Story by Robin Roenker

Photo by Shaun Ring

On campus for only four months, Omani student Abdul Majeed Al-Hashmi is already making the most of his time at the University of Kentucky. In addition perfecting his already strong English in intensive 20-hour-per-week coursework at UK’s Center for English as a Second Language (CESL) in the College of Arts & Sciences, he’s also found time to pursue a new passion: opera singing.

“I love it,” said Al-Hashmi, a native of a small village called Adam in central Oman.

“In my country, I cannot sing opera, but here I take lessons. [In Oman] we have a very strict, traditional culture. But we came to America, and everything is changed now.”

“We love our country and our culture, but here, you can do what

In this recent Huffington Post article, Daniel Little, a Professor of philosophy and Chancellor of the University of Michigan-Dearborn.

“Most of our materials appeared here for the first time. I don’t remember any time when we followed in the direction of what somebody else made first.”

With these words, physics graduate student Oleksandr Korneta perfectly captures the importance of the groundbreaking work being done at UK’s Center for Advanced Materials (CAM).



Korneta, who will defend his dissertation in the summer of 2011, has been a part of CAM since its inception, but his journey to UK’s Physics Department began more than 10 years ago in his native Ukraine.



Korneta says that his interest in science came naturally because of his home environment. “It was easy for me because both my parents have a technical education and I’ve been surrounded by all kinds of hardware my entire life,” Korneta said.

By Sarah Geegan

There's just no telling where an education from the University of Kentucky can take you.

For U.S. Navy Cmdr. Jeffrey Smith, the journey that began at UK has taken him around the world and deep below the ocean's surface, as captain of the USS Kentucky, a nuclear submarine.

"Having been born in Kentucky and growing up there, I can’t imagine any pride greater than serving as commander of the ship that bears my home state's name," says Smith, whose parents and sister still live in Kentucky.

Born in Covington and raised in Independence, Smith graduated from Simon Kenton High School and attended Xavier University for a year before transferring to UK. After graduating in 1995 with a bachelor's degree in physics, Smith was commissioned in the Navy and went to officer candidate school in Pensacola, Fla., where he began nuclear

By Sarah Geegan

Biology professor James Krupa recently received his second major accolade from the National Association of Biology Teachers (NABT) in the past two years. After taking home the NABT University Teaching Award last year, Krupa received the Evolution Education Award for 2012 — crediting famous UK alumnus John T. Scopes for much of his inspiration.

The award recognizes innovative classroom teaching and community education efforts to promote the accurate understanding of biological evolution. Sponsored by the Biological Sciences Curriculum Study (BSCS) and National Evolutionary Synthesis Center (NESCent), the honor will be

The Milky Way is a large spiral galaxy surrounded by dozens of smaller satellite galaxies. Scientists have long theorized that occasionally these satellites will pass through the disk of the Milky Way, perturbing both the satellite and the disk. A team of astronomers from the U.S. and Canada, including one professor from the University of Kentucky, have discovered what may well be the smoking gun of such an encounter, one that occurred close to our position in the galaxy and relatively recently, at least in the cosmological sense.

“We have found evidence that our Milky Way had an encounter with a small galaxy or massive dark matter structure about 100 million years ago,” said Larry Widrow, professor at Queen’s  University in Canada. “We clearly observe unexpected differences in the Milky Way’s stellar distribution above and below the Galaxy’s

By Sarah Geegan

Christopher Crawford, professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, recently received a prestigious five-year, $750,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Energy's 2012 Early Career Research Program.

The program supports the development of individual research programs of outstanding scientists early in their careers and stimulates research careers in the disciplines supported by the DOE Office of Science. Crawford's award will allow him to study the forces that hold the atomic nucleus together and that cause nuclear decays.

"I study symmetries of these forces," Crawford said. "There are certain properties of neutron postulated

By Sarah Geegan

Seven University of Kentucky students in the College of Arts & Sciences have been awarded the Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship to study abroad. These students are among 2,300 U.S. undergraduates who will be participating in programs abroad during the summer, fall, or 2012-2013 academic year.

The Gilman Scholarship Program offers awards to U.S. undergraduates who are receiving Federal Pell Grants at a two-year or four-year college or university to study abroad. Scholarships of up to $5,000 may be awarded and vary depending on the length of study and student need. The average award amount is approximately $4,000.

The Gilman Scholarship program supports a diverse group of students who have

By Sarah Geegan

What used to be a standard component for universities with archaeology programs is becoming increasingly rare: field school — an experiential course in which students excavate real archaeological sites. However, the UK Department of Anthropology has remained firmly committed to providing opportunities for students to dig into real-world experience.

Kim McBride, anthropology professor and co-director of the Kentucky Archaeological Survey, taught Anthropology 585: Field Methods in Archaeology at the Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill, 25 miles southwest of Lexington. Students enrolled in the six-week course excavated,

Stargazing is typically reserved for after sundown, but what if you want to look at the biggest star in the sky? On June 5th, 2012, the planet Venus was visible by day – traveling in front of the sun! This is called the Transit of Venus, and is a rare astronomical event. A few hundred people gathered at the UK Arboretum to view the transit of Venus through special telescopes that allow safe observation of solar activity. In this podcast, we went to the Arboretum to talk to participants and Tim Knauer, the director of the MacAdam Student Observatory on UK's campus. The viewing was sponsored by the UK Physics & Astronomy Department and was done in conjunction with the Kentucky SkyTalks series.

By Sarah Geegan

Nina Elliott and Elizabeth Walsh have assembled an impressive list of accomplishments at UK this year, from creating new derivatives of the molecule phenothiazine, to potentially increasing performance of lithium-ion batteries, to co-authoring a paper in preparation for publication. Their next task to check off: graduating from high school.

Susan Odom, an assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry, has hosted the two Paul Laurence Dunbar High School students in her chemistry laboratory over the past semester. Elliott and Walsh assisted Odom in a project involving specific organic molecules and their

By Sarah Geegan

Archaeologists at the University of Kentucky, having completed a geophysical survey, will begin limited excavations at Fort Boonesborough State Park from June 18-22, in search of archaeological evidence of a Revolutionary War siege.

The Siege of 1778  was a prolonged engagement that pitted a party of French Canadians and American Indians against settlers living in the stockaded fort at present day Fort Boonesborough State Park in Madison County. The project, funded by a grant from the American Battlefield Protection Program, began in May 2012 with remote sensing surveys of the fort site and a nearby site that may have been part of the large American Indian encampment during the siege.

Ground penetrating radar, a magnetometer, a conductivity meter and a

Justin Wedeking studies dynamics within the courtroom - from how Supreme Court decisions are made to how useful confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominess are. Wedeking is a professor in the Department of Political Science, and is currently involved in research to determine whether or not televising court proceedings will affect the legitimacy of court decisions. Listen to the podcast to find out how the research will be done and why it's important.

This podcast was produced by Cheyenne Hohman.

This work is licensed under a

Over 2,500 students take introductory chemistry classes each semester. As the director of general chemistry, Stephen Testa oversees the planning and curricula of each of these introductory courses. In this interview, professor Testa discusses what he and his colleagues are doing to improve the grades and the experiences of students fulfilling their chemistry credits.

This podcast was produced by Stephen Gordinier.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

By Sarah Geegan

The S.T. Roach Community Conversations series, "Rebuilding the Block," will conclude its seven-month sequence on Father's Day weekend by honoring outstanding men in the community.

The Sankofa Awards, honoring African-American men who have demonstrated excellence in the categories of service, social and environmental justice, scholarship, philanthropy, creativity and entrepreneurship, will provide a symbolic end to the series that began in December 2011. Consisting of monthly public forums led by UK experts at

By Sarah Geegan, Guy Spriggs

UK graduate Casey Carmichael, who earned his master's degree from the Department of Classics in 2010, was recently awarded a six-month doctoral fellowship from the Leibniz Institute for European History in Mainz, Germany.

The fellowship funds doctoral and post-doctoral candidates to conduct research projects at the Leibniz Institute, an independent research organization that facilitates historical research related to Europe. Carmichael will research and write his doctoral dissertation for the theology faculty at the University of Geneva from July-December 2012.

“Receiving the fellowship has brought me great joy and an added sense of motivation to pursue my doctoral research,” Carmichael

By Sarah Geegan

A new study by University of Kentucky researchers shows how light and strained ruthenium-based drugs may be more effective at fighting cancer cells and less toxic to healthy cells than a similar and widely used drug.

Cisplatin is a common platinum-based cancer drug. But while cisplatin kills cancer cells, it also attacks healthy cells, causing debilitating side effects. Ruthenium is a rare transition metal also belonging to the platinum group of the periodic table, and the UK researchers developed two new ruthenium complexes designed to kill cancer cells while preserving healthy cells.

These complexes are inert in the dark, but when activated with light, they become up to 200 times as toxic, and up to three times as potent as cisplatin against tumor cells.

Published in the 

By Sarah Geegan

The University of Kentucky recently received an $880,523 grant from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), as part of the DOE's Nuclear Energy Programs' $36.2 million initiative to enhance energy research and development projects.

This grant, titled "Elastic/Inelastic Measurement  Project," will center upon fuel cycle research and development. A consortium of three universities and a national laboratory has been formed to provide the necessary breadth for this effort, including scientists with extensive experience in neutron elastic and inelastic scattering measurements and with direct access to the facilities for completing the proposed neutron measurements, i.e., the UK Accelerator Laboratory. 

Steven W. Yates, a professor

By Guy Spriggs

Casey Carmichael, who earned his masters degree in Classics at the University in Kentucky in 2010, has been awarded six-month doctoral fellowship from the Leibniz Institute for European History in Mainz, Germany.

“Receiving the fellowship has brought me great joy and an added sense of motivation to pursue my doctoral research,” Carmichael said.

The fellowship funds doctoral and post-doctoral candidates to write their research projects at the Leibniz Institute. From July to December 2012, Carmichael will be researching and writing his doctoral dissertation for the Faculty of Theology at the University of Geneva.

Carmichael’s current project focuses on biblical exegesis of seventeenth-century Dutch theologian Johannes Cocceius. “I am fascinated by the

By Sarah Geegan

Approximately 350 people turned out at The Arboretum Tuesday, June 5, to witness an astronomical phenomenon, not to occur again in this lifetime.

The transit of Venus, in which Venus traveled directly between Earth and the sun, began at 6:04 p.m. and could be seen from Lexington for approximately three hours.  

The MacAdam Student Observatory and the Bluegrass Amateur Astronomy Club provided telescopes and instruction for safely observing the phenomenon, as cloud cover allowed.

Tim Knauer, director of the MacAdam Student Observatory, said that he was pleased with the turnout.

"I thought given the weather, the response was good," Knauer said. "If