Carl Nathe recently interviewed one of our own faculty members for his UK at the Half segment, which airs during each UK football game. He spoke with Ann Kingsolver, Director of the UK Appalachian Center and a professor in the Department of Anthropology, about her work in the area. Kingsolver is excited to be part of the Center and the Appalachian Studies Program and is busy exploring ways to become more involved in the community – for the university, faculty, and students.

At the beginning of the Fall 2011 semester, we met with all of the new faculty hires in the College of Arts and Sciences. This series of podcasts introduces them and their research interests. Mark Whitaker is a professor in the Department of Anthropology. For the past thirty years, Whitaker has been studying Tamil speaking people who live in the east coast of Sri Lanka. In addition to his research in Sri Lanka, Whitaker also works with diasporic communities of Tamil speaking people in Toronto, Canada.

At the beginning of the Fall 2011 semester, we met with all of the new faculty hires in the College of Arts and Sciences. This series of podcasts introduces them and their research interests. Ann Kingsolver is the director of the Appalachian Center and Appalachian Studies Program at UK and is also a professor in the Department of Anthropology. Kingsolver does comparative research in the U.S, Mexico, and Sri Lanka that addresses the effects of globalization and transnational policy on people's livelihoods and identities and how people make sense of these changes.

At the beginning of the Fall 2011 semester, we met with all of the new faculty hires in the College of Arts and Sciences. This series of podcasts introduces them and their research interests. Carmen Martinez Novo is an associate professor in the Department of Anthropology and the director of Latin American Studies. Martinez's research focuses on indigenous peoples in the Andes and the Amazon. Specifically, she studies the idea of multiculturalism within the "new left" in Latin America (a term she uses in reference to the emergence of leaders like Chavez and Morales), and the relationship of the "new left" with liberation theology in the Catholic Church.

At the beginning of the Fall 2011 semester, we met with all of the new faculty hires in the College of Arts and Sciences. This series of podcasts introduces them and their research interests. Heather Worne is an assistant professor in the Department of Anthropology. Worne's specialty is bioarchaeology and, in particular, she researches issues of community health, warfare, and agricultural sedentism in prehistoric times. Previously, Worne has focused on the late prehistoric period in the Middle Cumberland region of Tennessee, and she hopes to collaborate with other archaeologists at UK to expand her research into areas of Kentucky.

Cristina Alcalde is one of the three faculty co-directors for A&S Wired, a new residential college at UK. A&S Wired starts in the Fall of 2011, and aims to integrate social and intellectual lives of first-year students. She is excited about being involved – and thinks the students will be too. Listen to what she believes this initiative will provide.­

Monica Udvardy, a professor in the Department of Anthropology and the director of the International Studies Program, discusses where interdepartmental collaborative efforts could take the College of Arts & Sciences in the years to come.