News
By Gail Hairston
UK geology senior Adam Nolte explains his research on sinkholes in Woodford County to President Capilouto.
The University of Kentucky was represented by 16 undergraduate students and their 14 research projects at the 17th annual Posters-at-the-Capitol event last week at the Kentucky State Capitol in Frankfort.
Posters-at-the-Capitol is an annual event that showcases undergraduate researchers representing colleges and universities throughout Kentucky. The annual collaborative event was created to educate Kentucky state legislators of the importance of undergraduate research and scholarly work.
Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin, members of the General Assembly, representatives from students' hometowns and other guests toured the exhibitions and engaged directly with some of the state’s best young scholars.
The mission of
by Susan Odom
Kentucky’s middle school girls and their parents/guardians are invited to join us for the second annual Expanding Your Horizons Conference at the University of Kentucky campus on Saturday, April 21, 2018. This day of hands-on workshops will give middle school girls the chance to meet STEM role models and get exposure to opportunities in science, technology, engineering, and math. This is the second iteration of the conference, which is organized by members of the Colleges of Agriculture, Food, and Environment, the College of Arts & Sciences, and the College of Engineering.
Co-organizers, including Ellen Crocker (Forestry and Natural Resources) and Carmen Agouridis (Biosystems & Ag Engineering), joined forces to bring Expanding Your Horizons back to UK for a second time. The EYH team is back with more person – in particular, woman! – power than
By Tatyanna Pruitt
Frank Ettensohn, professor in the University of Kentucky Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, has received the Grover E. Murray Memorial Distinguished Educator Award for 2018 from the American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG), an international association of petroleum geologists. The award is given in recognition of distinguished and outstanding contributions to geological education.
“This award has been given to some very prestigious educator/geoscientists. It is a veritable who’s who of geoscientists in the field of sedimentary geology,” said Dave Moecher, chair of the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences in the College of Arts and Sciences. “Dr. Ettensohn has contributed significantly to the field and is definitely deserving of this recognition.”
Ettensohn
By Amaya DeVicente
Last year, 18 percent of the University of Kentucky graduating class graduated with global experience. The university’s International Center has taken steps to increase that percentage.
The UK International Center’s Education Abroad and Exchanges program (UK EA) recently announced a new 2018-19 scholarship and program fee reduction initiative for selected UK exchange partners around the world, ranging from $1,000-$5,000.
UK students who participate in an exchange program have the opportunity to fully immerse themselves in the language and culture of a host university, city and country. They enroll in courses at the host institution for either a semester or an academic year and earn transfer credit, while still paying their regular tuition to UK.
Nicole Funk, a junior from
By Gail Hairston
(Left to right) Dan Reedy, Karl Raitz, Dean Mark Kornbluh, Martha Rolingson, Charles Grizzle and Tom Spalding.
The University of Kentucky College of Arts and Sciences celebrated its Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony on Friday, Oct. 6, at the Don & Cathy Jacobs Science Building.
This year's Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony and Reception honored alumni Charlie Grizzle, Martha Rolingson and Tom Spalding, and College of Arts and Sciences faculty members Karl B. Raitz and Daniel R. Reedy. For more about each honoree, see their brief biographies below.
Alumni Inductees
Charlie Grizzle, English, bachelor’s degree, 1973
Charles "Charlie" L. Grizzle, a native of Argillite, Kentucky, in Greenup County, earned his bachelor
By Michael Lynch
Young visitors to the 2016 open house enjoy a virtual sandbox, provided by the UK Department of Mining Engineering.
Earth Science Week will be observed nationwide Oct. 8-14, and the Kentucky Geological Survey (KGS) at the University of Kentucky will again promote the appreciation of earth sciences with an open house.
Students, parents, teachers and others are invited to demonstrations and displays on a variety of natural science topics at the KGS open house. This year’s free public event is set for 6-8 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 11, at the Mining and Mineral Resources Building, located at 504 Rose St. on the UK campus.
KGS scientists set up
By Dave Melanson
The University of Kentucky Center for Applied Energy Research (UK CAER) received yet another federal grant to broaden its burgeoning rare earth element (REE) research and development portfolio.
Funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, the $1.5 million project is titled “Rare-Earth Elements in US Coal-Based Resources: Sampling, Characterizations, and Round-Robin Inter-laboratory Study.” The grant represents a collaborative effort between the University of North Dakota’s Energy and Environmental Research Center (EERC), UK CAER and the Kentucky Geological Survey.
As part of the project, UK CAER will collect samples from four regions across Appalachia to determine the concentration of rare earth elements in those coalfields. The sites include: Pennsylvania anthracite; Castleman Basin, Maryland to
By Carol Lea Spence
Water, essential to health, to the economy and to the sustainability of the environment, can be impacted by any number of things, not the least is the climate. The University of Kentucky’s Water Week 2017, a week of films, panel discussions, invited speakers and service activities, will examine climate change impacts on water quality.
A Project WET certification workshop aimed at K-12 teachers, cooperative extension agents and students who are studying to become teachers will kick off the week on Saturday, Oct. 7, at Raven Run Nature Sanctuary in Lexington.
"Fostering Dialogue and Collaboration on Climate Change," a symposium built
By Kristie Colon
The University of Kentucky’s Igniting Research Collaborations (IRC) grant program has awarded nearly $300,000 in pilot grants to support cross-college interdisciplinary research and scholarship.
IRC seeks to increase interdisciplinary scientific engagement and leverage the breadth of expertise across campus to tackle important health problems in the Commonwealth. UK is one of eight universities in the nation with the full range of undergraduate, graduate, professional, medical and agricultural programs on one campus, which creates distinct opportunities for collaborative research.
"Programs like the IRC give us the opportunity to drive discovery and find creative solutions to complex problems in Kentucky," said Linda Dwoskin, associate dean of research at the UK College of Pharmacy. "Ultimately, we’re transforming patient-centered care by
By Lori Minter
The University of Kentucky has released its Dean's List for the spring 2017 semester. A total of 6,412 students were recognized for their outstanding academic performance.
To make a Dean’s List in one of the UK colleges, a student must earn a grade point average of 3.6 or higher and must have earned 12 credits or more in that semester, excluding credits earned in pass-fail classes. Some UK colleges require a 3.5 GPA to make the Dean’s List.
The full Dean's List can be accessed by visiting: www.uky.edu/PR/News/DeansList/.
UK is the University for Kentucky. At UK, we are educating more students, treating more patients with complex illnesses and conducting more research and service than at any time in our 150-year history. To read more about the UK story and how
By Jenny Wells and Dave Melanson
The University of Kentucky has received two of three U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) grants for its promising work in the emerging field of rare earth element (REE) research.
DOE’s Office of Fossil Energy recently announced that the three projects have been selected to receive approximately $3 million for research aimed at producing salable rare earth elements from domestic coal and coal by-products. UK’s Department of Mining Engineering is a partner on one of those projects while UK’s Center for Applied Energy Research (CAER) is a partner on another project.
REEs are a series of 17 chemical elements found in the
By Gail Hairston
The last event of the University of Kentucky College of Arts and Sciences’ Civil Life Panel Series’ spring season is slated noon to 1 p.m. Wednesday, April 19, with two follow-up panel discussions later the same day. The topic is “Science Speaks.”
Allan Butterfield, Alumni Association Endowed Professor of Biological Chemistry; Andrea Erhardt, assistant professor of earth and environmental sciences; Bruce Webb, professor of entomology; and David Weisrock, associate professor of biology, will gather for a lively discussion at noon in the UK Athletics Auditorium of the William T. Young Library.
They will discuss what it means
By Jenny Wells
Lithospheric magnetic field. Video courtesy of European Space Agency (ESA)
A University of Kentucky geophysicist is helping an international team of scientists reveal dramatic new information about the Earth’s magnetic field.
Two years ago, Dhananjay Ravat, who is a professor in the UK Departments of Earth and Environmental Sciences and Physics and Astronomy, was asked by the leader of the Swarm Satellite Constellation Application and Research Facility of the European Space Agency (ESA) to collaborate with their team to create a map of the magnetic features of the Earth’s lithosphere. Ravat, who has worked on geophysical data from several space missions around the Earth, Mars and the moon, was intrigued by the Swarm project, and his
By Lori Minter
A record number of students made the University of Kentucky Dean's List for the fall 2016 semester. The 7,408 students were recognized for their outstanding academic performance. That's an increase of more than 200 over the previous record reached in fall 2015 when the number of students on the UK Dean's List surpassed 7,000 for the first time. Last semester's Dean's List includes over 700 more students than the spring 2016 semester's list.
To make a Dean’s List in one of the UK colleges, a student must earn a grade point average of 3.6 or higher and must have earned 12 credits or more in that semester, excluding credits earned in pass-fail classes. Some UK colleges require a 3.5 GPA to make the Dean’s List.
The full Dean's List can be accessed by visiting www.uky.edu/PR/News/
By Jordyn Comitor
The University of Kentucky Debate Team had a strong first semester of their 2016-2017 season, led by the exceptionally strong freshmen team of Dan Bannister and Anthony Trufanov.
Their season started at the Georgia State University tournament where, for the fourth year in a row, the team made it to the Sweet 16 round of competition: a recurring achievement for the team this semester. Out of the 105 teams there, the team of Theo Noparstak and Holmes Hampton finished as the 17th overall seed and the team of Bannister and Trufanov finished as the 12th overall seed.
Bannister, a political science major from Saint Paul, Minnesota, was the 19th overall speaker in the Georgia State competition and the only freshman to make it into the top 20 speakers. Additionally
By Jenny Wells, Rebecca Freeman
Alan Fryar, an associate professor in the University of Kentucky Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences (EES), received the 2016 International Association of Hydrogeologists, U.S. National Chapter International Service Award at the recent national meeting of the Geological Society of America in Denver, Colorado. Fryar studies water quality, particularly water in the ground used for drinking water. Groundwater is the largest source of unfrozen fresh water on Earth, but access to sufficient amounts of clean water is a challenge in developing countries. The International Service Award honored Fryar's 15 years of working on this problem with students and scientists in Africa and Asia, including developing a program to train graduate students from these regions. “Alan is not only an educatorBy 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 are foundering,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 subsidiary of the