By Whitney Hale

Viet Thanh Nguyen. Photo by Matt Meindl.

The University of Kentucky’s Gaines Center for the Humanities and Department of English’s MFA in Creative Writing will welcome to campus 2017 MacArthur Foundation "Genius" Grant recipient and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Viet Thanh Nguyen. “An Evening with Viet Thanh Nguyen,” this year’s Bale Boone Symposium in the Humanities, will begin 7 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 25, at the Singletary Center for the Arts Recital Hall. This program is free and open to the public.  

By Whitney Hale

Two weeks from today, a new play by Raegan Payne will have its world premiere in Lexington with four performances running Nov. 2-4, at the Farish Theater at Lexington Public Library's central location in downtown Lexington. “Timeless” is a dark sci-fi comedy in which four scientists have discovered the fountain of youth in a new stem cell procedure. In one night they question history, women’s place in science and the value of time as they wrestle with the fate of an overcrowded Earth.

“Timeless” won the biennial Prize for Women Playwrights from the Kentucky Women Writers Conference, chosen by internationally renowned playwright Martyna Majok. Independently produced

By Nate Harling

University of Kentucky linguistics professors Rusty Barrett and Andrew Hippisley have been recognized as Fellows of the Linguistic Society of America (LSA).

The LSA is the nation’s largest organization dedicated to the advancement of linguistics, the scientific study of language. Since 2006, it has named a new class of fellows every year to recognize, in their words, “distinguished contributions to the discipline.”

Barrett and Hippisley find themselves in a select group, as they make up part of a class of only eight fellows, and in elite company with fellows from previous years, including Steven Pinker and Noam Chomsky, both extremely influential figures within the linguistics community and well-respected intellectuals across a number of academic fields.

In 2006, Rusty Barrett, an associate professor in the linguistics department, joined

Associate Prof. of Chemistry Beth Guiton has been appointed to the  Editorial Advisory Board of the Journal of Physical Chemistry for a two year term, beginning January 2018. Guiton's research interests focus on inorganic nanomaterials and in-situ transmission electron microscopy. The Guiton Research Group investigates chemistry at the nanometer length scale, working at the intersection between solid state chemistry and advanced characterization, in particular using in situ microscopy techniques.

For more information about the Guiton Research Group please visit the Guiton Group website.

Guiton received her bachelor's degree from the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom and her master's from Harvard University, followed by a

By Jenny Wells

This weekend, the University of Kentucky Department of Biology will host the second annual BioBonanza, a one-day open house festival, from noon to 4 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 14, at the Don & Cathy Jacobs Science Building (680 Rose St.).

This free public event will showcase interactive displays on research taking place in biology at UK. Attendees will enjoy around 30 hands-on activities carried out by more than 80 volunteers.

Free parking is available in the parking garage on Hilltop Avenue, next to the Jacobs Science Building.

The event is sponsored by Nikon, the UK Graduate School, the Biology Graduate Student Assocation (BGSA) and the UK Office of Community Engagement.

Visit the BioBonanza Facebook page for more information: 

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 Tiffany Molina and Gail Hairston

On Oct. 26, the University of Kentucky International Center will welcome Nicholas Kristof, two-time Pulitzer Prize winner and well-known columnist with The New York Times. Kristof’s talk, “A Path Appears: How Students Can Change the World,” is sponsored by the Office of the Provost, the College of Arts and Sciences, the Gatton College of Business and Economics, and the School of Journalism and Media.

Kristof’s talk will touch on themes that animate the book he co-authored with his wife, Sheryl WuDunn: “A Path Appears: Transforming Lives, Creating Opportunities.” Kristof and WuDunn say that the purpose of the book is to “provide a unique and essential narrative about making a difference in the world … and a roadmap to becoming a conscientious global citizen.” Kristof will discuss how global problems can seem overwhelming, but there

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 displays

By Chris Crumrine

The University of Kentucky is expanding and enhancing its Washington, D.C. internship program, allowing students to participate during the academic year, utilize their financial aid and remain full-time students enrolled in credit-bearing courses. The new program will launch during the spring 2018 semester. 

The new program is a partnership between the Department of Political Science, the College of Arts and Sciences and the Office of the President, with the shared goal of providing an affordable opportunity for students to intern in the nation’s capital without delaying their time to degree. The UK Student Government Association is a key partner in the new program, which is open to students from

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

By Whitney Hale

University of Kentucky Libraries Special Collections Research Center recently organized, inventoried and made available the records of the Jewish Federation of the Bluegrass. The project was funded through the Southern Jewish Historical Society’s Scott and Donna Langston Archival Grant, which encourages the preservation of archival materials related to Southern Jewish history.

The Langston Archival Grant provided funds to hire Erin Weber, a graduate student in the UK’s School of Information Science, to organize the records. The semester-long project resulted in 6.7 cubic feet

By Susan Odom

This fall the Chemistry Department welcomed its new graduate class of 22 students. Now in their second month at UK, students are settling into new roles as teaching assistants in laboratory courses and in general chemistry recitations while taking a variety of courses in analytical, biological, inorganic, materials, organic, and/or physical chemistry.

Some students were particularly excited to have the opportunity to take a new course offered by Prof. Chad Risko called Organic Materials: Electronic and Photonic Properties. Risko reports, "The students are quite engaged in the lectures, especially since we are able to bring together diverse concepts that are taught in other chemistry courses to build the knowledge required to understand these intriguing materials.”

In addition to their coursework and teaching responsibilities, one of the major goals

By Gail Hairston and Allison Perry

Of the 14 million cancer survivors in the United States, a significant number experience a serious side effect called chemotherapy-induced cognitive impairment (CICI). While easily recognized, little is known about the etiology of this condition, also known informally as “chemo brain.” CICI can significantly reduce patients’ quality of life with serious, even devastating, symptoms such as memory lapses, difficulty concentrating, negative impacts on multitasking, confusion and fatigue.

Three University of Kentucky Markey Cancer Center researchers are tackling this problem head-on, serving as principal investigators on a new $2.3 million grant awarded by the National Institutes of Health:

By Gail Hairston

Organizers of the University of Kentucky’s Constitution Day activities last week have announced the winners of the essay contest associated with the national holiday.

Political science freshman RyAnn Schoenbaechler won the 2017 Constitution Day Essay Contest with her article titled “Donald Trump: The Modern Day Killer of the First Amendment.”

Schoenbaechler won $500 for her essay, which was evaluated by a panel of judges chosen by the Scripps Howard First Amendment Center. Their assessment was based on the following criteria: historical and legal accuracy of the content; the strength and logic of the argument; the original ideas presented; the organization of the argument, including the thesis; and the quality of the writing.

The second place winner Kelsey Mattingly, a

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

By Amaya DeVicente and Gail Hairston

Nicole Funk, a junior from Lexington majoring in natural resources and environmental science with a Spanish minor, participated in an Education Abroad semester-long direct exchange program at the Universidad San Francisco de Quito (USFQ) in Quito, Ecuador. It was through a community internship that Funk received recognition for best of “Pasantía en la Comunidad” (PASEC) work at USFQ. All USFQ students must complete this program in order to graduate, and international students also have the opportunity to complete a PASEC program if they wish.

Nicole Funk (second from left) with Universidad San Francisco de Quito faculty and staff.

For Funk's PASEC service program, she completed a service-learning experience at Instituto Educativo Fiscomisional

By Jennifer Sciantarelli and Whitney Hale

This summer, a team of University of Kentucky archaeologists explored two previously unknown archaic Greek sites in Calabria, Italy’s southernmost region, one of which may be the largest Greek mountain fort yet uncovered in this area of the country. These findings deepen scholarly understanding of Greek territorial organization in the toe of Italy, and of the interstate conflicts that occurred across the region throughout the sixth and fifth centuries B.C.

George Crothers as geophysical survey was in progress in Calabria.

The team of researchers, directed by George Crothers, associate professor of anthropology and director of the William S. Webb Museum of Anthropology at UK’s 

By Jennifer T. Allen

The University of Kentucky Department of Mathematics in the College of Arts and Sciences announces the appointment of Associate Professor Kate Ponto to the Wimberly and Betty Royster Research Professorship and Professor Richard Ehrenborg to the Ralph E. and Norma L. Edwards Research Professorship.

The Royster and Edwards professorships serve to recognize the Department of Mathematics’ most active researchers and to support their research. Both positions are three-year terms and include a stipend to support salary or research expenses.

Recommendations for the professorships are made by the mathematics faculty.

“Ehrenborg and Ponto are outstanding scholars who enjoy working with students,” said Russell Brown,

By Kristen Smith

The Student Activities Board (SAB) along with University of Kentucky's Art Museum, Martin Luther King Center, Alternative Service Breaks and the Department of Gender and Women’s Studies will be bringing the first ever Art Walk to campus. Join them 3-6 p.m. today (Friday), Sept. 22, starting at the UK Art Museum. Students will have the opportunity to journey through familiar parts of campus while interacting with various student organizations and art pieces, including an

By Bryant Welbourne and Kathy Johnson

Eight University of Kentucky faculty members are among more than 100 faculty members from all 14 Southeastern Conference universities taking part in the 2017-18 SEC Faculty Travel Program. Now in its sixth year, the program provides support for selected individuals to collaborate with colleagues at other SEC member institutions.

The UK faculty and their departments are: Babak Bazrgari, Biomedical Engineering; Kenneth Campbell, Physiology; Tom Clayton, English; Kenneth Graham, Chemistry; Ji Youn Kim,