UNITE Event Will Showcase UK’s Research to Advance Racial Equity

The University of Kentucky’s United In True racial Equity (UNITE) Research Priority Area will host its first annual research showcase May 4 at the Gatton Student Center. The 2022 UNITE Research Showcase is centered around elevating and promoting the importance of racial equity research at UK, across the Commonwealth and beyond.

The event will include breakout sessions presented by local researchers and a poster session to highlight impactful research focused on racial inequities and disparities being led by UK faculty and students. The day will also feature keynotes from national thought leaders Marc Lamont Hill, Ph.D., and Dayna Bowen Matthew, J.D., Ph.D.

Hill is an award-winning journalist who currently hosts BET News and serves as a political contributor for CNN. Hill is the Steve Charles Professor of Media, Cities, and Solutions at Temple University. His research focuses on intersections between culture, politics and education in the U.S. and the Middle East.

Hill’s keynote is presented by the UK College of Social Work as the 2022 Irma Sarett Rosenstein Lecture. The annual lecture is intended to celebrate the remarkable legacy of Lexington social worker Irma Sarett Rosenstein who led the challenge to fight social injustice in Central Kentucky until her passing in 2015.

Matthew, who serves as the dean and the H. Greene Professor of Law at George Washington University Law School, is a leader in public health and civil rights law who focuses on racial disparities in health care. He also is the author of “Just Medicine: A Cure for Racial Inequality in American Health Care.”

The showcase is open to UK faculty, staff, students, affiliates and academic partners. While the event is free, registration is required for all attendees.

UK faculty, trainees and students are invited to submit their poster session presentations under topics including arts and humanities, economics and law, education, health equity and social justice. Submissions are due on April 7. The student and trainee poster session will be a competition, with prizes awarded to the top three posters in the postdoctoral/graduate and undergraduate categories.

More information and a full agenda is also available on the event website.