TEK announces 2025-26 Faculty Fellows cohort

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Sept. 8, 2025) — The University of Kentucky’s Office of Transdisciplinary Educational approaches to advance Kentucky (TEK) has announced the TEK Faculty Fellows for the 2025-26 academic year. A critical mission of TEK is the development of new transdisciplinary courses and the reimagining of existing courses to emphasize one or more essential employability skills. To accomplish this, TEK is leveraging the expertise of a new cohort of TEK Faculty Fellows.

Transformative solutions to society’s most complex challenges require more than one perspective or disciplinary approach. A transdisciplinary approach unites experts and students from across disciplines to tackle real-world problems through collaboration, creativity and critical thinking. TEK challenges faculty and students to engage with complex, multidimensional and context-specific issues by leveraging campuswide and employer expertise. 

In the process, students gain durable, transferable skills for the workforce and for advancing Kentucky. By engaging in transdisciplinary problem solving, students gain skills that are important for any career, including the ability to consider multiple points of view, reflect on growth, communicate effectively and collaborate in teams. These skills reflect our commitment to the Kentucky Graduate Profile, known at UK as Wildcat Workforce.

“The TEK Faculty Fellows program offers an opportunity for faculty across all disciplines to collaborate on our shared responsibility to surface the unique ways that we’re leading students to practice skills and habits of mind that become enduring resources for career success,” said Trey Conatser, Ph.D., assistant provost for teaching and learning and director of CELT. “With innovative, grounded curricula focusing on complex issues impacting Kentucky and beyond, TEK Faculty Fellows are leading the way in imagining how higher education can respond to, but also — and more importantly — influence how our communities engage these challenges that call us to action.” 

TEK Faculty Fellows participate in learning communities that offer structured support for the design of new undergraduate courses or the adaptation of current courses by embedding transdisciplinary skill development. 

“The Faculty Fellows program is the heart of TEK,” said Jennifer Osterhage, Ph.D., director of TEK. “I’m continually impressed by the fellows’ dedication to our students, as evidenced by the courses and assignments they create to help students build the skills necessary to advance our state.”

New courses created as part of the TEK Faculty Fellows program involve faculty in team teaching across disciplinary boundaries, focusing on a critical issue or problem alongside workforce experts and community partners. Existing courses clearly emphasize the employability skills that transdisciplinary work requires, including collaboration and communication among stakeholders with different perspectives and lived experiences. Workforce experts and community partners will further support students’ understanding of how multiple disciplines and approaches can solve local and global problems.

 “TEK provides a space to think intentionally about what we are doing in the classroom and how we can help students develop their skills and talk about them. It’s helped me intentionally talk to my students about why we do what we do and how it relates to their futures in the workforce,” said former TEK Faculty Fellow Sarah Vos, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Department of Health Management and Policy and director of undergraduate research in the College of Public Health. “In addition, I've been able to redesign assignments that help my students focus on those skills in context. And the students love it when they see how what we do in the classroom relates to their future in the workforce.” 

After soliciting applications in the spring semester, TEK has announced the third cohort of TEK Faculty Fellows for the 2025-26 academic year:

• Kristi Bartlett, Product Design, College of Design
• Molly Blasing, Modern and Classical Languages, College of Arts and Sciences
• Chelsea Brislin, Gaines Center for the Humanities
• Roger Brown, Agricultural Economics, Martin-Gatton College of Agriculture, Food and Environment
• Bradley Burdick, Mathematics, College of Arts and Sciences
• Laneshia Conner, College of Social Work
• Emily Croteau, Biology, College of Arts and Sciences
• Cory Curl, Martin School of Public Policy and Administration
• Anastasia Curwood, History, College of Arts and Sciences
• Meghan Dowell, School of Information Science, College of Communication and Information
• William Davis Ferriell, Biomedical Engineering, Stanley and Karen Pigman College of Engineering
• Kamahra Ewing, English, College of Arts and Sciences
• Madri Hall-Faul, College of Social Work
• Jens Hannemann, Engineering Technology, Stanley and Karen Pigman College of Engineering
• Regina Hannemann, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Stanley and Karen Pigman College of Engineering
• Anastasia Hauser, Chemical Engineering, Stanley and Karen Pigman College of Engineering
• Danielle Herrig, Biology, College of Arts and Sciences
• Hayley Hoffman, School of Information Science, College of Communication and Information
• Krista Jacobsen, Horticulture, Martin-Gatton College of Agriculture, Food and Environment
• Brianna Janssen Sanchez, Hispanic Studies, College of Arts and Sciences
• Muzhen Li, Retailing and Tourism Management, Martin-Gatton College of Agriculture, Food and Environment
• Joe Martin, School of Information Science, College of Communication and Information
• Jennifer McMullen, Kinesiology and Health Promotion, College of Education
• Peter Mirabito, Biology, College of Arts and Sciences
• Alicia Modenbach, Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering, Martin-Gatton College of Agriculture, Food and Environment
• John Carey Murphy, Writing, Rhetoric and Digital Studies, College of Arts and Sciences
• Marilyn Nehls, Kinesiology and Health Promotion, College of Education
• Karen Petrone, History, College of Arts and Sciences
• Jill Schinberg, Arts Administration, College of Fine Arts
• Jill Stowe, Agricultural Economics, Martin-Gatton College of Agriculture, Food and Environment
• Tama Thé, Emergency Medicine, College of Medicine
• Katherine Thompson, Statistics, College of Arts and Sciences