News
By Nathan Antetomaso
Five professors from the University of Kentucky College of Arts and Sciences have received Simons Foundation Collaboration Grants for Mathematics. UK Department of Mathematics faculty members Richard Ehrenborg, Heide Gluesing-Luerssen, Margaret Readdy, Zhongwei Shen and Martha Yip will each receive five-year $35,000 grants.
The grants will fund travel and visitors that aim to support the "mathematical marketplace" by "substantially increasing collaborative contacts between mathematicians."
Professor Ehrenborg works in the area of combinatorics. His
(June 2, 2016) — Award-winning Native American poet Natalie Diazwill open the 2016 Kentucky Women Writers Conference, running Sept. 16-17, in Lexington. Diaz's work will also be among the topics of a free poetry workshop presented June 11, at the Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning.
Poet Natalie Diaz reads from her first poetry collection "When My Brother Was an Aztec."
Natalie Diaz was born and raised in the Fort Mojave Indian Village in Needles, California, on the banks of the Colorado River. She is Mojave and an enrolled member of the Gila River Indian Tribe. Her first poetry collection,
The University of Kentucky has received permission from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to conduct research with unmanned aerial systems (UAS), or drones, nationwide, following FAA regulations.
"UK is among the first universities in the country to receive this new FAA 'blanket' CoA," said Suzanne Smith, director of the UK Unmanned Systems Research Consortium and the Donald and Gertrude Lester Professor of Mechanical Engineering. "Now, UK faculty will be among the first to perform and publish their research on leading-edge autonomy technologies and applications, and the new scientific discoveries that are sure to result."
The FAA's public Certificate of Authorization (CoA) allows UK researchers to fly drones that are less than
The University of Kentucky Office of Nationally Competitive Awards has announced that international studies junior Shauna Rust andforeign language and international economics junior Amaris Wade have been awarded theNational Security Education Program (NSEP) David L. Boren Scholarship for up to $20,000 toward the study of Russian and Chinese languages abroad. Rust and Wade are two of 165 undergraduate student award winners selected nationally from a pool of 820 applicants.
Boren Scholarships, an initiative of the National Security Education Program, provide funding opportunities for U.S
By Whitney Harder
An international team of scientists, including the University of Kentucky's Renbin Yan, has uncovered a new class of galaxies, called "red geysers," with supermassive black hole winds so hot and energetic that stars can't form.
Over the last few billion years, a mysterious kind of “galactic warming" has caused many galaxies to change from a lively place where new stars formed every now and then to a quiet place devoid of fresh young stars. But the mechanism that produces this dramatic transformation and keeps galaxies quiet has been one of the biggest unsolved mysteries in galaxy evolution.
"These galaxies have the necessary ingredients for forming new stars but they are not doing it — why?" said Yan, an assistant professor of physics and astronomy at UK.
Researchers compare it to having deserts in densely
By Whitney Hale
In 1941, Kentucky was still in the grips of the Great Depression. Unemployment was high, and wages were hardly enough to support families, leaving many Kentuckians frustrated with the economic state of the Commonwealth. Kentucky had also fallen behind much of the nation in societal transitions, as women were still expected to be wives and mothers, while African Americans remained segregated. By the end of World War II, Kentucky had been transformed both economically and culturally, and those most affected were the citizens who remained on the homefront.
In "Committed to Victory: The Kentucky Home Front during World War II," published by University Press of Kentucky (UPK), historian and University of Kentucky alumnus Richard E. Holl details Kentucky’s fundamental economic, political and social changes from 1941 to 1945.
Kentuckians were
George Crothers, a University of Kentucky expert in prehistoric archaeology, has spent the better part of 30 years in the shadow-draped, surreal underworld of Kentucky’s Mammoth Cave system, searching for prehistoric as well as historic treasures of humanity’s adventures underground.
Although it’s one of those never-quite-finished projects — there are hundreds of miles of underground labyrinths and chambers, after all — the UK associate professor of anthropology in the College of Arts and Sciences said much of his work and an extensive trail
by Gail Hairston
Jim Ridolfo of the University of Kentucky and co-editor William Hart-Davidson of Michigan State University (MSU) were recently awarded the Computers and Composition Distinguished Book Award for their book “Rhetoric and the Digital Humanities.”
The distinguished book award is given once a year at the Computers and Writing Conference by the Conference on College Composition and Communication for book-length works that contribute in substantial and innovative ways to the field of computers and composition.
Ridolfo is an associate professor and director of composition at the UK College of Arts and Sciences Department of Writing, Rhetoric and Digital Studies. His second book, "Rhetoric and the Digital Humanities," was published by University of Chicago Press in January 2015.
Hart-Davidson is associate dean of graduate studies in
by Guy Spriggs
For almost 3 years, the Open Syllabus Project (OSP) has collected and analyzed syllabi to shed light on what texts are assigned in college courses. The Project boasts a catalog of 1.1 million syllabi, and its insights were chronicled in a January 2016 feature in the New York Times titled, “What a Million Syllabuses Can Teach Us.”
As the OSP continued the enormous task of looking through syllabi for resources and assignments, it also released the Syllabus Explorer, a search function which enables visitors to see what texts are most commonly assigned by location and field of study. It was around this time that UK sociology professor Edward Morris received a phone call from his mentor from graduate school.
“She sent me a link and said I had to check it out,” he explained. “I had no idea, because you don’t know when your work is being taught. I was
Relying on her native American roots for her first novel, “Maud’s Line,” University of Kentucky alumna and Lexington businesswoman Margaret Verble has been named a Finalist for the 2016 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction.
The Pulitzer Committee described “Maud’s Line” as “A novel whose humble prose seems well-suited to the remote American milieu it so engagingly evokes: the Indian allotments of 1920s Oklahoma.”
“Maud’s Line” is set in 1928, a year after the worst Mississippi River flood in history, a year before the Great Depression, and only a handful of years before the devastating droughts that eventually led to America’s Great Dust Bowl – difficult years for the Cherokee Nation. The story focuses on Maud Nail, a young Cherokee woman yearning for a better life
Four years ago, I was interviewing John Anthony in chemistry about his work on solar cells and light-emitting diodes (LEDs). He mentioned this crazy undergraduate student, who used to work in his lab, who constantly dyed her hair. She made bright orange and fluorescent pink LEDs that matched her “hair color of the week.” The science behind these organic compounds was intriguing, he told me, although he admitted there wasn’t much demand for those shades of LEDs in consumer electronics.
Fast forward to today, that undergrad—Susan Odom—is now an assistant professor of chemistry with her own lab. Odom tells me the exact same story—as she points out the pink hair photo that used to hang in Anthony’s lab. Odom credits that LED project as the experience that convinced her to pursue a research career.
In the Qualitative Organic Analysis Laboratory course she teaches, the
The University of Kentucky Office of Nationally Competitive Awards has announced that history junior Abigail King, of Lexington, has been selected for a place at a Fulbright Summer Institute to study at England's Durham University in one of the most prestigious and selective summer scholarship programs operating worldwide.
The U.S.-U.K. Fulbright Commission is the only bilateral, transatlantic scholarship program offering awards and summer programs for study or research in any field, at any accredited United States or United Kingdom university. The commission is part of the Fulbright program conceived by Senator J. William Fulbright in the aftermath of World War II to promote leadership, learning and empathy between nations through educational exchange. Award recipients and summer program participants are expected to be future leaders for tomorrow and support the "
by Guy Spriggs
In organizing its spring 2016 information meeting for majors, the UK Department of Mathematics solicited faculty to give the closing address. Professor Richard Ehrenborg volunteered, but suggested a less traditional approach.
“I said I wasn’t going to give a talk,” he recalled. “I was going to do a show.”
Instead of giving a lecture on new developments in the field or solving complex equations on the chalkboard, Ehrenborg led volunteers and spectators through tricks involving playing cards and simple geometric shapes. In short order, he was able to predict a single card’s location in a shuffled deck and prove that 168 and 169 are actually equal to each other.
But these were no mere sleight of hand illusions – as Ehrenborg points out, these intriguingly simple tricks all demonstrate valuable mathematical principles. These efforts are also
Some stories require a little more — a little more discussion, more context, more depth and breadth.
That’s the idea behind “Behind the Blue” — a new weekly podcast created by UK Public Relations and Marketing. It is designed to explore — through probing, in-depth interviews — the stories that make UK the university for Kentucky and that have impact across the institution, the Commonwealth and, in some cases, the world.
The first podcast, appropriately enough, focuses on election-year politics and the presidential election. To provide insight and context on an extraordinary and historic election, UK political science professor and elections expert Stephen Voss discusses at length the forces shaping this year’s presidential race, his insights on both the Democratic and Republican parties, and an individual candidate or two, who may be making headlines.
The Society of Postdoctoral Scholars at the University of Kentucky is hosting a symposium to feature the work of postdoctoral scholars in Kentucky and surrounding areas. The event will feature a keynote presentation by UK's Dr. Hollie Swanson, a professor in the College of Medicine's Department of Pharmacology and Nutritional Sciences, oral presentations by Kentucky postdocs, a poster session and a panel discussion on interviewing techniques.
The symposium will allow for the exchange of ideas across a broad range of fields and abstract submissions are welcome from any discipline. Postdocs from Kentucky and Ohio are especially encouraged to submit abstracts and graduate students are also welcome to participate. The objective of the symposium is to share research across many different fields and talks should be general and accessible to an audience outside of the
By Ann Eads
(May 10, 2016) – The University of Kentucky Staff Senate will moderate a debate between staff representative to the Board of Trustees candidates at 2 p.m. Thursday, May 12, in the auditorium of the William T. Young Library.
Anthany Beatty, assistant vice president for public safety at UK, will moderate the debate. Staff members are encouraged to attend or view via the Staff Senate website by visiting https://connect.uky.edu/staffsenate.
The UK Staff Senate invites all university staff to participate in the campaign and election process to help determine the next staff representative to the Board of Trustees. The campaign period begins May 13, 2016. The staff trustee candidates are Mike Adams,
The following University of Kentucky students have been awarded U.S. Department of State Critical Language Scholarships (CLS) to study critical languages during the summer of 2016:
Name Language Host Locations Lauren Copeland Arabic Meknes, Morocco Bridget Nicholas Chinese Changchun, China Faiyad Mannan Japanese Hikone, Japan Morgan Saint James Russian Nizhny Novgorod, RussiaThe Critical Language Scholarship Program is part of a U.S. government effort to expand dramatically the number of Americans studying and mastering critical foreign languages. These students are among the approximately 560 U.S. undergraduate and graduate students who received a CLS scholarship in 2016. Selected finalists hail from 48 states and the District of Columbia, and represent more than 200
Three new species of mouse lemurs — the smallest primates in the world — have been discovered by scientists at the University of Kentucky, along with collaborators at the German Primate Center and Duke Lemur Center.
"We didn't go into this work looking for a new species, but there was no real way to get around the fact that there are three new species here to describe," said Scott Hotaling, lead author on the Molecular Ecology paper and a doctoral candidate in the UK Department of Biology.
Twenty years ago, there were only two species of mouse lemurs. Today, including the newly-discovered species Microcebus ganzhorni, Microcebus manitatra and Microcebus boraha, mouse lemurs comprise 24 species, which are only found in the highly biodiverse island of Madagascar.
Microcebus ganzhorni was named after the ecologist Professor Jörg Ganzhorn from
Two new trees recently planted on the Washington Avenue lawn of the Thomas Hunt Morgan Biological Sciences Building hold special meaning. The native Blue Ash, the species that defines the Bluegrass Region, are in memory of colleagues in the Department of Biology who passed away recently: graduate student Martin Striz (Aug. 17, 2014), custodial staff member Kenny Robinson (Jan. 10, 2014) and Biology Department staff member Tony Games (Oct. 19, 2015).
“Martin, Kenny and Tony represented an important part of our community and their passing still affects many of us,” said Scott Hotaling, a graduate student in the Department of Biology. “The trees are meant to serve as a memorial to all of those we have lost who were part of the departmental family.”
An informal gathering is planned at the trees Friday, May 6, at 11 a.m. to pay tribute to the significant impact of these
Finding the time scale for the effective transfer of electrons is not an easy task.
With the increasing need for renewable fuels scientists have attempted to harvest abundant sunlight while simultaneously reducing CO2. However, the process is generally inefficient and many aspects needed for improvement remain unknown. Chemists at the University of Kentucky have now contributed new knowledge to explain how sunlight energy is stored in chemical bonds creating energy rich molecules from depleted ones. The stable photocatalyst generates organic fuels with a rate of production that depends on the time spent on the surface by precursor molecules.
Finding the time scale for the effective transfer of reducing electrons in a photocatalyst capable of reducing species containing double bonds or CO2 is not an easy task. What is needed is a reducing electron that is generated upon