LEXINGTON, Ky. (Nov. 5, 2025) — The University of Kentucky hosted the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) and its Environmental Health Sciences Core Centers (EHSCC) for the EHSCC annual meeting Oct. 27-30. This was Lexington’s first time hosting that event.

The meeting’s theme was “Celebrating Environmental Health Science: Over 60 Years of Science, 25 Years of Community Engagement, and 10 Years of Disaster Response Research.”

Event sponsors included UL Research Institutes’ Chemical Insights, NSF/NIH RAPID Facility, UK Office of the Vice President for Research, UK Center for the Environment and UK Center for Appalachian Research in Environmental Sciences (UK-CARES). 

“It was such a privilege hosting the Environmental Health Science Core Centers in Lexington. We welcomed more than 200 attendees from 25 institutions across the U.S., including affiliates from every NIEHS-funded P30 center,” said Erin Haynes, Dr.P.H., UK-CARES director and professor in the UK College of Public Health Department of Epidemiology and Environmental Health. “The meeting gave attendees an opportunity to share scientific advancement and engage community partners in the work we do.” 

Highlights with UK experts:

• Ilhem Messaoudi (UK acting vice president for research) and Steven Stack (Kentucky Cabinet for Health & Family Services secretary) opened the community forum at the Kentucky Theatre with a film viewing of “The East Kentucky Flood” by the Daily Yonder.
• Erin Haynes and John Balk, UK Associate Vice President for Research Development and Support, opened the first session.
• UK-CARES’ Cetewayo Rashid (College of Medicine) co-chaired a scientific session on “Emerging Exposures and Health,” featuring Patrick Hannon’s research on common environmental plastic pollutants that interfere with ovulation.
• UK-CARES was represented by poster presenters Beth Bowling (Center of Excellence in Rural Health), Yisi Liu (College of Public Health), Tianjun Lu (College of Public Health), Brittany Givens (Pigman College of Engineering), Cassandra Gipson-Reichardt (College of Medicine) and Maggie Murphy (College of Medicine). Murphy was awarded the “Outstanding Early-Stage Investigator Poster.”
• UK-CARES community partner and East Palestine resident Misti Allison co-chaired the “Strategies for Effective Environmental Health Communication to Stakeholders” session, featuring her work on the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio.

The community forum, focused on the East Kentucky flood response, was facilitated by Stacy Stanifer (UK-CARES community engagement co-lead) and featured panelists Jonathan Allen (disaster recovery director for Nesbit Engineering and president of the Kentucky Emergency Management Association), Craig Wilmhoff (assistant professor at Hazard Community College) and Key Douthitt (medical director for North Fork Valley Community Health Center).

“It was an honor to present alongside experts across the country and share the exciting work we are doing at UK and through the Bluegrass Fertility Center,” said Patrick Hannon, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the UK College of Medicine Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology. “The plenary and scientific sessions truly exemplified the breadth of crucial work being conducted across the nation’s centers in the field of environmental health sciences. It was a pleasure to learn how to continue conducting impactful research while making impacts at the community and national policy levels. I will use these experiences to shape my research program moving forward.”

Learn more at the UK-CARES website.