decided to sign up for a GWS class of his own, a course on violence in culture led by Janice Oaks. And he was hooked.

“The classes, to me, give me a lot of insight into people’s points of view that I had never even thought of, or never had been able even to conceptualize before reading some of...
Jami Bartek
Jami Bartek

Ph.D. Student

by Robin Roenker

Jami Bartek’s historical curiosity isn’t limited to one country or even one continent, and he’s loved that his time as a PhD student in UK’s History Department has allowed him to pursue interests in an array of settings and eras.

When Bartek enters the job market next fall, he’ll go armed with a focus in the 19th-century U.S. South, but also with experience in his two teaching fields: 20th-century European history and East Asian studies.

His varied coursework provided him “a much broader background” and a richer...
Kiyo Sakamoto
 

Ph.D. Student

Whether it has been in the fields of Guatemala, the rural landscape of Kentucky, or as a government official in Japan, Kiyo Sakamoto’s interest in the social aspects of agriculture has been the one constant that has propelled his work over the past 15 years.

After receiving his Bachelor of Science in Agriculture from Chiba University in his homeland of Japan, Sakamoto then worked with the Japan Overseas Cooperation Volunteers – a group “which is similar to the U.S. Peace Corps,” he said...
Brian Cole, Matt Feinberg and Michelle Dumais
Brian Cole/Matt Feinberg/Michelle Dumais

Ph.D. Students

Three is the magic number

by Joy Gonsalves

When graduate faculty from the Hispanic Studies Department announce this year’s scholarly grant recipients, they’ll deliver a triple-whammy. Matthew Feinberg, Michelle Dumais, and Brian Cole were each awarded a grant of some $3,000 sponsored by the University of Minnesota to study their love of loves—Spanish culture— in Madrid. 

Titled the “Program for Cultural Cooperation between Spain’s Ministry of Culture and United States’ Universities,” this joint US-Spanish...
Dustin Zerrer
Dustin Zerrer

Undergraduate Student

A Whole New Ballgame

Like countless other youngsters, Dustin Zerrer wanted to be a baseball player when he grew up. He even earned a scholarship to play in college, but after injuries derailed his career, he found himself at Eastern Kentucky University as a turf management/sports management major. He eventually worked for minor league organizations like the Lexington Legends and Dayton Dragons as an assistant groundskeeper.

Then he called for a timeout, stepped out of the batter’s box and reassessed his life. He wanted to take a different...
Ben Freer

Department of Pyschology Ph.D. Student

by Joy Gonsalves

The Department of Psychology has taught Ben Freer a thing or two about learners. Though this third-year Ph.D. student from the Cognitive Development Program has “always been philosophical about why people behave the way they do,” his academic experience has challenged his perspective on the cognitive differences among us. 

“It’s important to understand people from every walk of life, not as victims, but as different, and as I’ve grown, this...
Jonathan Powell
Political Science Ph.D. Student

by Rebekah Tilley

Third-year political science graduate student Jonathan Powell is an early riser. By 6:30 each morning the Kentucky native is usually hiking up to Patterson Office Tower to start his day. Yet political science professor Dr. Daniel Morey always manages to beat him there.

“Dan is literally here at 5:00 AM every day. When I’m walking up I can see where his office is and the light’s always on. One day I hope I’ll be here before him but it’s probably never going to happen,” Powell said, shaking his head.

The hard...
Katerine Osborne
  Katherine Osborne

Ph.D. Student

by Robin Roenker

Katherine Osborne knew UK’s Department of English was the right graduate program for her the moment she met then-DGS Ellen Rosenman during a campus tour.

"She talked about her work, but she was more interested in me,” said Osborne, a Frankfort, Ky., native and graduate of Hanover College in Indiana. “I could tell she was interested in graduate students. That was evident from the get-go. She just...

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