Oluwaseye "Mary" Awoniyi

Oluwaseye “Mary” Awoniyi

Cadet Spotlight

by Robin Roenker

Oluwaseye “Mary” Awoniyi has always known she wanted to be a soldier and a lawyer. Since the age of 12, she’s had her sights set on joining the prestigious ranks of the Army’s elite JAG Corps.

With scholarship support from UK’s Army ROTC program, Awoniyi, 22, is about to begin her second year of law school at UK, forging a direct path toward her dream.

Janet Neisewander

Janet Neisewander spends a lot of her time with rodents and cocaine.

As strange as that may sound, the research the Arizona State University professor is doing with those two things may someday help people struggling with addiction.

Panayotis “Taki” Petrou

Growing up in Athens, Greece, Panayotis “Taki” Petrou knew he wanted to study in the United States when he was older.

Three of his uncles lived in America and his older sister had already left Greece for school in Chicago.

“I was finishing high school and thinking about college, and it had always been my dream to go to the U.S.,” Petrou said.

Benny G. Johnson

One-on-one teaching assistance is hard to come by in math and science courses, where many students struggle to understand balancing equations, solving for variables, and applying formulas. To address the problem, Benny G. Johnson, Sr., and Dale Holder joined forces, merging chemistry, computer programming and teaching philosophy to create Quantum Tutors, the first artificial intelligence tutoring program for the sciences.

Steven Murdock

“The mentoring I received from UK sociology faculty such as Drs. James Brown, Clyde McCoy, and Tom Ford was instrumental in my professional development," Murdock said. "They not only provided me with a rigorous education in demography but also provided examples that served as role models for me as I developed professionally. I will forever be indebted to them, the department, and the University of Kentucky for their help and guidance.”

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