WRD encourages WRD majors and minors to conduct research at UK.
To help facilitate undergraduate research, WRD will offer up to $1,000 as support.
We encourage work in areas related to writing, rhetorical studies, or digital research. Such work might include:
Assistant Professor Chris Richards (UK Chemistry) and Professor James Pauly (UK Pharmacy) have been awarded funding to help elucidate the mechanism of nicotine addiction and to identify targets for nicotine cessation therapeutics. The $760,000 grant awarded by the National Institutes of Health is titled "Single Molecule Determination of nAChR Structural Assembly for Therapeutic Targeting.”
STEMCats, sponsored by HHMI, is designed to help students succeed at UK. The program prepares students both academically and socially through participation in FastTrack or FOCUS, research opportunities, and special seminar courses. Students participating in STEMCats will build confidence, enthusiasm, satisfaction and a sense of belonging to UK, and experience a smoother transition to college coursework. This leads to improved performance and higher academic achievement.
The researchers demonstrated that surface modifying groups can be utilized to influence both film morphology and electrical conductivity in silver nanowire-polymer composites and demonstrate a one-step process for fabricating homogeneous composite transparent electrodes. ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces, 2015, 7, 21652–21656.
This rant, lament, or diatribe will not be unfamiliar to those who know me, or to most academics, as there’s scarcely a unique complaint here. I reprise it in response to a couple of recent conversations. One concerned a very good geoscientist at another university who was recently promoted and tenured, but told by her dean that she would never make full professor if she didn’t start bringing in some grant money, regardless of the quantity and quality of her research output. The attitude and policy reflected by this is not only not atypical, it is standard in research universities. For a long time academic success (at least in material terms of money and status) in the sciences has depended more on how many external dollars you bring in than how much research you produce, and how good that research is.
The second conversation involved a young scientist venting a bit about what a royal pain in the ass it is putting together a joint proposal. I know from experience that many will agree with me when I say that the administrative details, budget, chain of internal and external approvals, and other miscellaneous hoop jumping is invariably a lot more work than the actual scientific part of a proposal.
Through the original words of Professor Frank X. Walker and historical images and video of students, staff, faculty and alumni, this piece celebrates 150 years of teaching, research and service at the University of Kentucky and challenges all of us to look towards the future. Watch as Walker performs "Seedtime in the Commonwealth."
Originally created by UK Public Relations: youtu.be/STJCYMEJnuI
Photos courtesy of UK Special Collections.
Jeremy Van Cleve joined the Department of Biology in the Spring 2015 semester. As one of the newest additions to UK's faculty, Van Cleve had lots of info to share concering his research, his hopes for his future at UK, and how he's getting along in the city of Lexington.
This podcast was produced by David Cole.
Our latest Office Hours episode brings you a new host along with a hot topic -- Cuba!
