By Ashley Cox

(April 11, 2016) — The University of Kentucky Department of Physics and Astronomy is hosting Kentucky native and NASA civil servant Pamela Marcum April 14-15 for a Sky Talk titled "NASA’s SOFIA Observatory: Exploring the Universe from 42,000 Feet” and a meet-and-greet.

Marcum’s Sky Talk is open to the public and will take place 8 p.m. Thursday, April 14, in the Chemistry-Physics Building room 155. Her meet-and-greet will take place from 12-1:30 p.m. Friday, April 15, at the UK Appalachian Center, located at 624 Maxwelton Ct. The meet-and-greet is open to university

By Whitney Harder

(April 6, 2016) — Often containing more than a billion times the mass than our Sun, supermassive black holes have perplexed humans for decades. But new research by University of Kentucky astrophysicist Isaac Shlosman and collaborators will help to understand the physical processes at the edge of time and space, providing the details of how supermassive black holes formed 13 billion years ago.

Shlosman, as well as Jun-Hwan Choi at the University of Texas at Austin, Mitchell Begelman at the University of Colorado Boulder, and Kentaro Nagamine at Osaka University (Japan), ran simulations where supermassive black holes are seeded by clouds of gas falling into potential wells of dark matter — the invisible matter that astronomers believe makes up 85 percent of the mass in

By Whitney Harder

View the video above to hear more about the new material discovered by Menon that could upstage graphene. Video by REVEAL Research Media.

(Feb. 29, 2016) — A new one atom-thick flat material that could upstage the wonder material graphene and advance digital technology has been discovered by a physicist at the University of Kentucky working in collaboration with scientists from Daimler in Germany and the Institute for Electronic Structure and Laser (IESL) in Greece.

Reported in Physical Review B, Rapid Communications, the new material is made up of silicon, boron and nitrogen — all light, inexpensive and earth abundant elements — and is extremely stable, a property many other graphene alternatives lack.

"We used

Lisa Lockman, Kristie Law

(Feb. 24, 2016) — Twenty-three women at the University of Kentucky have been nominated for the 2016 Sarah Bennett Holmes Award, and registration is underway now to attend the award ceremony and luncheon 11:30 a.m. Thursday, March 10, at the Hilary J. Boone Center. Visit www.uky.edu/womensforum/sbhal.html for more information. The registration deadline is Monday, Feb. 29. Due to the change of venue and the limited space, registrations will be taken on a first come, first served basis.

Coordinated by UK Women's Forum, the Sarah Bennett Holmes Award is granted annually to women working at UK who promote the growth and

By Whitney Harder

(Sept. 9, 2015) — Founding project scientist for the Hubble Space Telescope, Robert O'Dell, will speak on the University of Kentucky campus Sept. 10.  He is the guest for Sky Talk, a series of astronomy related presentations organized by the UK Department of Physics and Astronomy and the MacAdam Student Observatory.

The presentation, "Traveling Through the Orion Nebula," will take place at 8 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 10, in Room 139 of the Chemistry-Physics Building.  The program will include a Japanese National Television documentary of O'Dell and his studies of Orion Nebula, followed by a question and answer period with O'Dell.

He

By Whitney Harder

(Aug. 12, 2015) — Sung S. Ambrose Seo, assistant professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Kentucky, has received the prestigious five-year National Science Foundation (NSF) Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award totaling $672,981.

The CAREER award is given in support of junior faculty who exemplify the role of teacher-scholars through outstanding research, excellent education, and the integration of education and research within the context of the mission of the university.

Funds from the award will allow Seo to investigate iridium oxides and unveil exotic collective phenomena, such as nontrivial topological states that are latent in bulk crystals, but emerge in

By Alicia Gregory, Whitney Harder

(Aug. 10, 2015) — Computer science and the St. Chad Gospels. Physics and Spanish. Math and international studies. The combination of these don't seem to make a lot of sense, but it is these interests that have shaped the undergraduate career of one UK senior.

Stephen Parsons, a computer science and international studies major, with minors in physics, Spanish and mathematics, has thrived in a range of studies during his time at UK.

He has also worked in research that merged the fields of computer science and humanities. Parsons, who is a

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.  

On Friday, June

By Jenny Wells

(May 8, 2015) — The University of Kentucky Board of Trustees today approved University Research Professorships for 2015-16 for four faculty members. The professorships carry a $40,000 award to support research. Funds for these annual awards are provided by the Office of the Vice President for Research.

Now in its 39th year, the University Research Professors program's purpose is to enhance and encourage scholarly research productivity, to provide an opportunity for concentrated research effort for selected faculty members, and to recognize outstanding research achievement by members of the faculty.

The 2015-16 University Research Professors are:

Lance E. De Long, a professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy in the UK College of Arts and Sciences, has had

By Whitney Harder

(May 4, 2015) — In the fall of 2014, a group of 235 incoming students became the first class of STEMCats at the University of Kentucky. This week, they are not only wrapping up their first year at UK, but also a semester of original research; an unusual experience for many college freshmen.

The STEMCats living learning program, sponsored by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and directed by UK Department of Biology Chair Vincent Cassone, was launched to increase retention of STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) majors at UK.

A key component of the program is an authentic research experience for the freshmen, in addition to pre-fall "

By Gail Hairston, Whitney Harder

(April 22, 2015) — The University of Kentucky College of Arts and Sciences will honor its faculty at 4 p.m. today at the William T. Young Library Auditorium.

The recipients of this year's college faculty awards are:

Charles Carlson, psychology, 2015-16 Distinguished Professor. For more information, visit http://uknow.uky.edu/content/carlson-honored-teaching-research-and-service

Beth Guiton, assistant professor of chemistry ‒ Distinguished Undergraduate Research Mentoring Award

Guiton leads a materials chemistry group in the Center for Advanced Materials, investigates chemistry at the nanometer length scale, working at the intersection between solid

By Kelli Elam, Amy Jones-Timoney, Whitney Harder

(April 17, 2015) — What makes a university thrive as a community and a center for knowledge? At the University of Kentucky, it's the people, and not only the outstanding faculty, staff and students, but the alumni who create and continue a legacy of excellence. This year, the UK Alumni Association is recognizing 23 former UK students — leaders who have impacted the Commonwealth, the nation and the world through their work — with induction into the 2015 Hall of Distinguished Alumni.

This year’s class will be honored tonight, Friday, April 17, at the Hilton Lexington Downtown Hotel,

By Whitney Harder

(April 16, 2015) — Recognizing their outstanding contributions to teaching and scholarship at the University of Kentucky, two UK faculty members were honored with the William B. Sturgill Award and Albert D. and Elizabeth H. Kirwan Memorial Prize yesterday, Wednesday, April 15, at the annual Faculty Awards Ceremony in the Lexmark Room of the Main Building.

Thomas R. Zentall, professor of psychology in the UK College of Arts and Sciences, was awarded the 2015 William B. Sturgill Award, given each year to a graduate faculty member who has provided outstanding

The College of Arts & Sciences is proud to announce the recipients of this year’s College teaching awards, They are Renee Fatemi, physics and astronomy (Outstanding Teaching Award), Moisés Castillo, Hispanic Studies (Outstanding Teaching Award), Charley Carlson, psychology (Outstanding Teaching Award), Anna Voskresensky,

By Lydia Whitman

(March 12, 2015)   The University of Kentucky Gaines Center for the Humanities has chosen 12 outstanding undergraduates as new scholars for the university's Gaines Fellowship Program for the 2015-2016 and 2016-2017 academic years. Gaines Fellowships are given in recognition of outstanding academic performance, demonstrated ability to conduct independent research, an interest in public issues and a desire to enhance understanding of the human condition through the humanities.

Gaines Fellowships are awarded for the tenure of a student's junior and senior years,

By Whitney Harder

(Feb. 24, 2015) – Ingrid Daubechies, the first female full professor of mathematics at Princeton and first woman president of the International Mathematical Union, will deliver the 2015 van Winter Memorial Lecture in Mathematical Physics at the University of Kentucky Thursday, Feb. 26.

Her lecture, "The Master's Hand: Can Image Analysis Detect the Hand of the Master?" will take place from 4-5 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 26, in Room 155 of the Chemistry-Physics Building.

Daubechies, the James B. Duke Professor of Mathematics at Duke University, will describe

by Whitney Harder

(Dec. 18, 2014) — Thirteen University of Kentucky students took home top honors at the Kentucky Academy of Science 100th Annual Meeting in November, where hundreds of undergraduate and graduate students from Kentucky colleges and universities participated in research competitions.

Winners included graduate and undergraduates from the College of Agriculture, Food and Environment, College of Arts and Sciences, Gatton College of Business and Economics, College of Health Sciences and College of Public Health.

Graduate oral presentations:

Video by the UK Center for Visualization and Virtual Environments (Vis Center) as part of its "What's Next" series. It can also be viewed at Reveal Research Media.

by Alicia Gregory

(Dec. 4, 2014) — The University of Kentucky is shaping the next generation of scientists and scholars by exposing undergraduates to research early in their academic careers. For T.J. Flynn, of Lexington, research as an undergrad at UK shaped his path — he is currently a Ph.D. pre-candidate at the University of Michigan, with a focus on acoustics and fluid dynamics.

An avid undergraduate researcher, Flynn worked on projects including carbon sequestration using algae at the Center for Applied Energy Research, novel

(Nov. 20, 2014) — As University of Kentucky freshmen settle into life as college students, a new resource on campus has been helping them adjust to STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) programs, known for difficult coursework. Undergraduate instructional assistants (UIAs) within one of the university's newest Living Learning Programs, STEMCats, use their past experiences to mentor incoming UK students.

The College of Arts and Sciences recently produced a podcast about the STEMCats community, featuring many STEMCats UIAs explaining what they enjoy about the program and their connections with younger STEM students.

"You get to help them succeed

by Gail Hairston

(Oct. 10, 2014) — The University of Kentucky College of Arts and Sciences Hall of Fame induction and festivities are slated Friday, Oct. 10, at 3:30 p.m. in the Recital Hall of the UK Singletary Center for the Arts.

Honorees include:

2014 ALUMNI INDUCTEES

Her Honor Ethelee Davidson Baxter was born in Jackson, Kentucky, in 1939 and was raised in Lexington, Kentucky. Baxter graduated from Lafayette High School in 1957 and was inducted into the first class of the Lafayette High School Hall of Fame in 1989. She graduated from the University of Kentucky in 1961 with a bachelor's degree in English, speech and drama. While at UK, she was a Wildcat cheerleader, president of the Blue Marlins synchronized swimming team, and a member of the Kappa Alpha Theta sorority.