SURES 2026 (Week of June 29th)

 On Monday, some of us were lucky to join Dr. Crawford's group and go boating/tubing/swimming at Laurel River Lake, followed by a late-night campfire and watching the moonbow at Cumberland Falls! 

"Moonlight will give moonbows under all the same conditions that the sun will give rainbows. However, moonlight even during a full moon is about a million times dimmer than sunlight, so you need a very dark environment, well away from cities and streetlights. And then you need to be at the right place and the right time. The moon is much brighter for a few days around full moon, and just after full moon the moon rises a bit after sunset, so that it will be dark and the moon will be low on eastern horizon." 

On Tuesday, we met Dr. Cetewayo Rashid and learned about his career journey and research. Some of us also attended a UK Medical School Admissions Session with Wendy Jackson, MD and Christopher Simmons, MD, PhD and were able to ask important questions about the application process. Due to the 4th of July Holiday, we had a break from Thursday activities and enjoyed a three-day weekend!

SURES 2026 (Week of June 22nd)

 On Tuesday, we met Dr. Olga Tsyusko-Unrine and learned about her career journey and research. On Thursday, we worked through a community building circle on mental health and got to know each other more by holding space for each person to share as much or as little as they wanted to. We then had our second career development session where we discussed the importance of networking, especially for student researchers interested in graduate/professional school or industry positions. We learned tips for networking in person and viewed established LinkedIn profiles of SURES alumni as examples. We then practiced our networking/interviewing skills with a challenge - to answer prompts or questions given to us without time to prepare. This allowed us to practice thinking on our feet while remaining professional and exercise our public speaking skills!

SURES 2026 (Week of June 15th)

 On Tuesday, we met Dr. Kevin Pearson and learned about his career journey and research. On Thursday, we had our first career development session where we learned about how to develop and maintain good resumes/CVs and tips on writing a good personal statement for graduate and professional applications. Next, we learned about environmental contaminants and teamed up with students from the KY-INBRE program to collect soil samples across campus to measure and analyze lead levels in different locations! On Friday, we took the day off in observance of Juneteenth.

SURES 2026 (Week of June 8th)

 On Tuesday morning, we met Dr. Stacy Stanifer and learned about her career journey and research. On Thursday, we learned about the origins and uses of medicinal plants and potted them in the planters we designed depending on their region of origin. 

We also learned about the importance of sustainability and did two activities to actively participate in sustainable efforts. Sam Radomski, one of our returning Near Peer Mentors, showed us how to upcycle t-shirts into cute tote bags! Sunny Ghuneim, our Program Coordinator, showed us how to turn plastic bags into plastic yarn that can be upcycled into items like coasters, plant holders, and more. This week we also received our Near Peer Mentor matches!

SURES 2026 (Week of June 1st)

 On Tuesday, some of us attended the UGR Summer Research Kickoff where we met other undergraduate researchers and had Kona Ice. On Thursday, our Global Gardens activity included learning about plants from different regions of the world. In groups, we chose a global region and then painted planters to represent our regions. Next, we met our potential Near Peer Mentors in a speed networking event. 

In the evening, some of us played pickleball with Dr. Chris Crawford and Physics and Astronomy REU students. On Saturday, some of us joined Dr. Crawford's group to tour Mammoth Cave. It was a very eventful and fun-filled first week!

SURES 2026 - Welcome and Orientation

 On May 26th, we welcomed our 2026 SURES cohort of 10 students joining us from Centre College, Idaho State University, Emory University, Washington College, Universidad del Sagrado Corazon, North Carolina A&T University, Western Kentucky University, and University of Kentucky. During orientation, we spent time getting to know each other and the program overview, and we received our UK ID badges. On the second day of orientation, we practiced hypothesis testing and reviewed mentee expectations, research ethics, how to keep a good laboratory notebook, and data interpretation. On Thursday, we met our research mentors and officially began our time in our labs!

Our last SURES event-the Presentations of the Posters

 

Our last week was busy as we worked on finalizing our posters and worked on our explanations of our projects.  Our poster session was terrific-we were joined by 53 other undergraduate researchers who were from the KY-INBRE, Markey STRONG and Astronomy/Physics programs.  We also welcomed the family and friends who joined us and celebrated our successes.

SURES 2025 (Week of July 21st)

 On Tuesday, we learned about Dr. Brittany Givens Rassoolkhani's career journey and research. On Thursday, we first worked on our posters for next week's poster session with our mentors. Then, we heard from Dr. Jason Unrine about his career journey and the dangers of environmental lead exposure. He reported back his findings of lead levels in the soil samples we collected ourselves around UK campus! It was very interesting to see the difference in lead levels from various locations on campus and we even got to see that there were higher levels in areas with more construction. 

SURES 2025 (Week of July 14th)

 On Tuesday, we learned how to make a good poster presentation from Jesi Jones-Bowman to help get us prepared for our upcoming poster session. On Thursday, we learned from our Near Peer Mentors who presented some of their posters to us and explained their thoughts when designing them. 

We then finished the week's activities by going to The Food Connection, learning about culinary medicine, and cooking with Chef Tanya Whitehouse. Look at all the delicious food!

SURES 2025 (Week of July 7th)

On Tuesday, we heard about Dr. Pearson's career and research journey. On Thursday, we learned about the importance of networking and how to leverage tools like LinkedIn for that purpose. We also got to paint our projects and presented what our paintings meant to each other. Us scientists have some real artists among us!

SURES 2025 (Week of June 30th)

 On Tuesday, we learned about Dr. Stanifer's career journey and research. Due to the 4th of July Holiday, we enjoyed the rest of the week off and look forward to returning to our normal scheduling next week!

SURES 2025 (Week of June 23rd)

 On Tuesday, we learned about Dr. DeVries career journey and research. On Thursday, we had a career planning session where we learned how to put together resumes, CVs, and personal statements. We then collected soil samples from all around campus to measure and analyze lead levels in different locations!

SURES 2025 (Week of June 16th)

On Tuesday, we heard from Dr. Tsyusko-Unrine about her career journey and research. On Wednesday, we worked through a community building circle on mental health and also learned about how similar we all are to each other. We then learned about environmental exposures to neurotoxicants such as lead and methylmercury, worked through case studies for each exposure, and even worked through simulations of common symptoms of these exposures! We also got to show off some of our final products of our tie-dyed lab coats.

SURES 2025 (Week of June 9th)

On Tuesday morning, we met Dr. Patrick Hannon. Dr. Hannon told us about the professor who changed his career plans from being a vet to becoming a reproductive toxicologist. He also described why identifying why phthalate esters negatively impact female reproduction is a complex and fascinating problem to be solved. 

On Wednesday, we learned about the origins and uses of medicinal plants and got to pot them in the planters we designed last week. 

We also had a blast tie-dying lab coats (and socks) and getting some sun!

SURES 2025 (Week of June 2nd)

Our SURES activities started on Tuesday morning with Dr. Cetewayo Rashid. He told us about how he got inspired by scientists and the key people in his life who played important roles in his career journey. He also talked to us about his research on organophosphate flame retardants and their contribution to metabolic dysregulation. 

We also met other undergraduate researchers, had some Kona Ice, and played lots of Jenga!

On Thursday, we learned about global gardens, chose a global region, and then designed a planter to represent our region. We then got to meet our potential Near Peer Mentors in a speed networking event. 

SURES 2025 - A Great Start with Orientation

 On May 27th, we welcomed our seven SURES participants. They came from several universities: the University of Kentucky, North Carolina A&T State, University of Puerto Rico, and Washington College. After getting acquainted over lunch, we learned about hypothesis testing and how to keep a good laboratory notebook. On Wednesday, we talked about data, how to be a good mentee, and research ethics. We had a great time on our scavenger hunt and getting more familiar with the University of Kentucky campus. We said "Hi" to Bowman and got laboratory safety goodies from the BioSafety Team. On Thursday, we each found our labs and got started learning about our summer projects.

Now Recruiting for Summer 2025

 

SURES 2024: The Finale (July 25)

 

 

    We are so glad to have made it to the BIG DAY! It is our day where we join the STRONG and INBRE programs to discuss our summer research with our friends, family, public, and each other. Our students have worked so hard to reach this day and we are so proud of them. We would also like to extend a thank you to our near peer mentors, all the PI mentors, our program coordinator Sunny, and our program director Dr. Hollie Swanson. It has been a great time getting to know all of these students and seeing our cohort become great friends and great scientists. This was a great poster session with so many interesting projects and presentations. Following the poster session, we held a reception and pictures upon receiving the certificate of program completion. 

The students and their mentors presented posters on very interesting topics.  Here are the titles of their projects.

Glucocorticoid Receptor Beta Modulates Steroidogenesis Enzyme Expression in Human Adrenal Cells by Zane Bates and Faculty Mentor Terry Hinds

Toxicity of Large Cigar Condensate on Human Oral Epithelial Cells by Halle Harned and Faculty Mentor David Orren

 

Efficacy of Essential Oils for German Cockroach Control by Daniela Jackson and Faculty Mentor Zach DeVries

 

Early Active Phase Running Better Protects Against a High Fat Diet than Late Phase Running in Female Mice by Amia Liddell and Faculty Mentor Kevin Pearson

 

Using the DenseNet Convolutional Neural Network to Identify Sources of Indoor Air Pollution by Christian Sodora and Faculty Mentor Tianjun Lu

 

Extended Access to Fentanyl and Xylazine Self-Administration Results in Behavioral Tolerance in Female Rats by Mallory Sparks and Faculty Mentor Cassandra Gipson

 

Comparison of Inexpensive Points of Use Filters for the Disinfection Byproducts from Drinking Water by Amya Turner and Faculty Mentor Jason Unrine

 

Sex Differences in Mitochondrial Protein Expression Following a Traumatic Brain Injury by Ejeman Unuakhalu and Faculty Mentor Pat Sullivan

 

The Bioconversion of Bilirubin to Urobilin is Reabsorbed Via the Hepatic Vein to Bind the Blook Carrier Albumin by Kevin Williams and Faculty Mentor Terry Hinds

 

      Thank you for your attention to these posts, I hope they have inspired you to see creative and innovative activities to foster professional development, scientific discovery, and the process of mentorship that we have shared throughout the program!