Vodden joins UofL from East Tennessee State University, where she served as the inaugural vice president for marketing and communications. In her role at ETSU, Vodden led an integrated team of more than 30 marketing and communications professionals and guided the department through a comprehensive brand modernization, digital ecosystem overhaul, renewed focus on internal communications and integrated marketing strategy that contributed to record new student enrollment and recognition as a Great College to Work For®.�� 

“We are thrilled to welcome Jess as a Cardinal and look forward to her leadership as she guides a talented team of professionals who work tirelessly to tell UofL’s story and shape and elevate the university’s brand,” Bradley said. “Jess brings with her an established track record in helping universities with integrated marketing and narrative strategy, digital transformation and crisis communications. Her experience with higher education policy groups and mission-driven organizations also proves invaluable.” 

An enterprise marketing and communications executive for more than 20 years, Vodden previously served as the chief marketing officer at Savage Grant, a social impact investment firm focused on economic and workforce development, as well as in a senior role with the West Virginia Higher ����ֱ�� Policy Commission. She also founded VLS, a behavioral design and communications advisory practice that worked with universities, government agencies and nonprofits.�� 

Vodden holds a bachelor’s degree in public relations, with minors in Spanish and graphic design from Marshall University and a Master of Public Administration in nonprofit management from the University of Colorado Denver.�� 

At UofL, Vodden will serve as a member of the president’s leadership team and work with campus leaders to shape the narrative of UofL’s next chapter, focusing on strategic priorities including academic success, enrollment growth, innovation, connecting with community partners and growing the university’s national reputation.�� 

“As one of only 13 universities in the nation recognized by the Carnegie Foundation as a top-tier institution for research, community engagement and student success, the University of Louisville exemplifies everything a public university should be,” Vodden said. “I am honored and humbled to join President Bradley and the university community as they build on recent historic achievements, including record enrollment, major gains in student retention and groundbreaking investments in research and innovation that will help build a brighter future in Kentucky and across the world.  

Vodden replaces John Karman, who has served in the interim vice president role since late 2024. Karman, who guided the Office of Communications and Marketing through several major initiatives during his tenure, will return to his role as university spokesperson and executive director of communications.�� 

Vodden will begin at UofL on Aug. 17.��

“Social work really aligned with my desire to help people like those I grew up with find resources for mental health, financial assistance, food assistance, even scholarships for college like I found for myself,” she said.

Johnson, who earned a bachelor’s in social work degree from the UofL Kent School of Social Work and Family Science in May, said she faced financial and family hardships growing up in the Portland neighborhood and debated whether to go to college. Fortunately, Johnson ultimately found her ideal path as a first-generation student at Kent School. She interned at the Department of Child-Based Services through Kentucky’s Child Welfare CW-PREP, an innovative career preparation program that provides scholarship funds and a path to employment for students interested in making a positive impact serving the children and families of Kentucky.

“I grew up around individuals impacted by the child welfare system, and it shaped my desire to be a social worker who leads with understanding rather than judgment,” Johnson said.

As a Kroger Scholar, Johnson has been a coordinator for Nourish the Ville, a food drive targeting the West Louisville “food deserts” and partnering with the local non-profit Cabbage Patch. She also founded the Black Business Society, a club which connects UofL students with networking, career assistance, financial literacy, mental health and other resources. Johnson hopes to continue both these community service activities beyond graduation.

UofL News talked to Ka’Lynn about how University of Louisville and Kent School have influenced her life path and what’s next for her.

UofL News: As a recent Kent School graduate, what have you learned about the impact social workers can make?

Johnson: Social workers create impact at every level for individual, family, and community by being both advocates and support systems. For individuals, social workers provide guidance, mental health support and resources during vulnerable moments. For families, they help strengthen communication, promote reunification when safe and connect them to tools that build stability. On a community level, social workers address systemic issues such as poverty, food insecurity and access to health care.

UofL News: How has your social work education and training in CW Prep enhanced your understanding of the clients you hope to serve?

Johnson: The training has given me a greater understanding of trauma, resilience and systemic barriers. From coursework and hands on experience in child welfare, I have learned that families are often navigating generational challenges, not just isolated problems. It also helped me understand the importance of trauma-informed practice, ethical decision-making, clear communication and empathy while maintaining professional boundaries.

UofL News: How does social work embody your passion and purpose?

Johnson: Social work reflects my personal mission to create stability and opportunity for families who may feel unheard or unsupported. My passion is in helping families break cycles of instability and access the resources they deserve. Social work allows me to turn my experiences, education, and leadership into meaningful action.

UofL News: How do you hope to help your clients in the field?

Johnson: I want to provide trauma-informed mental health support and empower them to see their own strengths. I want families to leave services feeling more stable, confident and hopeful about their future. I also hope to mentor other students entering social work, especially those facing personal hardship, to show them that resilience and purpose can coexist. I want to model leadership that is grounded in service and integrity.

UofL News: What are your post-graduation plans?

Johnson: I currently work as a pharmacy technician at Kroger but hope to transition soon to work at DCBS and gain a few years of experience there before considering other options like perhaps starting my own non-profit. I want to become a licensed social worker and plan to begin my MSSW (master of science in social work) program at UofL in spring 2027.

UofL News: What has been the best part of your UofL Kent School experience?

Johnson: As a Kent School graduate, I am proud to be part of a 90-year legacy that values service, advocacy and community transformation. My journey has not been easy, but it has strengthened my commitment to becoming a future licensed clinical social worker who leads with empathy and courage. I am grateful for the education and mentorship that have prepared me to carry this mission forward.

With AI come questions, and the University of Louisville is dedicated to bringing answers through research and academic initiatives that uncover solutions for our campus and community.��

In June, the Christina Lee Brown Envirome Institute at UofL will kick off a new series to teach the community about the ins and outs of AI and data centers. The Exchange: Data Centers 101 will include weekly webinars until July 8 and a culminating session on July 23 at 6 p.m. featuring a film screening, followed by a panel discussion.

Through six virtual webinars, The Exchange will bring in subject matter experts to examine data center impacts in topics such as health, community and the environment. The webinars, hosted by the Community Engagement Cores of Green Heart Louisville and the UofL Superfund Research Center, are free and open to the public.��

Data center developers are investing more than $30 billion dollars in large-scale data centers across the state of Kentucky to keep up with the demand of the booming AI industry. The webinar series aims to help the community learn how to navigate the impact of these efforts, in response to significant local interest in the subject.

The first webinar,  will be hosted virtually at 12 p.m., June 3. Mohana Gutta from the UofL J.B. Speed School of Engineering will lead a deep dive into what a data center is and explore the infrastructure that powers artificial intelligence.

To register, .��

In less than one week, a five-mile section of I-65 between the Watterson Expressway (I-264) and downtown Louisville (Jefferson Street) will close to for bridge replacement as part of the I-65 Central Corridor Project. The shutdown will run through Friday, July 31.

The associated ramp and intermittent local street closures will directly impact UofL’s Health Sciences Center downtown campus as well as Belknap campus.

Patients, employees and students should allow for extra travel time and use the Waze navigation and live traffic app to find the most efficient routes during the two-month closure. Please refer to the  for news/information, FAQs and other resources that relate to the project’s impact on UofL, including new student orientation.

In addition, the , includes details about the project, such as maps, news, traffic alerts and more. The site also includes links to receive text and email updates about the project.

For questions related to impacts on UofL, email ULI65@louisville.edu

The endowed Heidi S. Margulis Scholarship was announced as a surprise on May 21 at the University Club on Belknap Campus. The Humana Foundation is honoring their board member Margulis with a starting gift of $300,000 to establish the new scholarship.

Margulis’ early years in a family with the fraught history of a mother’s and grandmother’s escape from the Holocaust fueled her passion for change and a desire to give back to the community that nurtured and sustained her. Margulis’ journey of positive community transformation in Louisville originated at UofL with her own scholarship and overseas work-study immersion program that culminated in a degree in International Studies with honors in December 1974.

Following in the footsteps of her UofL political science professor and mentor Landis Jones, Margulis became a Capitol Hill intern, working with U.S. Senators Wendall Ford and Dee Huddleston. She served during the tumultuous era of the Watergate Scandal.

Margulis began her career with Humana in 1985, and in her 34-year tenure, she led Humana’s government affairs strategy while also managing the company’s charitable foundation, community engagement and corporate social responsibility initiatives. She retired as chief corporate affairs officer in 2019.

Following her retirement, she has served on The Humana Foundation board and the operating board of UofL Health, among other community and government boards.

Margulis said, “One of my core beliefs and values is that everyone deserves a fair shake in the system.”

The first Heidi S. Margulis Scholarship will be awarded to a SPHIS student in fall 2026.

See the .��

Presented annually by UofL’s Office of Community Engagement, this award recognizes faculty, staff, students and community partners who demonstrate exemplary commitment to volunteerism, outreach, partnerships, curricular engagement or community-based research.��  

CESA also was recognized for its innovative model and measurable impact on both student development and community wellbeing. Through collaborations with organizations across Louisville, CESA strengthens UofL’s mission as a Carnegie Research 1 university dedicated to addressing community needs. It also directly supports the 2026-2030 Strategic Plan by deepening student through community engagement that addresses community needs.��

Dean Beth Boehm recently accepted the award on behalf of the graduate students enrolled in the 2025-2026 academy. She emphasized the significance of the recognition.

“This award recognizes the Graduate School’s commitment to ensuring our students develop not only as researchers and professionals, but also as engaged scholars in any field of study. The partnerships at the heart of this program have proven communities and universities are stronger when they work together, and we are proud to play a role in helping students develop their potential as engaged scholars. We are particularly proud of this year’s students, whose projects with our partners were collectively the strongest in the now decade-long program’s history,” Boehm said.��

CESA, founded by the Graduate School in 2016, introduces students to the principles of community‑engaged scholarship through a yearlong, two-part experience in small teams to codesign research projects with community partners. Students work collaboratively with these partners to address real organizational needs while gaining hands-on experience in community‑centered research.

“This academy was built on the belief that hands-on learning is powerful. The shared impact for both our students and our partners through that exchange is what makes this work so meaningful,” said Michelle Rodems, assistant dean of student success in the Graduate School.

The academy not only equips students with the skills to conduct ethical, collaborative research, it also strengthens UofL’s long-term relationships with community partners across the region. One of these partners, Claude Stephens of Bernheim Forest and Arboretum, has worked closely with graduate students participating in CESA.��

“Bernheim’s two years of experience with the Community Engaged Research Academy has allowed us to improve our play experiences at Playcosystem while also helping us understand the value of diverse perspectives regarding research. We look forward to future opportunities to engage with the Community Engaged Scholarship Academy,” Stephens said.

As CESA continues to expand its impact, the academy remains committed to strengthening UofL’s role as a partner in community wellbeing.

By Vanessa Karem

Narayanan’s research to decode how atoms move and interact within these materials requires hundreds of computer simulations, but the work can now progress much faster thanks to a new high-performance computing (HPC) system at UofL. The system allows Narayanan’s team to develop machine learning tools that will perform these simulations much more rapidly.

The “Zurada” HPC system, launched in late 2025, enables Narayanan and researchers across the university to conduct more advanced research in materials development, personalized medicine, AI and many other fields. The blazing fast and versatile system yields rapid solutions to a wide variety of complex computational problems and once programmed, can even perform and analyze a sequence of computer models autonomously. The researchers then assess the final results to move forward with physical experiments.

The system represents a $3.7-million computing investment that significantly enhances the university’s capabilities and will help UofL achieve its strategic research goals.

“This new HPC system represents a monumental leap forward for UofL’s research and development initiatives,” said Jon Klein, executive vice president for research and innovation. “Its processing power, combined with dedicated AI acceleration and ultra-fast networking, will empower our students, faculty and researchers to achieve breakthroughs faster and explore new frontiers previously beyond our reach.”

The materials Narayanan is testing have the potential to significantly improve the next generation of storage batteries over current lithium-ion technology. Narayanan, associate professor of mechanical engineering in the , is modeling batteries that use iron and aluminum – inexpensive and abundant elements – and sustainable electrolytes, containing simple salts and water.

With Zurada HPC, Narayanan can run the models much more rapidly than with previous systems. He also believes the system has excellent potential to accelerate research in autonomous experimentation.

“We can develop AI models that decide what experiments to run, how to run them and how to analyze the results of those experiments,” Narayanan said. “Most of the heavy lifting is done by AI, and human scientists can come in once every so often to supervise. This platform can get results much faster.”

Using existing approaches, Narayanan said it would take 10 to 15 years to bring a commercial battery product such as the ones he is working on to market. He estimated that autonomous experiments and testing capability with Zurada HPC could shorten that time to 3 to 4 years.

Narayanan also uses the HPC system in his research on metal-insulator transitions in complex oxides, which can be used for preparing the building blocks – called memristors – for brain-like computing platforms.

“We are trying to understand the atomic processes that dictate how the same material can switch from being an insulator to a metal when a voltage is applied.” Narayanan said. “Interestingly, when the direction of voltage is flipped, they turn back to insulators again. These materials hold a lot of potential in mimicking the neurons of the human brain.”

The Zurada HPC system also empowers UofL researchers to advance cutting-edge artificial intelligence research inspired by its namesake, . A professor of electrical and computer engineering at UofL, Zurada is known for his pioneering research in neural networks – a core technology of today’s AI – since the 1990s and has since become one of the world’s in computer engineering, according to data compiled by the global academic publishing and information analytics company Elsevier.

, associate professor in the and a former PhD student of Professor Zurada, is using Zurada HPC for AI research in personalized medicine.

“A lot of my work involves time consuming and computationally heavy AI model training, fine-tuning and simulation,” Gaweda said. “With the Zurada HPC, I will be able to run multiple such jobs in parallel, thereby accelerating the generation of new results.”

For one project, Gaweda is collaborating with in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences to develop tools for individualized treatment of eating disorders. He also relies on Zurada HPC in his project on AI-powered discovery of treatments and interventions to slow progression of chronic kidney disease.

Technical specifications

The various servers that comprise the Zurada HPC system have different “personalities,” each suited for specific kinds of computation and projects, according to Ritu Arora, associate vice provost of . The system consists of 119 servers and features a powerful blend of blazing fast CPUs, 43 NVIDIA GPUs, very large memory servers, ultra-fast 200 gigabits-per-second networking and 5 petabytes of high-performance storage.

The system is capable of more than 1.6 petaflops of double-precision performance. “Peta” in petaflops refers to a quadrillion (1,000,000,000,000,000). “Flops” are floating-point operations per second, or the number of math problems (like 4.5 x 1.2) the system can solve every second.

In other words, Zurada HPC can perform more than 1.6 quadrillion calculations every second.

To understand the magnitude of this capability, imagine if each of the approximately eight billion people on Earth performed one calculation every second. It would take them more than 55 hours to do what this machine can do in one second. This kind of speed is necessary to solve complex problems with billions of interacting variables, such as research in drug discovery, cybersecurity, AI and high-performance materials development.

Researchers can learn more about using the system .

The program integrates leadership training with federal policy insight and skill development, equipping fellows to take on key roles in an evolving sector. Fellows take part in retreats, interactive learning opportunities, projects and a placement experience at another college or university. The program also provides the chance to build a valuable network of higher education leaders. The fellowship year offers opportunities for ACE Fellows to view leadership in action and emerge with both the practical skills and theoretical knowledge to implement effective changes for higher education.��

“Being named an ACE Fellow offers an opportunity to deepen my engagement in institutional decision-making, learn alongside a national cohort of peers and draw from proven best practices to strengthen leadership capacity and drive meaningful, mission‑centered impact,” Craddock said.��

Craddock joins an elite list of previous ACE Fellows from the University of Louisville. They are Richard Clover, 2001-2002, and Aristófanes Cedeño, 2006-2007. UofL also has hosted five fellows through the American Council on ����ֱ�� program.

The ACE Fellows Program is one of the longest-running leadership development programs in the United States with more than 2,500 alumni – many now presidents, provosts and senior executives.

Central to this success is Get Healthy Now’s strategic outreach to medical plan enrollees, encouraging preventive care through primary care provider visits while elevating awareness of chronic condition management and mental health resources. These coordinated efforts have contributed to measurable increases in participation across wellness programs, demonstrating the power of intentional, inclusive engagement.

The awards also recognize UofL’s continued commitment to wellness during times of adversity, highlighting how colleagues across the university come together to support one another on their wellness journeys, even through difficult times. Further underscoring this commitment, the university embedded well-being into its future direction through Strategy 1.2, “Champion well-being, belonging and a flexible, adaptive work environment,” within UofL’s 2026-30 . Together, these honors celebrate not only program excellence, but shared dedication to cultivating a healthier, more resilient university community built on collaboration, compassion and care.

“I am deeply honored to accept these awards on behalf of the University of Louisville,” said Tamara Iacono, wellness coordinator for Get Healthy Now. “Seeing our campus community come together with such intention and compassion, especially during challenging times, has been truly inspiring. This recognition affirms the collective commitment of our colleagues to prioritizing wellness and supporting one another. I am grateful that well-being remains a university-wide priority, and I look forward to continuing to build on this strong foundation as we advance our focus on wellness through the new Strategic Plan.”

That collective commitment is reflected across the campus community and in close collaboration among wellness leaders. Iacono works closely with Whitney Sweeney-Martin, director of faculty success and well-being, to align and advance university-wide wellness initiatives. A passionate advocate for well-being herself, Sweeney-Martin served as a speaker at this year’s event, delivering The Journey of Alignment: From Personal Well-being to Collective Impact. Her remarks emphasized the powerful connection between individual well-being and team culture, inviting participants to explore how self-awareness, intention and compassion can drive positive, collective outcomes; values that closely mirror the collaborative approach she and Iacono bring to UofL’s wellness work every day.

These awards celebrate the work underway and signal what’s possible when wellness is prioritized at every level of the university. With strong collaboration, bold vision and continued commitment, UofL remains focused on advancing a culture of well-being that empowers its people and strengthens the university for the future.

UofL encourages employees to explore available resources at the  and continue building a healthier workplace together.��

The program was developed with the input of supply chain leaders from a diverse range of regional and national corporations, ensuring graduates are equipped with skills modern employers value.

“Supply chain management is a core function of every global, national and regional business, and the demand for skilled professionals in this field has never been greater,” said Amy Henley, dean of the UofL College of Business. “We are thrilled to offer students a rigorous, industry-informed degree that prepares them for a rewarding and lucrative career while strengthening the talent pipeline for employers across our region and beyond.”

The 27-credit-hour program of study is built around five capabilities identified by employers as critical:

• A broad business perspective
• Core supply chain and operations knowledge
• The ability to turn data into actionable information
• Strong interpersonal and communication skills
• Relevant practical experience.

Students will have the opportunity to earn credit through internships and co-ops with regional industry partners and may choose to pursue international study abroad experiences. The curriculum also incorporates applications of artificial intelligence and data analytics, reflecting the modern demands of the profession.

“At UPS, we know today’s supply chains run on data, technology and collaboration across complex networks. Programs like UofL’s global supply chain management degree help develop the talent that powers Louisville’s world-class logistics ecosystem,” said Peg O’Neil, president, UPS Network Design & Optimization.

Supply chain management is among the fastest-growing career fields in Kentucky, with a projected 10-year job growth rate of 34%, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Louisville’s status as a major national logistics hub – with access to an international airport, major waterways, rail infrastructure and interstate highways – gives students exceptional proximity to industry leaders, internship opportunities and real-world learning experiences.

For more information about the BSBA in global supply chain management at the UofL College of Business, visit .