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

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

By Jenny Wells, Rebecca Freeman

By Whitney Harder

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

By Whitney Hale

This year's selection of a dozen UK students and alumni for NSF Graduate Research Fellowships is believed to be the largest in the school's history and is four times the number of selections for 2015. To put more of emphasis on the fellowship

By Ashley Cox

Frank R. Ettensohn, Jefferson Science Fellow, College of Arts and Sciences Distinguished Professor, and professor of geology in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Kentucky, was one of the eight geologists and nine geographers recently elected as an American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Fellow. The prestigious honor recognizes Ettensohn for his extraordinary achievements, dedication and commitment to science.

AAAS was founded in 1848, with the mission to “advance science and serve society” through initiatives in science policy, career development,

By Alicia Gregory

Video by REVEAL Research Media

(Feb. 22, 2016) — Recruiting and retaining outstanding faculty is an integral part of the mission of the University of Kentucky’s Research Challenge Trust Fund, and each year the university highlights four outstanding endowed chairs and professors. This year’s annual report, approved by the UK Board of Trustees Feb. 19, featured Dave Moecher, Earth and Environmental Sciences Alumni Professor.

Moecher is chair of the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences in the UK College of Arts and Sciences. “I work on the history

By Mike Lynch

(Feb. 22, 2016) — On a sunny February afternoon, landslide researcher Matt Crawford brushes snow off the solar panels that charge batteries for a landslide monitoring site in the Daniel Boone National Forest. He connects his laptop to a data-logger below the solar panel to download information gathered by instruments since his last visit a month ago. This site on a wooded slope in Pulaski County has turned out to be a good one for the research by Crawford, who works at the Kentucky Geological Survey (KGS) on the University of Kentucky campus. 

“It’s adjacent to a known landslide that has caused damage to several homes,” he said. “It’s accessible from the Forest Service road, and it’s not too steep. We can walk around the site and get work done.”

The monitoring site, on a slope above Lake Cumberland, is representative

By Dave Melanson

(Dec. 16, 2015) — When Jim Hower published papers in the late 1990s and early 2000s about rare earth concentrations at Kentucky coal mines, it was almost as a novelty. Hower, a petrologist at the University of Kentucky Center for Applied Energy Research (CAER), thought discovering a high concentration of rare earth elements in coal seams in southern and eastern Kentucky was interesting, no doubt, but he didn't think it would amount to much in terms of research

By Carl Nathe

(Feb. 17, 2016) — The University of Kentucky chapter of the Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi will celebrate its seventh birthday in April. Since receiving its official charter, the chapter has seen nine individuals from UK earn scholarship and fellowship awards from the national office, which each year distributes more than $500,000 to outstanding students, Phi Kappa Phi members and chapters.

"The UK Chapter of Phi Kappa Phi (PKP) is pleased to again announce a series of grants available through the Phi Kappa Phi Honor Society," said Frank Ettensohn,

By Whitney Harder

(Feb. 8, 2016) — A new partnership between the University of Kentucky Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences (EES) in the College of Arts and Sciences, UK College of Education and STEAM Academy will prepare a diverse population of high school students for careers in geosciences. The program is being funded by a $300,000 grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) and is expected to begin fall 2016.

"Many high school students don't realize they can make a living studying rocks, and that it's not just rocks — we study water resources, energy, natural hazards, environmental issues and even focus on community planning," said

By Bryant Welbourne

(Sept. 14, 2015) — Twenty-eight students representing each Southeastern Conference university will study abroad during the 2015-16 academic year, the result of a contribution to the league by Dr Pepper. The longtime SEC corporate sponsor allocated $100,000 to the conference to provide study abroad opportunities for high achieving SEC students with demonstrated financial need who represent nontraditional study abroad participants.

 Two students from each university are recipients. From the University of Kentucky, Adam Creamer, an environmental science major, will travel to Costa Rica, and Rockia Harris, a gender

Kent Ratajeski, a geologist and professor of earth and environmental science at the University of Kentucky, was mentioned in an article on earthmagazine.com. Alongside another geologist, Ratajeski created the map, “The United States According to Geologists.” To view the full story, visit http://www.earthmagazine.org/article/hazardous-living-maps-according-geologists. 

By Carl Nathe

(Aug. 26, 2015) — "For a chapter which did not even exist six-and-a-half years ago, we're doing pretty well."

That quote about the University of Kentucky Phi Kappa Phi (PKP) Chapter from chapter President  Frank Ettensohn, professor of earth and environmental sciences and Jefferson Science Fellow, is best described as an understatement. Chartered in April 2009, the UK chapter of the nation's oldest, largest and most selective collegiate honor society for all academic disciplines is doing more than 'pretty well.'

In its brief history, UK's PKP chapter has been selected as a 'Chapter of Excellence' by national headquarters in two separate years

By Sarah Schuetze

“It’s too far away,” agree Madison Hood and Jim Hower when the question arises about Hood’s plans to pursue a Ph.D.. After all, Hood just graduated from high school.

And yet the question is not that abstract considering Hood is sometimes mistaken for a graduate student because of her contributions to the research directed by Professor Jim Hower of UK’s Center for Applied Energy Research (CAER) and the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences.

Hood has been working in Hower’s lab at UK for close to two years, studying samples of fly ash from coal power plants and coal fire emissions. In the time that Hood has been in the lab, she has given talks at four professional

By Mike Lynch

(June 8, 2015) — The Kentucky Geological Survey (KGS) at the University of Kentucky is working to install two new networks across the state to gather important data on low-level seismicity and the state’s groundwater levels.

KGS Geologic Hazards Section staff have installed the first two of at least 15 highly sensitive seismic stations in eastern Kentucky. Both of these new stations, one in Boyd County and one in Lawrence County, were installed on private property in relatively remote and quiet locations. These new instruments, along with others in the network, will help monitor the background level of natural earthquakes too small for current instruments in the existing KGS seismic network to detect. Seismologist Seth Carpenter, who leads the project, says he hopes to determine if

by Rebecca Freeman

Director of Undergraduate Studies, EES

As competition for graduate school admission increases, we have come to realize that it is increasingly important for our top undergraduates in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences to have research experience before they graduate. With the generous (and we hope, ongoing) support of our alumni we have recently awarded the first round of the “Alumni Undergraduate Research Fellowships.” We hope to be able to award at least one or two every semester and summer session.

Even before the launch of this new internally-funded program, our undergraduates have been busy in the lab and in the field.

Sean Bemis’ NSF-funded research group has incorporated

By Sarah Schuetze

They conduct lab research and teach classes, but they are neither faculty nor graduate students. Postdoctoral scholars, or postdocs, serve an important role at UK, a research institution. However, they are scattered across various departments and have not always had an opportunity to meet and share their work.

Professor Susan Odom in Chemistry said, “Most postdocs don’t have any kind of formal gatherings that are specifically targeted toward them.“ In 2014, Odom collaborated with Matt Casselman, a postdoc in Chemistry, to organize UK’s Society of Postdoctoral Scholars (SOPS). SOPS offers weekly activities like professional development workshops or research presentations.  

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