News

UK Students Create Elkhorn City Railroad Museum's Mobile Exhibit for Schools, Tourists

By Gail Hairston

Kentucky is privileged with a bounty of railroad museums and attractions, but the Elkhorn City Railroad Museum has a charm and history all its own.

With its unique collection of railroading tools, equipment, uniforms and instruments; enhanced by books and photos; and personalized by retired railroad employees eager to share their tales of life on the rails, the Elkhorn City Railroad Museum preserves and protects Eastern Kentucky’s pride and culture as well as its hope for the future.

This past spring semester, University of Kentucky sociology students in Associate Professor Shaunna L. Scott’s “Sociology of Appalachia” class were quick to recognize the potential of the small museum

Popkin Receives National Endowment for the Humanities Grant

By Gail Hairston

University of Kentucky Professor of History Jeremy Popkin was recently awarded a prestigious Public Scholar program award of $50,400 from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). The grant will fund Popkin’s research and writing, leading to the publication of his manuscript on the French Revolution, “Free and Equal: The Story of the French Revolution.” The NEH Public Scholar program is meant to support scholars in the humanities who are writing books that will bring the best of current research to a broad general audience. This book will "give readers new perspectives about the French Revolution by incorporating, among other things, my own research on the role of the media during the revolution and the importance of the revolutionaries' struggles about slavery in the French colonies," Popkin said. "The project is an

Lake Tanganyika Fisheries Declining from Global Warming

By Whitney Harder

The decrease in fishery productivity in Lake Tanganyika, Africa's oldest lake, since the 1950s is a consequence of global warming rather than just overfishing, according to a new report from an international team led by a University of Arizona (UA) geoscientist that includes the University of Kentucky's Michael McGlue, who is Pioneer Professor of Stratigraphy in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences. The lake was becoming warmer at the same time in the 1800s the abundance of fish began declining, the team found. The lake's algae — fish food — also started decreasing at that time. However, large-scale commercial fishing did not begin on Lake Tanganyika until the 1950s. The new finding helps illuminate why the lake's fisheries

Pittard's "Listen to Me" Still Impressing Critics

By Gail Hairston

Hannah Pittard, University of Kentucky assistant professor of English and creative writing, continues to impress the literary world with her third novel, “Listen to Me.” Designated as “an emerging voice,” Pittard’s “Listen to Me” was on Buzz Book’s list of must-read books in 2016. On July 5, Washington Post’s mysteries and thrillers reviewer Patrick Anderson called “Listen to Me” a “captivating” novel. In Saturday’s New York Times, critic Erica Wagner said Pittard “creates…the feeling of emotional truth.” Pittard’s thriller/mystery is about a young couple who fear their marriage is driving them both crazy. The young

UK Researchers: Gut Bacteria Have Own Circadian Clock

By Whitney Harder

The circadian rhythm, or circadian clock, is an internal mechanism that drives the 24-hour cycles that tell our bodies when to sleep, wake and eat — and now, new research has found that bacteria living within the gut also have a clock. "We are the directors of that clock, much like the sun directs our own circadian rhythms!" said Jiffin Paulose, UK post-doctoral scholar and co-author of the study in PLOS ONE. Paulose and Professor and Chair of the Department of Biology Vincent Cassone found that a certain class of bacteria found in the human gut, Enterobacter aerogenes, expresses circadian patterns because of its sensitivity to melatonin, the hormone produced at

Biology Graduate Student Wins Prestigious Blue Waters Fellowship

By Samantha Ponder

University of Kentucky doctoral student Paul Hime has been awarded the Blue Waters Graduate Fellowship from the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA). Hime, a graduate student in Associate Professor David Weisrock's lab in the Department of Biology, is one of only 10 students across the country who has been selected for the program. The NCSA's Blue Waters Fellowship will give Hime access to one of the most powerful supercomputers in the world — the Blue Waters supercomputer. He will also receive a $38,000 stipend, up to $12,000 in tuition allowance, an allocation of up to 50,000 node-hours on the computing system, and funds for travel to a Blue Waters-sponsored symposium to present research

Exercise Your Mind at Chemistry Boot Camp

By Samantha Ponder

The Department of Chemistry in the University of Kentucky College of Arts and Sciences will host a "Mathematics of Physical Chemistry Boot Camp" to educate students on mathematical concepts that are common in both quantum chemistry and molecular physics. Registration for the August boot camp will close Aug. 10. This year the college is offering two sessions. One from 8 a.m. to early afternoon on Saturday, Aug. 20, and one from 8 a.m. to early afternoon on Saturday, Aug. 27. Both boot camp sessions are free. UK's chemistry boot camp provides graduate and undergraduate students an introduction or refresher class covering a few key mathematical and numerical approaches that they may encounter in their classes or research. The format for each session will include lectures, which will summarize the

Haneberg Selected as New State Geologist, Kentucky Geological Survey Director

William C. Haneberg will become Kentucky’s 13th state geologist Sept. 1, 2016. An engineering geologist with a wide range of research, academic and applied experience, he will also serve as the director of the Kentucky Geological Survey (KGS), leading KGS into the future of its mission to investigate Kentucky’s energy, mineral and water resources, and geologic hazards. Haneberg will hold a parallel appointment as a research professor in the University of Kentucky Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences.

Haneberg, a native of Cleveland, Ohio, has more than 25 years of experience as a university geology teacher, researcher and administrator in the office of the state geologist in New Mexico, and consultant. Since October 2011, he has worked in Houston for an American

John Jay Allen, emeritus professor of the University of Kentucky’s Department of Hispanic Studies, has been made a corresponding member of the Spanish Royal Academy of the Language (Real Academia Española de la Lengua), one of the highest academic honors in the Spanish-speaking world.

Allen taught in the UK College of Arts and Sciences’ Department of Hispanic Studies (formerly Department of Spanish and Italian) from 1983 to 1999 and as emeritus professor since 2000.

Allen´s accomplishments are quite numerous, but the most salient are: National Endowement for the Humanities (NEH) Fellowship for Independent Research, 1981-82; NEH Summer Seminar for College Teachers, 1989; Residential Fellowship to the National Humanities Center, North Carolina, 1989-90; UK's Albert D. and Elizabeth H. Kirwan Memorial Prize; and an honorary doctor of letters from Middlebury College

Eighth Summer Institute in Economic Geography Held at UK

The University of Kentucky College of Arts and Scienceslast week hosted the Summer Institute in Economic Geography. With a 10-year history in supporting economic geography, the college and its Department of Geography welcomed young scholars from across the globe to Lexington. This is the first time the institute has returned to the U.S. since 2006 when it was hosted by the University of Wisconsin at Madison.

A group of UK geography faculty worked collaboratively to bring the institute to campus. Sue Roberts, Matt Zook, Andy Wood and

Chemistry Graduate Student Receives NASA Fellowship

By Whitney Harder

Alexis Eugene, a University of Kentucky doctoral student in the Department of Chemistry, has been awarded the NASA Earth and Space Science Fellowship. More than 700 applications were submitted for the 2016 awards, and Eugene was one of only 73 who received a fellowship in earth science. "I am honored to receive this prestigious fellowship, and I am grateful for this opportunity to work with NASA scientists to further NASA's goals while making progress toward my degree from UK," Eugene said. Eugene will collaborate with members of NASA's Langley Aerosol Research Group Experiment by analyzing the chemical composition of cloud water and aerosol samples collected during flights over the Atlantic Ocean. Specifically, she will study what chemicals are there and how they affect the properties of the

Biology Researcher Receives Grant, Uses Zebrafish to Study Eye Disorder

By Whitney Harder

University of Kentucky Assistant Professor of Biology Jakub Famulski has been awarded a Career Starter Grant by the Knights Templar Eye Foundation, a charity sponsored by the Grand Encampment of Knights Templar. The $65,000 grant will support Famulski's research on coloboma, a leading cause of blindness in children. The eye abnormality occurs before birth and involves missing tissue in or around the eye. Famulski and his collaborators recently discovered a new type of coloboma, superior coloboma, which occurs in the top of the eye. But the underlying cause of most coloboma cases remains unknown. To better understand the disorder, Famulski and UK graduate students Kristyn Van Der Meulen and Nicholas Carrara will use zebrafish as a model to

Olson Recipient of a Festschift

Dr. Robert Olson, professor (emeritus) of Middle East History and Politics at the University of Kentucky, has been the recipient of a Festschift Kurdish Issues: Essays in Honor of Robert W. Olson on his 75th birthday. Fifteen of the top scholars from the Middle East, Europe and the United States specializing in Kurdish Studies contributed 13 essays in his honor. Professor Olson was awarded a “Lifetime Achievement Award in Recognition of Exceptional Contributions to the Field of Kurdish Studies” by the Kurdish Studies Association at the annual meeting of the Middle East Studies Association, an international organization of 3,000 members, held in Denver, Colorado, on Nov. 22, 2015. Olson is one of the few scholars of his generation to make a fundamental contribution to a new area of study in his major fields of research.

Olson, along with his colleague Michael Gunter of

Grant Enables Philosophy Student to Help Homeless Teens in Lexington

By Gail Hairston

More than vegetables and herbs are grown in the small garden adjacent to Arbor Youth Services’ emergency shelter on West Third Street, Lexington. This particular garden is blessed by more than sunshine and rain; it’s made fertile with the hopes, dreams, faith and goodwill of the homeless teenagers who tend it. None of it would exist without the inspiration and devotion of one University of Kentucky freshman who dreamed of making a difference. He applied for and won a $1,500 grant from Clinton Global Initiative. He chose his objective, the Arbor Youth Services’ Metro Alternative Shelter House, or “MASH House” to its young, temporary residents. When Beau Revlett first appeared one early spring day on the MASH doorstep to present the full scope of his desire to help the facility, its executive

Renzetti Recognized for Her Attention to Mentoring and the Community

University of Kentucky Professor of Sociology Claire Renzetti was recently selected as the recipient of the prestigious 2016 Peterson-Krivo Mentoring Award by the American Sociological Association’s Section on Crime, Law and Deviance and its Section on the Sociology of Law. The award was established to recognize the sustained and innovative work of a distinguished faculty member in the mentorship of undergraduate students, graduate students and junior scholars in the field. One award recipient is selected every two years through a competitive nomination process. Renzetti is currently chair of the UK College of Arts and Sciences Department of Sociology, the college's diversity and inclusion officer and the Judi Conway Patton Endowed Chair for Studies of Violence Against Women. Her research interests

A&S Graduate Confronts Diabetes in Appalachia

By Mallory Powell

Growing up in Hazard, Kentucky, Brittany Martin was familiar with diabetes. Many of her older relatives had been diagnosed with the chronic condition, and her younger family members were starting to develop it as well. In a state with one of the highest rates of diabetes — 11.3 percent of adults had a diagnosis in 2014 —Martin’s family wasn’t out of the ordinary, but she found the status quo unacceptable.

Since she graduated from the University of Kentucky in 2014 with a dual degree in biology and sociology, Martin’s family history and her interest in health have converged in her current role as coordinator of the Big Sandy Diabetes Coalition (BSDC), where she serves as an AmeriCorps Vista volunteer. The coalition, based at Big Sandy

UK Orofacial Pain Clinic Collaborates with Physical Therapy, Psychology Programs to Benefit Patients and Students

By Olivia McCoy As one of only seven institutions with all academic colleges housed on a single campus, the University of Kentucky provides a collaborative environment for students, professors, researchers, health care providers and patients. As a comprehensive medical center, and the largest academic medical center in Kentucky, UK and UK HealthCare deliver specialized medical care to patients. Accessibility to various providers can be invaluable when patients seek medical attention for complex health issues. A collaboration between the University of Kentucky Orofacial Pain Clinic, the College of Health Sciences and the Department of Psychology began more than 25 years ago when Charles Carlson, a professor of

A&S Alumna Named Ambassador to Liberia

By Gail Hairston University of Kentucky alumna Christine Ann Elder has been appointed the new United States Ambassador to the West African nation of Liberia. At her welcoming ceremony, Ambassador Elder, a career member of the Senior Foreign Service expressed gratitude for the level of cooperation that currently exists between the two countries. “The U.S. government wouldn’t have done what she has and [is] doing in the country without the cordial level of cooperation from the Liberian people and government,” Elder said. Ambassador Elder was making reference to the numerous interventions that the U.S. government has been making in several sectors in Liberia, including governance, security, education, agriculture, health and others. Although Liberia and the U.S. are traditional partners, Ambassador Elder described the current

A&S Adds New Liberal Studies Major Along With Additional New Major/Master's Degree at UK

By Whitney Hale

Last week the University of Kentucky Board of Trustees approved three new areas of study to pursue at the university. Starting this fall, UK students may choose two new bachelor's degrees in liberal studies and digital media and design. In addition, graduate students can pursue a new master's degree in research methods in education. The new major in liberal studies in the College of Arts and Sciences will allow students to: design individualized programs of study in the humanities, social sciences, and natural and mathematical sciences; develop a breadth of knowledge reflective of a liberal arts education; develop critical thinking and writing skills; and synthesize problem-solving strategies. The target audience for the degree is expected to be diverse,

Anthropology Alumna is Editor of New Book on Changes in Appalachia

By Samantha Ponder University of Kentucky alumna Rebecca Adkins Fletcher is one of the editors of the new book "Appalachia Revisited: New Perspectives on Place, Tradition, and Progress," published by University Press of Kentucky (UPK). The book's contributors explore how the Appalachia region has changed in recent years. "Appalachia Revisited" is the story of how the Appalachia region is being viewed within and beyond its borders. Fletcher and co-editor, William Schumann, gather both scholars and nonprofit practitioners to explore how Appalachia is being observed after some of its most recent changes. Inside the new book, readers will find a variety of different topics that are being studied, including race and gender,