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

The University of Kentucky Gaines Center for the Humanities has selected 11 outstanding undergraduates as new scholars for the university's Gaines Fellowship Program for the 2011-12 and 2012-13 academic years.

by Whitney Hale

The University of Kentucky Gaines Center for the Humanities has selected 11 outstanding undergraduates as new scholars for the university's Gaines Fellowship Program for the 2011-12 and 2012-13 academic years.

Gaines Fellowships are given in recognition of students’ outstanding academic performance, demonstrated ability to conduct independent research, interest in public issues, and desire to enhance understanding of the human condition through the humanities. Fellowships are awarded for the tenure of a student's junior and senior years, or for the last two years of a five-year program; students in all disciplines and with any intended profession are given equal consideration.

The 11 students selected as Gaines Scholars are as follows:

Writing is a way for life for Nikky Finney, a UK English professor and Affrilachian poet. In the March 17 issue of Ace Weekly, Bianca Spriggs writes about Finney. An accomplished writer and professor, Finney has written four books, worked as a professor in the

University of Kentucky chemistry professor Allan Butterfield's work in neurochemistry and Alzheimer's research is renowned.

But Butterfield's work goes beyond the lab; his support of undergraduate and graduate research at UK is celebrated throughout campus and the Commonwealth, with every research grant and doctoral diploma awarded.

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,”

An exhibition on the results of the excavations by University of Kentucky faculty of an ancient Greek fort will debut at the Lexington Public Library - Central Library before moving to Italy, where it will remain on permanent display.

"A Greek Mountain Fort in Southern Italy. University of Kentucky Archaeological Investigations at Monte Palazzi (Passo Croceferrata, Grotteria, Calabria)" will be on exhibit March 26 through May 1, in the library’s gallery.

Paolo Visonà, adjunct associate professor of art history in UK’s Department of Art, will give a lecture on the Monte Palazzi archaeological project at 6 p.m. Monday, March 28, in the library's theater. A gallery reception will also be held from 5 to

An exhibition on the results of the excavations by University of Kentucky faculty of an ancient Greek fort will debut at the Lexington Public Library - Central Library before moving to Italy, where it will remain on permanent display.

"A Greek Mountain Fort in Southern Italy. University of Kentucky Archaeological Investigations at Monte Palazzi (Passo Croceferrata, Grotteria, Calabria)" will be on exhibit March 26 through May 1, in the library’s gallery.

Paolo Visonà, adjunct associate professor of art history in UK’s Department of Art, will give a lecture on the Monte Palazzi archaeological project at 6 p.m. Monday, March 28, in the library's theater. A gallery reception will also be held from 5 to

The most comfortable way to understand a controversial issue is through the eyes and experience of someone like yourself — through normal, everyday people whose challenges and beliefs relate to your own.  That is the way the issue of homosexuality and its often tumultuous relationship with Christianity is told in the documentary "For the Bible Tells Me So" being shown at the University of Kentucky this week.
When 

You can tell a lot about a girl from the type of barbecue she prefers. So, do the connections between ketchup, mustard or vinegar, collards or corn — carry cultural weight beyond the calories? University of Texas American studies Professor Elizabeth Engelhardt would most likely say yes. 
Engelhardt will present the third of the University of Kentucky's Place Matters series, titled "Gathering Wild Greens: Foodways Lessons from Appalachia’s Global Past" at 3:30 p.m., Thursday, March 24 in the John Jacob Niles Gallery.  UK

A new exhibition of poster art from World War I at the Art Museum at the University of Kentucky examines the use of the art form as a propaganda tool in wartime, while also providing a glimpse into life on the home front during that time. "World War I and the Art of Persuasion," on view through May 8, features rarely exhibited American, French and German war posters drawn from UK Special Collections Library and three private collections. This exhibition is free and open to the public.

Graduate student Ryan Anderson has started a blog called "Anthropologies," in which contributors explore contemporary anthropology through essays, short articles, and opinion pieces written from diverse perspectives. By presenting various viewpoints and positions, this site seeks to highlight not only what anthropology means to those who practice it, but also how those meanings are relevant to wider audiences.

Anthropology professor Sarah Lyon’s New Book: Coffee and Community: Maya Farmers and Fair Trade Markets has just been released. 

Lyon's ethnographic analysis of fair-trade coffee analyzes the collective action and combined efforts of fair-trade network participants to construct a new economic reality. Focusing on La Voz Que Clama en el Desierto, a cooperative in San Juan la Laguna, Guatemala, and its relationships with coffee roasters, importers, and certifiers in the United States, "Coffee and Community" argues that while fair trade does benefit small coffee-farming communities, it is more flawed than advocates and scholars have acknowledged.

Through ethnographic fieldwork with the

Anthropology professor Sarah Lyon’s New Book: Coffee and Community: Maya Farmers and Fair Trade Markets has just been released. 

Lyon's ethnographic analysis of fair-trade coffee analyzes the collective action and combined efforts of fair-trade network participants to construct a new economic reality. Focusing on La Voz Que Clama en el Desierto, a cooperative in San Juan la Laguna, Guatemala, and its relationships with coffee roasters, importers, and certifiers in the United States, "Coffee and Community" argues that while fair trade does benefit small coffee-farming communities, it is more flawed than advocates and scholars have acknowledged.

Through ethnographic fieldwork with the

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

Fox Farm: A Fort Ancient Village ( A.D. 1100-1650), Mason County, Kentucky
June 9 - August 4, 2011

Fox Farm is one of the largest Fort Ancient sites in the Ohio River valley. It sits on a broad, gently rolling ridgetop about 60 miles north of Lexington, near Maysville, Kentucky. Prehistoric village farming peoples, whom archaeologists call “Fort Ancient,” lived at Fox Farm from about A.D. 1100 to 1650.

Research at the site spans more than a century. It has documented a long-term, intensive occupation, marked by thick cultural deposits, evidence of structure rebuilding, and multiple plazas, mounds, and cemeteries. Despite this long history of investigation, the site itself is very poorly understood. Last summer, the

When the University of Kentucky's Environmental Studies program director position opened up last summer, chemistry Professor David Atwood enthusiastically submitted his application.

But UK's resident expert on the removal of metal contaminants from water wanted to see something more.
 
"In working with others across campus, I was hearing more and more about the need for an interdisciplinary environmental studies major at UK," Atwood explained. "I thought that in order to really make the director position worth it, we should expand what we already had."
 
So, Atwood met with Dean Mark Kornbluh with argument in hand.
 
But to Atwood's surprise, Kornbluh "basically described exactly what I had hoped to do," Atwood laughed. "I guess you don't really have to do much convincing if it's a good

When the University of Kentucky's Environmental Studies program director position opened up last summer, chemistry Professor David Atwood enthusiastically submitted his application.
 
But UK's resident expert on the removal of metal contaminants from water wanted to see something more.
 
"In working with others across campus, I was hearing more and more about the need for an interdisciplinary environmental studies major at UK," Atwood explained. "I thought that in order to really make the director position worth it, we should expand what we already had."
 
So, Atwood met with Dean Mark Kornbluh with argument in hand.
 
But to Atwood's surprise, Kornbluh "basically described exactly what I had hoped to do," Atwood laughed. "I guess you don't