By Cassady Brockman 

LEXINGTON, Ky. —  The 30th Annual University of Kentucky  Black Women’s Conference presents “We are the Culture: A Symposium on Black Girls & Girlhood.”  

The conference is hosted by the UK College of Arts and Sciences along with the Commonwealth Institute for Black Studies, which will function as a two-day retreat from Friday, March 7, to Saturday, March 8, at the Campbell House. The conference is free for the UK community with registration.  

The conference includes keynotes from Black girlhood scholars, a film screening, workshops and editorial sessions. According to Aria Halliday, Ph.D,   Marie Rich Endowed Professor in Arts and Sciences and

By Jennifer T. Allen 

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Feb. 24, 2025) — Plamedi Nsensele feels called to help others navigating their new life in the United States. 

“As an international student at the University of Kentucky, I see it as a blessing to pursue my education without the fear of needing help,” said Nsensele, a neuroscience and biology major from The Democratic Republic of the Congo. “Now, through the Step-Up Program, I’ve had the opportunity to work with immigrants from the same country as me, but with different circumstances.” 

Step-Up is an innovative service-learning program supporting high school students from immigrant and refugee families. The program helps them integrate into the United States. The program was recently awarded a Provost Impact Award for the 2024-25 academic year.

By Meredith Weber 

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Feb. 19, 2025) — The University of Kentucky Women & Philanthropy Network has awarded $232,878.16 to six academic initiatives at UK. These programs were selected as the top proposals receiving votes from members at the recent symposium. Thes awards bring the network’s lifetime grant funding to more than $3.3 million.

The College of Arts and Sciences received $50,000 to enhance its First Generation Trailblazers program, which provides mentorship and scholarship support to first-generation college students. The program pairs 25 upper-

By Cassady Brockman 

LEXINGTON, Ky. -- Large-scale tourism can benefit a region economically but have many negative effects on the destination’s people and environment.  

University of Kentucky College of Arts and Sciences student Abbey McNely is researching the impact on tourism in Bali, Indonesia, with Betsy Beymer-Farris, Ph.D., assistant professor of geography at UK, and Jeffrey Seay, Ph.D, professor of chemical engineering at UK’s Paducah campus. This project began two years ago and pushed her into the world of research.  

“Essentially what I’m doing is examining the economic, social and environmental impacts of tourism in Bali, Indonesia, and examining ways you can mitigate the disparities that tourism causes in indigenous populations,” McNely said.  

McNely, a Lexington native,

By Richard LeComte 

LEXINGTON, Ky. -- “Hydrocarbon Biofuels” will not top the New York Times’ best-seller list for nonfiction books, but for Great C. Umenweke, it’s quite an opportunity, and one that could help humans turn waste into renewable energy. 

Umenweke, a doctoral candidate in chemistry in the University of Kentucky’s College of Arts and Sciences, has published the primer along with his adviser, Eduardo Santillan-Jimenez, Ph.D., adjunct assistant professor of chemistry and associate director of UK’s Center for Applied Energy Research. The e-book is published by the American Chemical Society (ACS) as part of its In Focus series of digital primers.  

By Ariel Arthur 

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Feb. 11, 2025) — The University of Kentucky’s Students Participating as Ambassadors for Research in Kentucky (SPARK) Program has named its 2025 cohort.

Now in its sixth year, the SPARK program trains undergraduate students from a broad range of backgrounds, experiences and communities to conduct research on health disparities.

Students interested in the joining the program go through a rigorous application process. Accepted students complete a semester-long health disparities research course.

SPARK has supported 23 students since its inception. The 2025 students are: 

By Haven L. Patrick 

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Feb. 10, 2025) — Thirteen University of Kentucky undergraduate researchers will present their work at the 23rd annual Posters-at-the-Capitol on March 6. The event will feature research topics including community health, agricultural sustainability, renewable energy and public health and safety.

Posters-at-the-Capitol is hosted collaboratively by the University of Kentucky, Eastern Kentucky University, Kentucky Community and Technical College System, Kentucky State University, Morehead State University, Murray State University, Northern Kentucky University, University of Louisville and Western Kentucky University to showcase the experience of undergraduate students engaged in research through high-quality poster

By Beckman Foundation 

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Feb. 10, 2025) — Before Hena Kachroo had enrolled at the University of Kentucky, she had a model for what it meant to feel valued in a community. Growing up, she’d attended cultural events among the Indian community in Lexington, where her family’s culture, traditions and classical dance had created in her a sense of belonging and network of support.

The primary contributors to Kachroo’s decision to apply to the Beckman Scholars Program, which provides 15-month mentored research experiences to exceptional students in

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Feb. 7, 2025) — Anastasia Todd, assistant professor of gender and women’s studies in the University of Kentucky College of Arts and Sciences, will give the inaugural Gaines Lecture for Outstanding Research in the Humanities. 

The Gaines Lecture for Outstanding Research in the Humanities spotlights groundbreaking work related to the Gaines Center’s annual theme, which for 2024-2025 is Health and the Humanities. 

“There’s so much amazing research happening in the humanities at UK and we wanted to recognize these achievements,” said Michelle Sizemore, Ph.D., director of the Gaines Center. “The lecture provides an important opportunity to showcase this work and to

By Allison Jones 

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Feb. 5, 2025) — The University of Kentucky Appalachian Center is showcasing work of student and faculty researchers through its Sharing Work on Appalachia in Progress (SWAP) series.

Many of the presenters are recipients of the 2024 James S. Brown Graduate Student Award for Research on Appalachia and the UK Appalachian Center Eller & Billings Student Research Award.

The series will also highlight other scholars and students sharing their research. The presenters range from students at UK to international researchers.

The presentations will be noon-1:30

By Tom Musgrave 

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Feb. 5, 2025) — Olivia Walton, a junior from Bardstown, Kentucky, has received an English-Speaking Union Scholarship.

The English-Speaking Union of the United States is a nonprofit, nonpolitical, educational service organization that promotes scholarship  through the effective use of English in an expanding global community. The Kentucky branch of the English-Speaking Union awards scholarships for juniors to take summer courses offered at three institutions in the United Kingdom: Cambridge, Oxford and Edinburgh universities.

The scholarship covers all

By Allison Jones

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Feb. 3, 2025) — The University of Kentucky Appalachian Center will continue AppalachiaCorps, a student internship program, for Summer 2025.

AppalachiaCorps pairs students with experiential learning experiences in Eastern Kentucky and the greater Appalachian region. The internship offers students the opportunity to network and prepare for future careers.

The internship covers up to 16 hours a week for up to 16 weeks during the summer, with flexible duration and hours. Students can also complete academic credit with the internship.

The program is currently accepting student inquiries

By Cassady Brockman 

LEXINGTON, Ky. -- On certain afternoons, Alani Moore, a University of Kentucky sophomore neuroscience major from Atlanta, can be seen playing the grand piano in the atrium at the UK HealthCare Pavilion A through the Arts in HealthCare program.  

Moore, a Lunsford Scholar, once was a music performance minor. Despite dropping the minor, she is still passionate about music, and through UK Arts she gets to combine her interests in music and science by playing the piano for patients and visitors.  

“I’ve been playing (piano) for as long as I can remember,” she said. “I grew up playing in my church, so I definitely knew that (music) was something I wanted to take with me to college. The UK

By Lindsey Piercy 

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Feb. 3, 2025) — Three writers and educators with ties to the University of Kentucky will be inducted into the Kentucky Writers Hall of Fame.

The Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning has chosen Frank X Walker and Crystal Wilkinson — both professors of English and African American and Africana Studies in the College of Arts and Sciences — as two of this year’s four living inductees.

“I

By Ryan Girves 

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Jan. 31, 2025) – This February, the University of Kentucky Martin Luther King Center, along with partners across campus, will celebrate Black History Month with a series of events and programs throughout the month. The events are open to the UK community and the public.

Jasmine Prince, associate director of the MLK Center, says this year’s theme is “Black Hands, Bold Futures: The Power of Labor, Innovation and Advocacy.”

“The last two years our committee has built the theme in alignment with the national theme for the month that is selected by the Association for the Study of African American Life and History,” Prince said. “The national

LEXINGTON, Ky. -- The University of Kentucky’s Creative Writing Division in the English Department in the College of Arts and Sciences will host two nationally recognized writers as part of the UK Visiting Writers Series this spring semester.

The first event will be at 6 p.m. Wednesday, Feb.19, at the Singletary Center for the Arts Recital Hall. The featured reader is Kiese Laymon. The event is free and open to the public.

Laymon is the Libbie Shearn Moody Professor of English and Creative Writing at Rice University. Laymon is the author of "Long Division," which won the 2022 NAACP Image Award for fiction, and the essay collection "How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America," named a notable book of 2021 by the New York Times.

Laymon’s bestselling "Heavy: An American Memoir," won the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence

By Lindsay Travis 

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Jan. 27, 2025) — Research conducted by an international team led by biologists at the University of Kentucky has found that the ability to regenerate complex tissue may be more widespread in mammals than previously thought — an important step toward figuring out why many most mammals, and humans in particular, have poor regenerative ability.  

Vertebrate regeneration is most commonly found in reptiles, amphibians and fish. In mammals it’s usually a limited ability:  deer regrowing antlers in the late spring or mice regrowing lost digit tips.

This latest study builds upon previous work using spiny mice by Ashley W. Seifert, Ph.D., a professor in the

By Beckman Foundation 

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Jan. 24, 2025) — Growing up in Lexington, Kaitlyn Brock’s earliest exposure to research came from her stepmom, who was a student at the University of Kentucky participating in biology research. Now Brock and one of her four younger siblings attend UK. 

In 2022, the University of Kentucky was named a Beckman Scholars Program awardee. As one of just 14 institutions to receive the award, UK received funding support six scholar-mentor pairs over a three-year period. The Beckman Scholars Program provides

By Amy Jones-Timoney 

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Jan. 23, 2025) — Not every University of Kentucky student takes the same path to success. Some start as recent high school graduates, but many others decide to attend college at different times of their lives. 

Deidra White decided to attend community college at the age of 37. After earning her associate’s degree at Bluegrass Community and Technical College, she jumped at the chance to enroll in in the undergraduate English program at UK. 

Last spring, White crossed the

By Richard LeComte 

LEXINGTON, Ky. --- Eight University of Kentucky undergraduates will present papers at the annual Southeast Conference of the Association for Asian Studies, which will be held from Friday, Jan. 24, to Sunday, Jan. 26, on the UK campus. 

The students will present at 9 and 10:45 a.m. Jan. 26 at the Gatton Student Center. UK’s Global Asias Program is sponsoring two panels. A faculty member mentors each student. 

The panels are: 

Global Asias and Asian Film: 9 a.m.   

Chair: Akiko Takenaka, professor of history and director of the Global Asias Program.  

Discussant: Michelle Sizemore, associate professor of English and director of the Gaines Center for the Humanities.