By A Fish 

LEXINGTON;, Ky. — Oswald Research and Creativity Competition is a staple at the University of Kentucky. The competition is intended to promote creativity in all fields of study and accepts many varied forms of media as part of the competition. Colton Barton, a College of Arts & Sciences junior from Scottsville, Kentucky, received second place in the Social Sciences category for the paper “Gaymer Avatars: Analyzing the Relationship Between Gay Men and their Created Video Game Avatars” and an honorable mention in the Humanities: Critical Research categories for “A Potential for a Queer Utopia: Queer Futurity and Potentiality in Octavia Butler's Dawn” in the 2022-23 competition. He is also a UK (University of Kentucky) peer tutor.  

Q: What are the papers? Why did you write them and what has writing them and submitting them done for you?

By Kody Kiser and Jay Blanton 

LEXINGTON, Ky. (May 1, 2023) — Frank X Walker is the director of the University of Kentucky's Master of Fine Arts (MFA) program in creative writing. The state of Kentucky has a long and storied tradition of writers — across genres of fiction, poetry and essays — who are deeply connected to the state — its geography and landscape, its history and challenges. The program’s current faculty roster includes nationally recognized authors across a number of genres.

Walker is extending the legacy of UK and Kentucky’s reputation as central to the writing community, working as a poet, writer and artist. He has recently published a book geared toward a younger audience and is now at work on a new collection of poems that examines a

By Emily Sallee 

LEXINGTON, Ky. (April 27, 2023) — The University of Kentucky Office of Nationally Competitive Awards announced that 10 students and five alumni were selected to receive government-funded National Science Foundation  Graduate Research Fellowships. In addition, one graduate student and one alumna received honorable mention recognition from the foundation.

As part of the five-year fellowship, NSF Fellows receive a three-year annual stipend of $37,000 along with a $12,000 cost of education allowance for tuition and fees for a research-based master’s or doctoral degree in a STEM (science, technology, engineering or mathematics) field.

The 10 students awarded fellowships are: 

By Jenny Wells-Hosley 

Anne-Frances Miller

LEXINGTON, Ky. (April 26, 2023) — Anne-Frances Miller,  professor in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Kentucky, is serving as the 2022-23 College of Arts and Sciences’ Distinguished Professor and will deliver the annual Distinguished Professor Lecture Monday, May 1, 2023.

The lecture, titled “Renewable: New Opportunities from one of Life’s Most Ancient Chemical Tools,” will begin at 5 p.m. in the William T. Young Library Athletic Auditorium. A reception will follow in the Alumni Gallery in the library.

The lecture

By Jenny Wells-Hosley 

Shaunna Scott, left. poses with UK Appalachian Center Director Kathryn Engle at the 2023 Appalachian Studies Association conference. Photo by Kopana Terry

LEXINGTON, Ky. (April 26, 2023) — The Appalachian Studies Association has named Shaunna Scott, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Kentucky, winner of its Stephen L. Fisher Award for Excellence in Teaching.

This award honors individuals dedicated to intellectual rigor and pedagogical integrity in constructing and delivering inclusive knowledge about Appalachia and its people. The awards are sponsored by East Tennessee State University’s Center of Excellence for Appalachian Studies and Services. The ASA presents two Fisher awards each year — one to a K-

By Lindsay Travis 

Ashley Seifert

LEXINGTON, Ky. (April 26, 2023) — Research at the University of Kentucky is looking to nature to understand cellular processes that allow lost tissue to regenerate in spiny mice — processes that might lie dormant in humans.

Ashley Seifert,  an associate professor in the UK College of Arts and Sciences’ Department of Biology, teamed up with scientists in Germany and the Netherlands to examine how identical injuries in two different rodent species lead to regenerative healing in one case but not the other.

The paper, published today in Science Advances, compared tissue healing in

By Ann Blackford 

Christine Smith

LEXINGTON, Ky. (April 25, 2023) — Two University of Kentucky students and one local citizen have received UK’s highest honor for humanitarian efforts — the Algernon Sydney Sullivan Award.

The Sullivan Award was established by the New York Southern Society in 1925 and was named in honor of its first president, Algernon Sydney Sullivan. Sullivan was a prominent businessman and philanthropist who was highly regarded as one who “reached out with both hands in constant helpfulness” to others. The Sullivan Award recognizes those “who exhibit Sullivan’s ideals of heart, mind, and conduct as evince a spirit of love for and helpfulness to other men and women.”

At UK, the

By A Fish 

Priya Karna

LEXINGTON, Ky. — Incorporating art and sciences, UK Ph.D. recipient Priya Karna seized on an opportunity to submit her illustration to the American Chemical Society Diversity and Inclusion Cover Art Series. As a result, her artwork and editorial ended up in the March 2, 2023, issue of the Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters. 

“The competition started in 2021, so it's just been two years since they’ve been doing this,” she said. “I saw some of the examples of the cover art, and it looked like something I could do.” 

The artwork, "Women in Science: From Country to Chemistry," displays Karna’s vision of representing women from rural areas in science. The cover art depicts a girl with her cattle on a farm; she dreams of being a scientist.  

Since

Samantha Malone

LEXINGTON, Ky. -- Samantha Malone, a doctoral candidate in experimental psychology with a concentration in cognitive neuroscience at the University of Kentucky, is one of 110 students within the United States and Canada selected to receive a $20,000 PEO Scholar Award from the PEO Sisterhood.

She was nominated by PEO Chapter AO of Lexington. The PEO Scholar Awards program, established in 1991, provides merit-based awards for women in the United States and Canada who are pursuing a doctoral-level degree at an accredited college or university.

Malone is a 2017 summa cum laude graduate of East Tennessee State University in psychology: behavioral neuroscience. She holds an M.S. in experimental psychology and a graduate certificate in Applied Statistics from UK.

Malone has written articles in scientific journals and given numerous

LEXINGTON, Ky. (April 20, 2023) — The University of Kentucky Nu Circle of Omicron Delta Kappa National Leadership Honor Society hosted its annual awards night on Tuesday, April 11, in the W. T. Young Athletic Auditorium. Among those recognized for the Maurice A. Clay award  was Kameron Kraus, a student in the College of Arts & Sciences. In addition, A&S student Nora Sypkens received a Jerry D. Claiborne Scholarship.

The Maurice A. Clay award was created over 30 years ago to recognize the outstanding graduating senior in each academic college. Winners are selected by the college and are expected to be exceptional leaders who have provided service to their college while maintaining a strong academic record. Omicron Delta Kappa recognizes superior scholarship, leadership and exemplary character. The Maurice A. Clay

By Lindsay Travis 

Marcelo Guzman

LEXINGTON, Ky. (April 18, 2023) — Researchers at the University of Kentucky are studying how the chemical reactions in the air after wildfires contribute to changes in the color of aerosol particles.

Marcelo Guzman is an associate professor in the Department of Chemistry in the College and Arts and Sciences. He leads the Environmental Chemistry Laboratory.

Guzman, principal investigator, worked with graduate student Sohel Rana on the study funded by the National Science Foundation. Their findings have been published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology.

Guzman and Rana study how chemicals in atmosphere

LEXINGTON, Ky. (April 17, 2023) — The University of Kentucky Women’s Executive Leadership Development (WELD) program has announced its 2023 cohort of faculty and staff participants. The eight-month WELD program seeks to develop a new generation of leaders of higher education who can adeptly navigate our complex environment and successfully chart the future of the university through retreats, monthly meetings, conversations with upper-level administrators, and other group interactions. 

WELD is supported and organized through the Office of Faculty Advancement and is currently in its ninth year. Current Faculty Trustee Hollie Swanson was the initial director of the program, followed by Professor Chana

The College of Arts and Sciences announced today that Carol Jordan, a nationally recognized women’s advocate will retire after a 40 years career of public policy, legislative advocacy, research and writing, and the development of programs addressing intimate partner violence, rape and stalking. Following graduate school, Jordan worked in a domestic violence shelter and served as the first director of a statewide sexual and domestic violence program in the state’s Department for Mental Health. She led expansion of Kentucky rape crisis centers from 4 to 13.



In 1996 she was recruited by then-Governor Paul E. Patton to serve as the founding executive director for the Governor’s Office of Child Abuse and Domestic Violence Services. During her time in the Governor’s Office, she advanced increased funding for domestic violence shelters and rape crisis centers by 42% and

By Lindsay Travis 

James Hower

LEXINGTON, Ky. (April 12, 2023) — A researcher at the University of Kentucky is helping to solve the mystery of where the coal found on Blackbeard's shipwrecked Queen Anne’s Revenge came from. 

James Hower,a distinguished fellow and a research professor at the UK Center for Applied Energy Research (CAER) and Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences in the College of Arts and Sciences, is part of the research team. He took a closer look at samples of coal pulled from the site and came to some surprising conclusions.

About 300 years ago, a band of pirates captured a French slave ship.

By Whitney Hale 

LEXINGTON, Ky. (April 6, 2023) — Two University of Kentucky seniors — Kayli Bolton and Kayla Horne — interviewed this year for the Gates Cambridge Scholarship, and Bolton was awarded one of only 23 Gates Cambridge Scholarships presented nationally to students hoping to pursue postgraduate study at the University of Cambridge in England.

Bolton, a University of Kentucky biology and Lewis Honors College senior, is the third Wildcat to receive the honor. She also received the 

By Jenny Wells-Hosley 

LEXINGTON, Ky. (April 3, 2023) — Next week, the University of Kentucky Gaines Center for the Humanities and UK College of Arts and Sciences will host a workshop on narrative pedagogy, featuring Derek McCracken, a lecturer in Narrative Medicine program at Columbia University

“Telescope, Stethoscope, Kaleidoscope: The Multivalent Art of Pedagogy” will be held 6-7:30 p.m. Thursday, April 13, on Zoom. 

LEXINGTON, Ky. -- Sharique Khan, a doctoral student in the Department of Chemistry in the University of Kentucky College of Arts & Sciences, has been selected for the U.S. Department of Energy Graduate Research fellowship program at the Oak Ridge National Lab.

The program allows graduate students to pursue collaborative research projects working with experts at two of the Department of Energy’s neutron sources: the High Flux Isotope Reactor and the Spallation Neutron Source.

“This program allows me to deploy neutron scattering, a highly specialized technique that is only possible in a very few specially equipped facilities,” Khan said. “I feel fortunate to have this experience and excited to contribute at the forefront of the evolving field of flavin based electron bifurcation, a fundamental mechanism of energy conservation."

Sharique Khan’s adviser is Anne-

By Richard LeComte 

LEXINGTON, Ky. – A chance meeting in Poland brought two University of Kentucky alumni together to assist refugees from the war in Ukraine. 

Lauren Metelski

Lauren Metelski ‘06, a nurse living in Washington, D.C., and Joe Bradley  ‘01, who was working remotely for a company in Ukraine, have partnered to form Go Help Now, a nonprofit that provides cash assistance, housing and basic needs to displaced Ukrainians and maintains a volunteer directory. They both graduated from UK with degrees in Russian studies in the Department of Modern & Classical Languages, Literatures & Cultures.  

“In February 2022, I began helping friends out and then friends of friends,” Bradley said. “I had lived in Kyiv for two and a half years. I was actually back in Kentucky for the

By Ryan Girves 

LEXINGTON, Ky. (March 30, 2023) — The University of Kentucky Gaines Center for Humanities has selected 12  undergraduates as scholars for the university's Gaines Fellowship Program for the 2023-24 and 2024-25 academic years.

The Gaines Fellowship is presented in recognition of outstanding academic performance, demonstrated ability to conduct independent research, an interest in public issues and a desire to enhance understanding of the human condition through the humanities. Founded in 1984 by a gift from John and Joan Gaines, the Gaines Center for the Humanities is designed to enrich the study of the humanities at UK and functions as a

By Jenny Wells-Hosley 

LEXINGTON, Ky. (March 29, 2023) —  Solomon Harrar, a professor in the Dr. Bing Zhang Department of Statistics in the University of Kentucky College of Arts and Sciences, has been awarded a fellowship by the Carnegie African Diaspora Fellowship Program to travel to Ethiopia to work with Addis Ababa University on teaching, mentoring and research collaboration for doctoral training in statistics.

Harrar will be in Ethiopia from May 15 to July 14. He will work with his host, Eshetu Wencheko, in re-evaluating and revising the Ph.D. curriculum, offering workshops and seminars, initiating mentoring