Ph.D. Student

by Rebekah Tilley
photos by Richie Wireman

Archisman Ghosh’s fascination with astronomy was born on a roof in Calcutta. He still looks at the sky, but now he does it through a 20-inch telescope on the roof of UK’s parking structure #2.

A third-year graduate student in the UK Department of Physics and Astronomy, Ghosh focuses his scholarly work on String Theory, and through his Graduate Assistantship at the MacAdam Student Observatory is able to help young astronomy students experience the thrill of first laying their own eyes on a planet.

“My previous experience in astronomy was mainly from amateur activities – stargazing and backyard telescopes,” Ghosh said. “UK's MacAdam Student Observatory gave me an opportunity to have a more professional encounter with the subject. We have superior equipment. We

A University of Kentucky biology professor known for his creativity in the classroom has recently been awarded for his storytelling.

UK biology professor 

by Robin Roenker
photos by Mark Cornelison

As a theoretical physicist, Keh-Fei Liu’s computational simulations in the field of quantum chromodynamics can simultaneously shed light on the innermost workings of the smallest particles in our universe, as well as help better understand how the universe itself came into being.

Quantum chromodynamics (QCD) is the study of the strong force between quarks and gluons, which combine to form hadrons, such as protons, neutrons, and pions.

For the past 15 years, Liu has led an international team of QCD collaborators—including faculty at George Washington University, the University of Virginia, the University of Washington, India’s TIFAR Institute, and the Chinese Institute of High Energy Physics—in working to answer a key question about the structure of the proton.

story by Guy Spriggs

English professor and writer-in-residence Erik Reece has expressed his views on the coal industry and energy policy in Kentucky in such works as his 2006 book “Lost Mountain.” He also believes the University of Kentucky has an opportunity to effect positive change and become a more energy-responsible institution.

Reece understands the influence of coal in Kentucky, but feels that the effects coal has on Kentucky’s environment and local economies are largely overlooked.  “It’s a very cheap source of energy because there’s so much of it, but the problem is that people aren’t factoring in the true cost of coal,” Reece said.  “We’re not paying for the externalities in terms of all the dirty water, the

by Saraya Brewer
photos by Richie Wireman

Like many graduate students, University of Kentucky English Ph.D. candidate Sarah Schuetze lights up when she talks about her research. That in and of itself is not particularly strange – what’s perhaps a bit unusual about it is that her focus of study is rather dark, at times bordering morbidity. Schuetze’s academic concentration is disease – the culture of hysteria surrounding it, and the various ways it has affected characters’ lives in American literary texts throughout history.

She admits that it’s a bit odd, but she’s okay with that.

“I’m really attracted to things that are sort of peculiar,” she said. “I try to study things that are interesting and weird, because that’s what attracts me to a book.”

To that end, Schuetze’s fascination with disease is not

"It's 11:57 a.m., and I'm hurrying to class with my backpack on. A colleague stops me in front of the Chemistry-Physics Building and says, 'You look like a student!' Actually, I am."
 
So begins the story of Alan Fryar, a University of Kentucky geology professor who elaborates on his midlife undergraduate experience in this week's Chronicle of Higher Education.
 
Fryar, who is also the director of graduate studies for the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at UK, began taking French language classes on campus last semester.
 
"At 46, I'm an associate professor of geology and one of 25 students in an elementary French class here at the university," he explains in the Chronicle Review. "I'm nearly twice the age of my oldest classmate and 20 years older than my

The Rural Sociological Society has recognized Shannon Bell and Richard York for Best Article. The article, “Community Economic Identity: The Coal Industry and Ideology Construction in West Virginia,” was published in March 2010 in Rural Sociology, the Society’s journal. Shannon Bell is an assistant professor of sociology at UK; Richard York, who co-authored the article, is a professor at the University of Oregon. 

In their article, Bell and York address the relationship between capitalist modes of production and ecological destruction. Using the Appalachian coal industry as a case study, they demonstrate the ways in which declines in coal industry jobs and the

During America's colonial period, the trans-Appalachian west, though largely terra incognita to people living on the eastern seaboard and occupied by significant numbers of native peoples, lay open to initial forays by hunters, explorers, surveyors, and settlers. The earliest overland travel routes to traverse western Virginia lands, country that eventually became the Commonwealth of Kentucky, were established between the 1750s and 1780.

A&S Ambassador - Cameron Hamilton

https://www.as.uky.edu/sites/default/files/hamilton.mp3

Cameron Hamilton serves as a K Crew Coordinator for UK's K Week for incoming students, as well as serving as an A&S Ambassador. Hamilton discusses new initiatives that  the K Crew Coordinators are working on, as well as the personal and professional benefits of being a K Crew Coordinator and A&S Ambassador.

This year, the College of Arts & Sciences awarded four professors with 2011-2012 Awards for Outstanding Teaching: Ben Braun (Mathematics), Nathan DeWall (Psychology), Paul Koester (Mathematics) and Linda Worley (Modern and Classical Languages, Literatures and Cultures).  Drs. Braun, DeWall, Koester, and Worley are all exemplary practitioners of the arts of teaching, to be congratulated for their dedication to making the classroom a rewarding place for students and instructors alike.  These faculty have also made significant contributions to education beyond the classroom, including to University-wide and national educational initiatives. Peter Mirabito (chair), Chana Akins, Juliana

Rebecca Street Undergraduate Student by Amber Scott photos by Mark Cornelison

Rebecca Street grew up in Clemson, S.C., a town known for being the home of Clemson University, for historic houses and for thick Southern drawls. Also for neighboring Greenville, S.C., home to BMW's North American Headquarters, and it is this latter fact, oddly enough, that set Street on the path to studying linguistics at the University of Kentucky. "In high school, I did an exchange program in Germany that was sponsored by BMW since my high school had one of the best German language programs in the state," she said. "It was my first time being abroad, and it really got me interested in what life is like in other places. That was my inspiration for deciding that languages and other cultures were what I was interested in." Drawing on that newfound interest and an off-the-cuff suggestion from

We are very pleased to announce that our very own, Dr. Paul Karan, received the University Research Professor Award for the 2010-2011 academic year. This is the University's highest honor and is a very well deserved recognition for Professor Karan's outstanding work as a Geographer. For more information please visit here.

Adam Banks, an Associate Professor of 

Ph.D. Student

by Kathryn Wallingford
photos by Shaun Ring

Gretchen Phelps refers to her research as “SMOKE ‘n Mirrors.” While it sounds like a magic act, if you did not see Phelps and the optics set-up of her latest experiment, you might just think her research was just that.

Don’t let the title fool you. Phelps is a fourth year Ph.D. student in University of Kentucky’s Department of Physics and Astronomy and SMOKE actually stands for ‘Surface Magneto-Optic Kerr Effect,’ a technique utilized by condensed matter physicists for the reflection of polarized light by a material that is subject to a magnetic field.

Under the mentorship of UK’s Physics professor, Dr. Wolfgang Korsch, Phelps has the

Ph.D. Students

by Leah Bayens
photos by Mark Cornelison

Any language devotee knows that linguistics illuminates socio-political and bio-cultural mysteries. Apparently, it also forms the tie that binds a former theologian and a former telecommunications specialist, bringing both into the Hispanic Studies fold.

Doctoral candidates Jarrod Brown and Iván Sánchez-Medina diverged from many years of study and service in religion and business communications, respectively, and found a home in UK’s Department of Hispanic Studies precisely because of the program’s renewed emphasis on linguistic research. Despite their disparate backgrounds, and in spite of different research areas, they both use linguistics to track the continuum of presences and absences in

Undergraduate Spotlight

by Colleen Glenn

Experience is the best teacher. Just ask Alecia Fields. Having recently returned from Africa, Fields knows firsthand how invaluable direct experience can be.

Fields, a 2010 graduate, spent time this summer in Ethiopia as a participant in the Sierra Club's Global Population & Environment Study Tour. One of three activists selected to spend 10 days in Ethiopia as a volunteer, Fields visited various sites and organizations around the country to learn about the impacts of population growth on the environment.

>>View Alecia's photos from Ethiopia

“It’s places like Ethiopia that climate change is really showing its effects the most,”

by Saraya Brewer
photos by Mark Cornelison

With both a Master’s and a doctoral degree under her belt in the past eight years, you’d probably be safe to call Jenny Mooney an academic. Much of Mooney’s time over the past decade has been spent not in the classroom or library, however, but in various prisons and drug and alcohol treatment and research centers. For the most part, Mooney’s work – academic work and career work intertwined – has been centered at the University of Kentucky Center on Drug and Alcohol Research (CDAR), where she has conducted what she estimates to be thousands of interviews with research participants who identify themselves as substance users, most of them inmates. Mooney currently serves as a study director at CDAR for two studies funded by the