As Artemis II prepares to lift off — marking the first crewed mission to the moon in more than 50 years — researchers at the University of Kentucky are celebrating a milestone years in the making and their role in helping bring astronauts home safely. An Orion capsule seated atop a 322-foot rocket will blast off from Kennedy Space Center in Florida as early as 6:24 p.m. ET Wednesday, April 1. Its mission: carry four astronauts around the moon and back — sending humans the farthest they’ve ever been from Earth.
As artificial intelligence (AI) reshapes nearly every sector — from health and agriculture to journalism and the arts — demand for graduates who understand its foundations and implications is rapidly growing. Yet, traditional AI coursework often requires advanced programming skills or a computer science background.
As self-driving vehicles and drones become more common, a University of Kentucky researcher is working to ensure these technologies can communicate and coordinate reliably in real time. Yang Xiao, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science in the UK Stanley and Karen Pigman College of Engineering, received the prestigious National Science Foundation (NSF) Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award with $534,264 over five years for his work.
The American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) has elected Johné Parker, Ph.D., associate professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and associate dean for access and community engagement, as an ASME Fellow in recognition of her exceptional engineering achievements and contributions to the engineering profession and to ASME.
For more than three decades, the University of Kentucky's Lean Systems Program has helped businesses and organizations across the state meet workflow demands — positioning Kentucky as a national leader in operational excellence by increasing productivity, reducing waste and strengthening workforce engagement, while maintaining quality and competitiveness.
The University of Kentucky is well-represented on a list of the most-cited researchers in the world. In a database compiled by Stanford University in a partnership with Elsevier, 125 current UK scientists and scholars appear among the top 2% of the most-cited researchers across 22 disciplines. Of those 125 scientists and scholars, 21 are UK Pigman College of Engineering faculty.
Martha Grady, Ph.D., a Lighthouse Beacon Foundation Scholar and an associate department chair in the Stanley and Karen Pigman College of Engineering’s Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, is leading a multidisciplinary team to investigate how 3D-printed titanium can be engineered to resist harmful bacteria.
For more than a century, Engineers Day — better known as E-Day — has transformed the University of Kentucky’s engineering complex into a hands-on playground for discovery. On Saturday, Feb. 28, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., the Stanley and Karen Pigman College of Engineering will welcome thousands of students, families and community members for its annual open house celebrating science, technology, engineering and math (STEM).
