News
(Dec. 20, 2013) — Susan Gardner, professor of physics at the University of Kentucky, has been elected a fellow of the American Physical Society, the nation's preeminent organization of physicists.
Selection as a fellow of the APS demonstrates exceptional accomplishments and contributions to the field of physics. Less than half of 1 percent of the APS membership receive the honor each year.
Gardner is being honored for her "pioneering work in strongly interacting physics and its interplay with weak decays and for numerous insights into important tests of CP violation and the Standard Model of particle interactions."
Her nomination was supported by her academic peers in the Topical Group for
By Guy Spriggs
Experimental work on quasicrystal tilings by UK physics and astronomy professor Lance De Long’s group was recently featured on the cover of “Physical Review Letters.”
De Long says the artificial ferromagnetic quasicrystals at the center of his work were celebrated because such intricate patterns had never been fabricated before.
“It’s all about topology,” he explained. “The fact it’s nickel-iron doesn’t matter in any details. We can do what we want with [the design] within reason. The basic properties of it are determined just by its pattern.”
The artificial quasicrystals De Long’s group produced are composed of a network of sub-micron-scale thin-film segments, taking the shape
by Whitney Hale
LEXINGTON, Ky. (Nov. 22, 2013) — In celebration of the University of Kentucky's upcoming sesquicentennial in 2015, the 70th of 150 weekly installments explores the history of observatories on campus.
By December of 1905, the college had purchased a telescope for $1,000 but there were no accommodations for its mounting. It was recommended to the Board of Trustees that to build a suitable observatory building and to cover the cost for proper care of the telescope would cost around $2,000. A request was made to the Board of Trustees that an appropriation in that amount be named. This first campus observatory was located on the northeast corner of what is now McVey Hall.
By 1928 the university campus had grown. The Board of Trustees
video courtesy of UK Public Relations & Marketing
article by Jenny Wells
LEXINGTON, Ky. (Nov. 7, 2013) — In addition to research presentations, the 2014 National Conference on Undergraduate Research (NCUR) will offer numerous volunteer opportunities for the entire campus community when the University of Kentucky hosts the conference April 3-5, 2014. From helping direct traffic, to managing technology, to just helping students find where they need to go, there will be a variety of positions available to students, faculty and staff.
Students will have even more flexibility to get involved, as the University Senate has given permission for faculty to redirect their classes April 3 and 4 so students can attend conference events and presentations.
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by Jenny Wells & Grace Liddle
LEXINGTON, Ky. (Nov. 5, 2013) — As the first lecture of the Chellgren Seminar Series, Ganpathy Murthy, professor in the University of Kentucky’s Department of Physics and Astronomy, will deliver a lecture titled “The Birth of Our Universe” 7 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 7, in the William T. Young Library Auditorium. He will discuss the Big Bang Theory — not the television show. A reception will follow in the Alumni Gallery.
Murthy, considered a dynamic speaker, is capable of bringing deep physical insights to an audience of non-specialists. He received his doctorate in theoretical
by Whitney Hale
(Oct. 29, 2013) — In celebration of the University of Kentucky's upcoming sesquicentennial in 2015, the 68th of 150 weekly installments on the university looks back at the construction of the Chemistry-Physics Building.
On Nov. 11, 1960, construction began on the Chemistry-Physics Building. The current site of the building once was occupied by the president’s garden and tennis courts.
Physics once occupied 33,600 square feet of Pence Hall and chemistry used 41,500 square feet in
by Whitney Hale & Amanda Miner
LEXINGTON, Ky. (Oct. 22, 2013) — Skylab astronaut Joe Kerwin will visit the University of Kentucky to present students Tyler "T.J." Flynn and Josiah Hanna each with a $10,000 scholarship from the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation (ASF) during a public lecture and ceremony, 5 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 23, at the Memorial Hall Amphitheatre. If the weather turns colder, the event will be moved inside to the Engineering Commons, located in the Ralph G. Anderson Building.
During the
by Sarah Geegan
The College of Arts and Sciences will induct new members into its Hall of Fame Oct. 11, 2013, to join the ranks of the current 32 alumni and 8 emeritus faculty A&S Hall of Fame members.
The ceremony, taking place at 3:30 p.m. in the Singletary Center for the Arts, will follow an academic theme; the inductees will wear formal academic regalia and receive medallions with the UK A&S seal. All members of the campus community are welcome to attend.
>>View the photos from the event
"This is an exciting opportunity and an honor for us to celebrate the success of our
by Sarah Geegan
Students of the 21st century are digital natives; they have never experienced the world without the Internet, they're fluent in social media and they navigate disparate streams of information to solve problems through advancing technology.
It is at this intersection of academic, social and technological networks that A&S Wired Residential College provides students with a 21st century educational experience.
A&S Wired is part of the University of Kentucky's Living Learning Program (LLP), a growing initiative that involves partnerships between the Office of Residence Life and various academic and non-academic units
by Jenny Wells
Last week, the University of Kentucky Chellgren Center for Undergraduate Excellence honored its newest class of Chellgren Fellows. Benefactor Paul Chellgren and his wife Deborah, along with Chellgren Endowed Chair Philipp Kraemer, UK Provost Christine Riordan, and UK President Eli Capilouto, recognized and congratulated the students on being named Fellows.
The Chellgren Fellows Program is for students with exceptional academic potential and aspirations, who are eager to participate in a special learning community designed to cultivate extraordinary achievement. Outstanding faculty members from across campus serve as individual mentors for the Fellows.
The
video courtesy of UK Public Relations and Marketing
article by Jenny Wells
Planning and hosting a national conference is no easy task, but for the UK community, collaboration makes it all possible. The University of Kentucky will host the 2014 National Conference on Undergraduate Research, or NCUR, next semester, which will bring nearly 4,000 additional students from across the country to the UK campus. And as students, faculty and staff can attest -- it is something worth bragging about.
NCUR will take place April 3-5, 2014, all throughout UK's campus. The conference will give undergraduates a unique opportunity to present their research and creative endeavors, while meeting other like-minded students from all across the country. They not only promote their individual
By Sarah Geegan
For UK physics and astronomy professor Gary Ferland, the latest images of the Ring Nebula, captured by the Hubble Space Telescope, provide an invaluable resource to understand more about dying stars similar to the sun. Co-author of three papers resulting from the latest images, Ferland hopes to use the images to learn more about the chemical makeup of the star before it died.
The Ring Nebula's distinctive shape makes it a popular illustration for astronomy books. But new observations by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope of the glowing gas shroud around an old, dying, sun-like star reveal a new twist.
"The nebula is not like a bagel, but rather, it's like a jelly
By Whitney Hale
Four students from the University of Kentucky have been selected as recipients of Fulbright U.S. Student Program scholarships. The UK recipients are among 1,900 U.S. citizens who will travel abroad for the 2013-2014 academic year through the prestigious program. In addition, one of UK's four winners, medical student Juliana Odetunde, received one of only five prestigious Fulbright-Fogarty awards, which promote the expansion of research in public health and clinical research in resource-limited settings.
The Fulbright Program is the flagship international educational exchange program sponsored by the U.S. government and is designed to increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the people of other countries. The primary source of funding
At the University of Kentucky's 146th Commencement Ceremonies A&S alum Robert Milton Huffaker was honored with an honorary doctorate degree. The following was read at the ceremony in honor of his degree:
Robert Milton Huffaker, a native of Wayne County, Kentucky, has spent more than a half century in a varied and distinguished career as a physicist, a company founder and CEO, and a philanthropist positively impacting a number of charitable activities and organizations in the United States and abroad. After earning his Bachelor of Science in physics at the University of Kentucky in 1957, Huffaker pursued graduate studies at UK before accepting a position at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center where he worked for 15 years beginning in 1961. He rose to become chief of the
By Keith Hautala
The University of Kentucky Board of Trustees today approved University Research Professorships for 2013-14 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 37th 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 2013-14 University Research Professors are:
By Alicia Gregory
“From the standpoint of training the next generation of highly skilled professors, industrial scientists, people to work in government laboratories, people to advance our understanding of disease and advance the next generation of therapies, it will be profoundly devastating for this generation of students.”
That’s the message University of Kentucky physiologist Michael B. Reid conveys in a University of Kentucky video on the impact of sequestration — automatic cuts in research and other government spending — due to take effect March 1. Reid and UK colleagues Suzanne Weaver Smith in mechanical engineering and
By Sarah Geegan
The science may be new, but the program itself is in its second year, after tremendous success in 2011-2012. The College of Arts and Sciences' "What's New in Science" series, an outreach program aimed to strengthen UK's relationships with high school science programs, will once again engage teachers and youth in various scientific areas.
A succession of UK scientists will discuss emerging discoveries and exciting developments occurring now in the realm of science. Held in a casual round table format, professors from various disciplines and science teachers from Kentucky schools talk among themselves at these events, asking questions and discussing answers about new and emerging scientific knowledge.
Each session focuses on a new topic in one of
By Sarah Geegan
University of Kentucky physics Professor Tim Gorringe's research collaboration has recently gained attention for an important experimental result.
Playing a leadership role in an international collaboration of physicists, Gorringe has measured precisely how rapidly muons, which are particles that behave like electrons but are 200 times heavier, are captured on protons, yielding a neutron and a neutrino.
The experiment, which gives an unprecedented probe of the weak force at low energies, was performed at the renowned Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) in Switzerland.
"The result is significant in confirming our understanding of how fundamental symmetries govern the nature
by Jay Blanton
video by UK Public Relations and Marketing.
University of Kentucky President Eli Capilouto Thursday praised the partnership of Gov. Steve Beshear and legislative leaders who are strongly supporting UK's self-financing of a dramatic $275 million transformation of the campus.
"We are here this morning because of your leadership and your willingness to partner with us, as educational institutions, united to provide Kentucky with the best education, research and service," Capilouto said at a Frankfort news conference with the governor and legislative leaders who are supporting UK's proposal. "In offering your support for us to self-finance facilities that will help dramatically improve and transform our campuses, you are voicing your faith in Kentucky's
By Guy Spriggs
“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.