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Alumni Success Stories

Susan Tomasky

Topical studies alum Susan Tomasky was drawn to the University of Kentucky because of its honors program but she also became deeply rooted in the College of Arts & Sciences political science department.

Sam Powers

When Sam Powers travels, he buys a one-way ticket. He prefers it that way - as he searches for “Goat man” in Guatemala or participates in Buenos Aires’s annual pillow fight or motorbikes through Vietnam’s Ha Long Bay, he wants the people he meets, not a return ticket, to determine his schedule.

Nicole Lally

University of Kentucky alumna Nicole Lally says her interest in sociology was sparked at an early age.
When she was seven years old, Lally’s family moved from Cleveland to Elizabethtown. The change in environment was shocking, Lally said.

Marcia Payne

“I didn’t want to rush into the next step after undergrad so I took some time off,” Payne said. “Then, I sort of came to the point where I wanted a plan for the rest of my life.”
Knowing that she wanted to continue to study chemistry but also wanting to foster her other life passions, Payne picked UK and started her graduate work in 2000.

Peyton Fouts

At age seven, Peyton Fouts,’06, wanted to change the world. And he’s been working toward that goal since.
At that young age, he saw a girl on TV carrying one brother and dragging another (who was dead) by the hand in the sand. “She had been orphaned by AIDS and my heart broke. I knew I wanted to change their circumstances and I just kept seeing people around the world who needed help.”

Ben Williams

There’s more than 4,300 miles separating Morehead, KY and Berlin, Germany. For Ben Williams, it was a gap that would be bridged thanks, in part, to his experiences at the University of Kentucky.

James Booth

A Blackpool, England native, Booth studied at the University of Leeds before coming to the United States to study in the Bluegrass. He earned his undergraduate degree in mathematics and his master’s degree in statistics at Leeds before looking at Ph.D. programs.

Susan Stonich

In the time away from her anthropological research, Susan Stonich engages in a familiar and common hobby – “I’m a weaver.”
“The creative part of my life is weaving and textile design, I’m very interested in that,” she said.

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