by Colleen Glenn

Congratulations are in order for Ramesh Bhatt, who has recently won a three-year National Science Foundation grant worth $432,751. Bhatt, a professor of Psychology at the University of Kentucky, will use the support to expand his research on the development of social functioning in infancy.

 “Bodies provide a lot of information that facilitates social functioning in adults,” Bhatt says. “However, not much research has addressed the development of knowledge about bodies. The proposed research will let us examine questions such as whether babies know how bodies are organized in terms of the relative proportions of various parts.”

For example, Bhatt will analyze how infants from 3 to 9 months of age react to systematic changes to body and face images, documenting which aspects of bodies and faces infants scan. The results will help Bhatt

By Erin Holaday Ziegler

The emotional suffering and clinical treatment associated with infertility is wide-ranging and ever-changing.

In the Middle Eastern world, many of the couples unable to have children suffer a social stigma as well, according to Marcia Inhorn, William K. Lanman Jr. Professor of Anthropology and International Affairs at Yale University.

Inhorn, a specialist on Middle Eastern gender and health issues, will present the second lecture of the UK Department of Anthropology's Annual Colloquium Series titled 

by Erin Holaday Ziegler

The University of Kentucky's Clinical Psychology program took the number one spot in a national study of productivity rankings, meaning that UK psychology graduate students and professors in the College of Arts & Sciences are generating a host of novel research that is effective and influential as well.

In a recent published study "Leading North American Programs in Clinical Assessment Research: An Assessment of Productivity and Impact" by Texas A&M University psychology professor Leslie C. Morey, UK's Clinical Psychology program ranked No. 1 in h-index. 

"We were thrilled to be ranked first," said UK

By Erin Holaday, Colleen Glenn

It’s almost time for class and you’re still in your dorm room. But you’re not going to be late. There’s plenty of time to walk downstairs.

Imagine what residence halls will be like in 2020. That’s what the College of Arts & Sciences did when they created a new living and learning community at Keeneland Hall.

Debuting this fall, A&S Wired houses almost 200 freshmen in a unique interactive space that combines education and residence life.

“As we envisioned what education would be like for students starting college in 2020, we knew advanced technology would be a critical component,” said Adrienne McMahan, assistant dean of

By Divya Menon, Erin Holaday

For proof that reection, exclusion and acceptance are central to our lives, look no farther than the living room, says psychology professor Nathan DeWall in the University of Kentucky's College of Arts & Sciences.

“If you turn on the television set and watch any reality TV program, most of them are about rejection and acceptance,” he said. The reason, according to DeWall, is that acceptance—in romantic relationships, from friends, even from strangers—is absolutely fundamental to humans.

In a new paper published in 

by Erin Holaday Ziegler

Psychological research at the University of Kentucky indicates that feelings of disgust do not usually escalate to aggression in the same way that feelings of anger could.

UK doctoral student Ricky Pond has been interested in the feeling of disgust and its origins from the beginning of his doctoral work in psychology at UK.

With the overwhelming amount of psychological research available on anger and its effects on aggression, Pond decided to test a different negative emotion, one that wouldn't necessarily be associated with hostility.

"I wanted to focus on a negative emotion that leads to less aggression," Pond said. "And my experience with disgust was a good fit."

Pond's study, titled "

by Erin Holady Ziegler

When rising University of Kentucky senior Joseph Mann arrived in Cape Town, South Africa in mid-May, he was ready to make a difference and ready for a challenge. Little did he know that his travel abroad experience would change the course of his life.

"You just need to come here," Mann laughed. "That's what I've told my friends and family. In the face of such adversity, there's hope. South Africans know that they have a bright future. Despite issues with service availability and government incapacity, they have faith."

Mann, a psychology and gender and women's studies major at UK, has a keen interest in human

by Erin Holaday Ziegler

When University of Kentucky College of Arts and Sciences academic adviser Emily Dailey first contacted psychology senior Suzanna Mitchell about a developmental social neuroscience fellowship at Yale, "it reached out and grabbed me," Mitchell said.

Mitchell, a graduate of Dunbar High School in Lexington, had become interested in child developmental psychology after working at Immanuel Baptist Daycare and as a part-time nanny.

"I am very passionate about working with children, and this opportunity felt right," Mitchell said.

The two-year Yale Fellowship in Developmental Social

by Brad Duncan and Jenny Wells

Celebrating its 13th year, the University of Kentucky College of Education’s Teachers Who Made a Difference program honored its newest group of educators at the 2011 ceremony held Saturday, April 30. More than 140 educators from nine states were recognized for the significant influence they have had in the lives of their students.

"The University of Kentucky College of Education prides itself on preparing great teachers," said Mary Ann Vimont, the college's director of Public Relations and Student, Alumni and Community Affairs. "As part of our mission, we also think it is important to honor those teachers who are making a difference in the lives of their students, here in Kentucky and across the country."

The program got its start

by Erin Holaday Ziegler

A child’s ability to focus on a videogames is not necessarily the type of focus parents should look for when determining attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.



In fact, increased focus on a screen as opposed to other activities is actually a characteristic of ADHD, according to pediatrician Perri Klass.



"Is a child’s fascination with the screen a cause or an effect of attention problems — or both? It’s a complicated question that researchers are still struggling to tease out," Klass wrote in a recent New York Times story.



Klass references University of Kentucky psychology professors Elizabeth Lorch

by Erin Holaday Ziegler



From the complexity of Proctor and Gamble's profit-maximizing strategies, to the seeming simplicity of a crepe myrtle's determination of how much root mass to grow, the world makes decisions in a spectacular array of circumstances.



Most academic disciplines at the University of Kentucky address the process of decision making in some way. According to UK biology Professor Philip Crowley, there's a rich mix of similarities and differences in approach among the disciplines that provides great opportunities for cross-fertilization when it comes to studying decision making.



"For example, there are different goals for the decision making process in different fields, such as profit maximization in

Director of the Center for Drug Abuse Research Translation and Department of Psychology Professor Michael Bardo has been named a 2011 William B. Sturgill Award recipient. The award is presented anually to a graduate faculty member for outstanding contributions to graduate education at the University of Kentucky.



"Winning the Sturgill Award is such a high honor for me because my past trainees have been so successful," Bardo began. "It has been a great pleasure to stay in contact with many of them on an annual basis at professional meetings in psychology and neuroscience. Watching them grow from

Director of the Center for Drug Abuse Research Translation and Department of Psychology Professor Michael Bardo has been named a 2011 William B. Sturgill Award recipient. The award is presented anually to a graduate faculty member for outstanding contributions to graduate education at the University of Kentucky. "Winning the Sturgill Award is such a high honor for me because my past trainees have been so successful," Bardo began. "It has been a great pleasure to stay in contact with many of them on an annual basis at professional meetings in psychology and neuroscience. Watching them grow from trainees into true colleagues has been personally fulfilling, and I now ask them questions relevant to my ongoing research and training. In fact, I have several examples where I have used their advice to enhance my own research laboratory and

by Saraya Brewer

photos by Lee Thomas

Leave it to a graduate student in film studies to hammer out aspects of horror from one of America’s most beloved family Christmas classics. “It’s Christmas film noir,” said Colleen Glenn about "It’s a Wonderful Life." “It’s an extremely dark film.” "It’s a Wonderful Life" is just one of the handful of Jimmy Stewart films that Glenn, a University of Kentucky English Ph.D. candidate with a specialty in film studies, has watched (and re-watched, analyzed, paused, rewound, and watched again) for her dissertation, in which Stewart and other great actors of the mid 20th century –– including Paul Newman, Frank Sinatra, and John Wayne –– will each get their own chapter.

“I grew up watching old classic movies on PBS with my family, so I really have my parents to thank for my original interest in film,” Glenn

by Rebekah Tilley

photos by Richie Wireman

For many of us, our freshman year of college is the first transitional step into experiencing the world. As a freshly minted high school graduate, doctoral student Leah Bayens instead spent that first year in the woods reading.

“There is something about that experience that forged in me what was already a deep-seated understanding of the importance of those kinds of rural communities, the importance of not developing everything into suburban enclaves,” explained the Louisville native. “It was a foundational experience for me because of that. It was also my first real foray into understanding farm culture.”

Since that time Bayens has grafted herself into the land, the culture and the nature that surrounds it all. It permeates her graduate research, how she lives her life, and who she is at her core.

Graduate Student

By Erin Holaday

Photos by Shaun Ring

After a busy day without a lunch break, how many times have you had that extra piece of chocolate cake, or another glass of wine later that night, when you knew, in your heart of hearts that you might not really need it?

 

"And the next morning, you're beating yourself up about it," said UK psychology graduate student Holly Miller. "It happens to everyone."

 

But according to a new study headed up by Miller, it's not necessarily your fault. "Without fuel, you can't inhibit the bad behavior," she explained. "It's physiology."

 

Graduate Student

By Megan Neff

Photos by Mark Cornelison

Natalie Glover bears no material resemblance to Wassily Kandinski.

But the 23-year-old psychology graduate student has dealt with the abstract in ways that parallel this Russian abstract painter and art theorist.

The most obvious parallel is that Glover is a painter too. And like Kandinski, she realizes the intrinsic value of art in dealing with matters of human nature; of reflecting not only what is aesthetically pleasing, but also what is internally revealing.

“The older I get, the more I study, the more confident I become,” said Glover. “And I find that in my art. More and more I’m starting to do original work, most of it abstract. I’m starting to trust in my abilities more.”

Though Glover’s path did not lead to pioneering a new

Janet Neisewander spends a lot of her time with rodents and cocaine.

As strange as that may sound, the research the Arizona State University professor is doing with those two things may someday help people struggling with addiction.

Neisewander, who earned her Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Kentucky in 1988, became interested in how the brain is connected to behavior early on in her academic career.

As a freshman at Rockford College in Rockford, Ill. Neisewander became passionate about the human brain.

“I was fascinated by the way the brain is involved in behavior and how brain dysfunctions result in dysfunctional behavior,” she said.

As she was finishing her bachelor’s degree in biology and psychology, Neisewander looked for graduate programs that would allow her to continue her studies.

“I wanted a good graduate training program

Growing up in Athens, Greece, Panayotis “Taki” Petrou knew he wanted to study in the United States when he was older.

Three of his uncles lived in America and his older sister had already left Greece for school in Chicago.

“I was finishing high school and thinking about college, and it had always been my dream to go to the U.S.,” Petrou said.

As far as choosing the University of Kentucky as his American destination, Petrou took a pretty simple approach. “Kentucky had similar latitude as Greece so I figured that the weather would be similar,” he said, laughing.

In researching UK, Petrou also found a school with reasonable tuition in an area of the country with an affordable cost of living, he said.

“I also liked that it was a big school,” he said. “It had a lot to offer.”

While Petrou felt comfortable with his choice in schools, he didn’t