By Richard LeComte 

LEXINGTON, Ky. – Usually one part of a semester is sure to bring happiness to students: the end. But in one University of Kentucky College of Arts & Sciences class, students are learning tools – backed by real science -- that will help them cultivate happiness throughout their academic year and even beyond. In fact, the class’s professor, Shannon Sauer-Zavala, wants her students to use the course material to find their own happy places.  

“I feel like every single thing that we learned about in my class, I have been trying to attempt in my own life,” said Sohayla Elhusseini, a senior psychology major from Lexington who’s taking the class this spring. “That’s definitely encouraged by Shannon as well.” 

The class where 

By Stephanie Penn | Office of U.S. Senator Mitch McConnell

LEXINGTON, Ky. (April 28, 2021) — University of Kentucky alumna Tiffany Ge was promoted to legislative director of the personal office of U.S. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) in Washington, D.C. Ge, from Louisville, Kentucky, joined the senator’s office in 2017 as legal counsel and manages an extensive legislative portfolio. 

As legislative director, Ge will oversee all Kentucky-focused legislative matters for the senator and manage the policy staff. She will continue to serve as legal counsel and handle the Judiciary and Law Enforcement policy portfolios. She will be a key link with the senator’s leadership office and communicate daily with Kentuckians.

“Tiffany is a key

By Emily Sallee

LEXINGTON, Ky. (April 29, 2021) — The University of Kentucky Office of Nationally Competitive Awards has announced that two Wildcats have been awarded Critical Language Scholarships, which provide funding to participate in intensive language and cultural immersion programs for American students enrolled at U.S. colleges and universities.

Mihir Kale, a political science major, Chellgren Fellow and member of the Lewis Honors College, will study Swahili virtually through the MS Training

By Lindsey Piercy

LEXINGTON, Ky. (April 29, 2021) — In an effort to foster productive dialogue about antisemitism, the University of Kentucky’s Fraternity and Sorority Life, the Kentucky Interfraternity Council (IFC) and Kentucky Hillel hosted an educational event on Tuesday.

The presentation titled, “Antisemitism Past and Present,” was led by led by Jason Horowitz, director of Heritage Education and Partnership at Zeta Beta Tau (ZBT) — a historically Jewish fraternity.

ZBT was founded in 1898 at the City College of New York. During that time, Jewish people

By Lindsey Piercy

LEXINGTON, Ky. (April 29, 2021) — Luke Glaser was once a struggling math student. Academically, he often excelled. But learning polynomials, as well as quadratic equations and functions, just didn’t seem applicable to his life as a high school teenager.

“I hated math, and I took AP classes to simply not have to take math in college.”

But 10 years later, in one of life’s little ironies, Glaser finds himself at the head of the classroom teaching AP Calculus.

“The biggest challenge wasn’t going to be re-learning integrals or derivatives but convincing students that taking the hard classes are worth it.”

As the AP instructor at Hazard High School, Glaser understands his seniors are facing an exhilarating but daunting decision — where to go to college.

By Danielle Donham and University Press of Kentucky

LEXINGTON, Ky. (April 28, 2021) — Kentucky restaurateur and University of Kentucky alumna Ouita Michel has released her first cookbook, “Just a Few Miles South: Timeless Recipes from Our Favorite Places,” stuffed with recipes celebrating the Bluegrass, just in time for the Kentucky Derby.

Witten by Michel, Sara Gibbs and Genie Graf with a foreword by Silas House, the collection features  recipes from the cuisine that Michel is known for. For 20 years, diners have satisfied their cravings for Michel's sustainable, farm-to-table cuisine at her restaurants. 

At each of

By Whitney Hale

LEXINGTON, Ky. (April 26, 2021) —The University of Kentucky Office of Nationally Competitive Awards has announced Madeline Williams has received a Fulbright Canada-MITACS Globalink Research Internship. Through this highly competitive opportunity, she will undertake advanced research projects virtually for 10 to 12 weeks.

Williams, a sociology and political science junior in UK College of Arts &Sciences and member of Lewis Honors

By Interim Dean Christian Brady

This week brought news of a tragic accident that took from the University of Kentucky family a brilliant young scholar. Dr. Susan Odom, Associate Professor of Chemistry, died April 18, 2021 in her home. A native of Paducah, Kentucky, Susan had a passion for science from an early age. She graduated from the University of Kentucky with a BS in Chemistry in 2003, earned her PhD from Georgia Tech, having been a visiting graduate student at the University of Oxford, and was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Susan joined our faculty in 2011, becoming an associate professor in 2017. She quickly became a favorite among students, winning the “Teacher Who Made a Difference” award in 2012, 2013, 2016, and 2017

By Whitney Hale

LEXINGTON, Ky. (April 22, 2021) — Two University of Kentucky students, Jacob Concolino and Benjamin Cortas, have been selected to receive Research Internships in Science and Engineering (RISE) from the German Academic Exchange Service (Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst – DAAD).

DAAD's RISE is a summer internship program for undergraduate students from the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom in the fields of biology, chemistry, physics, earth sciences and engineering. The internships give each student an opportunity to do research with one of Germany's top universities or research institutions. Around 300 students participate each summer.

Benjamin Cortas

By C. Lynn Hiler and Savina Williams

LEXINGTON, Ky. (April 21, 2021) — The University of Kentucky Nu Circle of national leadership honor society Omicron Delta Kappa (ODK) inducted 71 new members at a virtual ceremony Tuesday, April 13, 2021. ODK recognizes superior leadership and exemplary character and encourages collaboration among members across the five phases celebrated by the society: scholarship, athletics, service, communications and arts.

The Circle was established  May 2, 1925, and was recognized with a Superior Circle award from the national organization in 2018.

“Being able to serve as the president of the Nu Circle of ODK has been

By Richard LeComte 

LEXINGTON, Ky. – Laws originally designed to protect family farm owners from frivolous lawsuits have, in some states, grown in scope to protect the practices of industrial agriculture – a phenomenon that’s drawn the interest of UK researcher Loka Ashwood. 

"Originally these laws were a way to get agricultural exemptions to nuisance suits,” said Ashwood, assistant professor of environmental sociology in UK’s College of Arts & Sciences. “These nuisance suits are fundamentally about, OK, if somebody infringes upon my right to enjoy or use my property, technically I or my local government can file a nuisance suit. But right now, right to farm laws are about curbing the ability of real people and local government

By Richard LeComte 

Shui-yin Sharon Yam, associate professor of Writing, Rhetoric, and Digital Studies and Gender and Women's Studies in the College of Arts & Sciences, has received the Outstanding Book Award from the Conference on College Composition and Communication.  

Her book, "Inconvenient Strangers: Transnational Subjects and the Politics of Citizenship," was honored at the virtual convention in April. 

The book, which the Ohio State University Press published in 2019, discusses how networks of power, particularly race and ethnicity, gender, and social class, marginalize

By Julie Wrinn

Graduate students in political science are well aware of the importance of fieldwork for their dissertation research, but for Helen Kras (Ph.D. 2021, M.A. 2020), fieldwork also became a deciding factor in her academic job search.

“Every university I had interviews with asked about fieldwork and stated they would be interested in having me teach about fieldwork in methods classes,” she said.

Kras is completing her dissertation on public opinion and gender-based violence in Latin America. In fall 2021, she will join Regis University in Denver as a tenure-track assistant professor of political science. To relieve the financial burden of research travel, private support made all the difference for Kras.

“Through the Ken and Mary Sue Coleman Award and the Research and Travel Award, I was able to conduct fieldwork in Brazil and El Salvador,” she

By Lindsey Piercy

LEXINGTON, Ky. (April 19, 2021) — The Department of Anthropology in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Kentucky has been awarded a major grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) to help preserve Kentucky’s cultural history.

The Save America’s Treasures (SAT) grant, totaling more than $445,000, will be used to improve the environmental conditions of the approximately 10,000-square-foot collections storage area of the 

By Whitney Hale

LEXINGTON, Ky. (April 19, 2021) — The University of Kentucky Office of Nationally Competitive Awards has announced that three Wildcats — biology students Kayli Bolton, Zoe Hert and Carly Karrick — have been awarded a Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship. The UK students are among 410 students nationwide selected to receive the 2021-22 Goldwater Scholarship.

This year's Goldwater Scholars were selected based on academic merit from a field of 1,256 math, science and engineering students who were nominated by the faculties of 438 of the nation's colleges and universities.

The Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship

By Mallory Olson

LEXINGTON, Ky. (April 15, 2021) — Numbers are kind of Katherine Thompson’s thing.

“I think it runs in my blood,” Thompson said. “My mom taught high school math and AP statistics, so math was a natural progression when I started thinking about college and what field I wanted to pursue.”

Now an associate professor in the University of Kentucky’s Dr. Bing Zhang Department of Statistics, she had actually visited the University of Kentucky during her spring break at 16 years old to meet with Arny Stromberg, Ph.D., the Allen-Anderson Endowed Professor of Statistics, who was then an associate professor in the department.

“Dr. Stromberg is one of my greatest mentors,” she said. “He was so thoughtful during that trip

By Vice President for Research Lisa Cassis

We are pleased to announce that Dr. Chad Risko has accepted our offer to be the new Faculty Director of the Office of Undergraduate Research.  Dr. Risko is an Associate Professor in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Kentucky (UK).

He received his PhD at the Georgia Institute of Technology under the direction of Professor Jean-Luc Brédas, undertook postdoctoral research with Professors Mark Ratner and Tobin Marks at Northwestern University and has been at UK since 2014.

Dr. Risko’s research blends principles from organic and physical chemistry, condensed-matter physics, and materials science to develop theoretical materials chemistry approaches to better understand and design materials for advanced electronics and

By Jenny Wells-Hosley

LEXINGTON, Ky. (April 13, 2021) — For Sydney Clark, every day presents challenges. She was born with a genetic condition that resulted in vision loss over time.

By the time she was a teenager, she was almost completely blind. 

“Accessibility is always an issue,” Clark said. “I've never had an experience where accessibility wasn't an issue."

But Clark never allowed her disability to stop her from achieving her goals. And one of those goals was to attend the University of Kentucky.

The transition from high school to college can be challenging for any new student, but when Clark came to UK as a freshman in 2014, the Frankfort, Kentucky, native found herself facing more challenges than she was used to.

“I started reading Braille in class from

By Aimee Nielson

LEXINGTON, Ky. (March 30, 2021) — When Quentin Tyler was a student in the University of Kentucky College of Agriculture, Food and Environment, he often found himself in Professor Lionel Williamson’s office.

“I just stopped to say hello, but when I looked at my watch, sometimes three hours had passed,” Tyler said. “He was so knowledgeable, and he taught me many life lessons. I’m forever grateful for him.”

Williamson was just one of Tyler’s mentors at UK that steered him onto his current career path and impacted his philosophy on leadership. After graduation, Tyler remained at UK, first as an extension associate for recruitment and retention. Later, he directed the college’s Office of Diversity as assistant dean. In 2018, Tyler became

By Lindsey Piercy

LEXINGTON, Ky. (April 8, 2021) — Amy Murrell Taylor, the T. Marshall Hahn Jr. Professor of History at the University of Kentucky, is serving as the 2020-21 College of Arts and Sciences’ Distinguished Professor and will deliver the annual Distinguished Professor Lecture next week.

"My colleagues across the College of Arts and Sciences have inspired me in so many ways,” Murrell Taylor said. “To have them recognize me with a distinguished professorship is deeply humbling — and an honor I will cherish for the rest of my career."

The lecture, titled