Along with sharing how Schatzel is shifting gears, the spring magazine tells how a 25-year partnership between UofL, UPS and more is the full package for local students, how an alum is off to the races for his 83^rd Derby visit and how UofL researchers are uncovering the secrets of the sewers by studying what’s in the water.

UofL Magazine is published three times per year by the Office of Communications and Marketing.

Maybe it began when she aspired to be an astrophysicist after watching “Star Trek” as a child. Her sense of curiosity grew as she attended college, eventually earning multiple degrees in a variety of fields. Her drive to know more became an asset as she worked her way through the business world, starting out in factories and eventually becoming an entrepreneur.

So it certainly makes sense that someone who genuinely enjoys learning how everything works would be an excellent choice to lead an institution of higher learning.

Schatzel was named the 19th president of the University of Louisville in November, starting officially Feb. 1, 2023. Perhaps unsurprisingly, her first objective as president is to learn more.

To get a feeling for UofL’s future, she wants to ask questions, to gain a sense of UofL from students, faculty, staff, alumni, business and community partners and elected officials.

Through a series of listening tours during this spring semester, she’s doing her homework to better understand how she can support UofL and its community in expanding its already significant impact – locally, nationally and globally.

“The listening tours will mean a lot in terms of understanding our collective vision. I want to get a better sense of the culture of UofL and what I can do to help marry the strategy, the culture and the future together,” she said.

RISING TO THE CHALLENGE

Schatzel’s focus on the future was likely evident even as a child, when she set her first career goal – astrophysicist – because she “really thought ‘Star Trek’ was going to happen.”

Schatzel grew up in the New York City suburbs in a middle-class family that placed an emphasis on learning. “����ֱ�� was really important to my parents because they didn’t have the opportunity to go to college,” she said. “When she was 12 years old, my mother had to drop out of school to help my grandmother, a single mother, support their family.”

While Schatzel’s childhood dream of going into space waned around age 10, her interest in technology continued as she attended  Washington University in St. Louis, studied engineering and earned degrees in economics and biology. Her varied academic interests were a benefit when she entered her first job after college: making Ford Pintos on the second shift at an assembly plant in New Jersey.

Whether she was part of Ford’s management trainee program or in other positions, she “was often, for a long time, kind of used to being the first or the only woman in the job or part of the team,” she said.

She followed her time at Ford with more than two decades in the automotive industry, working for established corporations and serving as the founder and CEO of a multinational advanced manufacturing firm. She learned how the gears turn, literally and figuratively.

“I love complex organizations and complex challenges because you get a bunch of people together, then they work and collaborate together to sort it all out,” she said. “I enjoy innovation. I like working with groups of people to be able to support them to problem-solve and innovate.”

FURTHERING HER REACH

Her interest in understanding the complex translated easily into higher education. After she and her husband, Trevor Iles, started their family and welcomed their two children, Matthew and Katie, Schatzel decided to return to school. She earned a doctorate in business administration, specializing in marketing, specifically new product development and innovation. 

While she admits she “fell into” higher education administration after serving as a professor, she has spent 20 years in academia – equaling the time she spent in the corporate world. She is one of fewer than 2% of today’s university presidents who have significant private sector C-suite experience. That blend was critical in her selection as UofL’s president.

“Dr. Schatzel brings the best of many worlds to the UofL community,” Mary  Nixon, UofL Board of Trustees chair, said while announcing Schatzel’s appointment. “Her impressive climb through the academic ranks, as well as her extensive experience both in the business community and in health care, make her uniquely qualified to lead the university into our next chapter as Kentucky’s premier metropolitan research university.”

Schatzel feels strongly about the mission of universities and the ability to make an impact. But ultimately, she still gets excited about learning from the students she sees each day.

“The part I enjoy more than anything else is just being around students,” she said. “One of the gifts that universities give you is the opportunity to see the talents of students.”

Previously serving in administrative roles at University of Michigan-Dearborn, Eastern Michigan University and Towson University, she found UofL intriguing because of the population of students, (including that one-third are  first-generation college students as she was), the research and creative activity opportunities provided and its leadership role as an anchor institution for Louisville and Kentucky.

“One of the things that really speaks to me is the community that UofL serves – the student community it serves, as well as the Louisville community and the Kentucky community,” she said. “Accessibility and excellence are something UofL commits to, and student success is at the core of what we believe. We’re an R1 university engaged at the highest levels of research. That provides our students with an opportunity to work with world-class faculty and engage in incredible research opportunities. Those rich experiences add so much to their lives as they move forward as adults.

“Then just take a look at our positioning within the city of Louisville and commonwealth of Kentucky. You see all the impactful community and business partnerships we have – in all of Kentucky’s 120 counties – and how we’re able to support their success. The reach and the impact this university has is local, statewide, national and global, and that’s really exciting to be a part of.”

A DYNAMIC CONNECTION

Schatzel is no stranger to Louisville, having traveled here several times during her career in the automotive industry. “People have said to me ‘you know how to say Louisville and you say it well!’,” she said, pronouncing the city’s name like a local. The city has changed since her initial visits, so she is looking forward to exploring new neighborhoods, trying out local coffee shops recommended by students, exploring the music and arts scene and, yes, attending her first Kentucky Derby.

But she is also intrigued to learn more about local industry and what role the university can play in advancing technology. She easily lists off the next topics she plans to investigate: the EV (electric vehicle) industry in Kentucky, especially with a battery plant under construction in nearby Glendale and battery recycling putting the commonwealth at the field’s forefront; health care and the impact UofL and its partnership with UofL Health can have on local and regional communities; manufacturing supply chains; cybersecurity; and even drone technology.

It’s no surprise the lifelong learner wants to know more. Schatzel lights up when she talks about ideas and innovation. It’s clear what gets her own gears turning is thinking about what there is yet to discover and what differences can be made. It’s a sense of curiosity that should serve the Cardinal Community well.

“I’m a student every single day of learning why certain organizations succeed and excel, and what those teams do to innovate and excel,” she said. “I am so excited to support the entire community in working together toward transformational goals. It’s great when people really feel strongly committed but also fulfilled knowing they are part of the mission. They see they make impact.” 

The solution? Metropolitan College – a unique public-private partnership that dramatically increased tenure among workers during the wee hours each night and provided more than 22,000 students over the past quarter-century the opportunity to earn a college degree debt-free.

Metro College allows students at the University of Louisville or Jefferson Community and Technical College to work third shift at Worldport at Muhammad Ali International Airport. In return, they earn a weekly paycheck and payment of their tuition, academic bonuses and fee payment assistance. The program receives state support to fund up to 50% of tuition and fees. The company also provides academic bonuses that include semester and graduation bonuses.

The program launched in the fall semester of 1998 as a partnership among UofL, JCTC, UPS, Louisville Metro Government and the commonwealth of Kentucky. As it celebrates its 25th anniversary, it has proved to be a resounding success in providing access to education and bolstering the local workforce.

“Metropolitan College is one of those initiatives that seemingly has no downside,” said UofL President Kim Schatzel. “Prior to my academic career, I spent 20 years in industry, so I see the value of Metro College across the board. In making this program possible, the state of Kentucky, UPS, JCTC and UofL have created a national model of what a combined education-workforce-economic development initiative can and should be.”

High on the list of pride points is that students graduate 100% debt-free. They also have the benefit of the Metro College Career and Academic Planning Program that helps students navigate the higher education experience and find careers after graduation.

“In addition to paying for college, Metro College provides a student with a livelihood while they are in college,” said Ty Handy, JCTC president. “That is crucial for many students who must support themselves either fully or partially while they are in school. And the added value of the career and academic guidance they receive cannot be underestimated.”

Another major result of the program involves third-shift worker tenure. Prior to the program’s launch, the average tenure of a third-shift worker was eight weeks. As of fall 2022, tenure increased to three years.

“For UPS, the success of Metro College has been integral to our ability to deliver what matters to our customers around the world,” said UPS President Jim Joseph. “In addition to the steady source of talent to help us run our Worldport operation, the program provides student-workers the opportunity to pursue their dreams debt-free, while also receiving competitive pay, benefits and work-life experience and guidance. Our community benefits by growing and enhancing the talent pool within the commonwealth. The program really is a win-win-win for all involved.” 

Thalia Almenares came to Louisville in 2016 from Cuba and began work at UPS in 2017. Through Metro College she started taking classes at JCTC before transferring to UofL where she is poised to graduate in May as a dental hygienist.

“UPS was the best bet for my dreams,” she said. “I couldn’t believe it when they told (me) they were going to pay my tuition 100% in full. But also, with the help of the UPS team, I was able to overcome the language barrier and have a job to support my family while earning a great education. The program also provides you with a great work-life balance. I wasn’t sure if it was possible to be a student and work at the same time, but UPS opens that door.”

Another program benefit is the chance to learn leadership skills and to rise in the ranks while still enrolled in college. Just ask Jeff Wafford ’03 and Donovan Neal ’19.

“Coming out of high school, I knew I couldn’t pay for college. I was actually planning to go into the military until a friend of mine told me about UPS two months before the semester started,” Neal said. “I began in August 2012 in the UPS hub as a package handler and eventually got a role as a supervisor in finance and accounting.” He graduated from UofL with a degree in finance and today works in human resources for UPS.

Likewise, Wafford progressed through the ranks of the multinational shipping company. He enrolled in Metro College more than two decades ago and started as a package handler. “I then became a training and development supervisor, training new hires, and I’ve been lucky enough to advance through customer relations and business development.” 

Wafford, now director of public affairs in government affairs, continues to tout Metro College. “Today, I not only have the chance to talk about it to our leaders here locally and throughout Kentucky but also to the states I cover, in the Virginias and the Carolinas. They all want to know, ‘What can we do in our states to have a program like this?’ ”

Almenares and Neal talk up the program as well.

“I tell people that if UPS is my big family, then Metro College would be my mother,” Almenares said. “I say this because my mother makes sure that I have food, that I feel supported and loved, that I have everything I need. Well, Metro College provides me everything regarding school needs.”

“I was a supervisor in finance and accounting, but I knew my impact could be greater in an HR role because I wanted to actually talk to these students,” Neal said. “I tell them, all you have to do is work third shift and maintain a C (average) or better, versus having to pay for your tuition.”

The rigors of overnight work – Metro College students work 11 p.m. to 4 a.m. about 15 hours per week – coupled with college enrollment can be daunting, but Metro College staff at UofL and JCTC help students handle it. The staff members advise entering students to enroll as a parttime student to get adjusted to the new routine. And they provide advice on life skills that students may need.

“I am extremely grateful to all the Metro College staff because the wraparound services they provide are vital,” Wafford said. “I barely knew how to open a checking account when I started, so to have somebody explain things like this to me was so important. These are the things that are so vital to these students that make the program a success.”

As for handling the late hours that the job requires, Wafford notes that working overnight may not be as much of a problem as might be imagined.

“Twenty-three years ago, my then-college roommate and I were up at 3 o’clock in the morning, as college students sometimes are, and we saw this ad for Metro College,” he said. “We said, ‘You know what? We should do this. We’re up all night anyway. We have these loans we’re getting ready to take out, and we need some money.’ So the next day, we applied.

“I’ve talked about Metro College for 23 years and hopefully (because of) my son, I’ll get to talk about it for the next 23 years,” Wafford said “Let’s keep this program going, for the students, for the future of the commonwealth.”

For more information about Metro College visit metro-college.com

For Sutton ’53, ’65, this May 6 offers bragging rights that probably no other racing spectator can claim. He plans to attend his 84th consecutive Derby.

In the past few years, his perch as a guest of Churchill Downs has been a rare vantage point that few have the chance to enjoy. But his view as an 8-year-old in 1940 — after begging his father since the previous year’s radio broadcast to take him to the Louisville track, likely over his mother’s objections — was a remarkable start to this run of a family tradition.

The Suttons junior and senior boarded the streetcar and were on their way. It was, perhaps, their destiny. The elder Sutton had an intense interest in and a “sixth sense” about what qualities to look for in racehorses, according to his son, and some of that knowledge had come from his own father, a blacksmith in nearby Loretto and Elizabethtown who also worked with horses.

“It was kind of handed down and I was the recipient of all of it. I went along for the ride. It never occurred to me I’d be going all these years,” Sutton said.

Before he heads for the legendary locale, there’s no real ritual — no lucky hat, no superstitious talisman, just some studious consideration the previous night or two to develop a tipsheet of sorts that has become a welcome gift to a couple dozen friends and relatives to help them analyze their betting options. Who wouldn’t want to benefit from decades of devoted, learned exposure?

You could say he wrote the book on it.

Sutton and granddaughter Amber Sims, also a UofL graduate, collaborated on “A Real Life Exacta: Bourbon and 83 Kentucky Derbies,” intended mostly as a legacy for his family and friends to understand his curious upbringing and life adventures.

“I’m living a long life, so to speak, and I am fortunate,” said the 91-yearold, adding that he wanted his family to understand what brought them to this point “rather than being just lost in the dustbin of history.”

He wrote the tome on yellow legal pads in longhand, a task impeded by carpal tunnel syndrome; he knew Sims was adept at computers so she helped immensely by transcribing his handwritten history and helping him organize his life story. “She did a great job of it,” he said.

Sims ’09 said Sutton told her he wanted to leave something behind for his family members. As she and others listened to countless Derby stories over the years, it became clear that somebody needed to document this history.

“You have too much information in your brain. You need to write a book,” Sims recalled commenting.

His attendance record is impressive, even to his relatives. “I think all of us are proud of it,” she said.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen anybody else in my life that’s ever been such an avid lover of the Derby like him,” Sims said. “He still looks like a kid in the candy store looking for a gumball” as early May approaches. “He is never bored with it. He just says, ‘I’m going.’ ”

Although she has been to Churchill Downs, Sims has never attended the Derby. She traditionally watches it on television at her grandmother’s house in a little Derby party of their own while Sutton, his friend and others revive their track tradition. Sims does have a critical role, though — finding the race online afterward and saving it for Sutton to watch it over and over to see how his picks fared as all those hooves thundered down the track.

“It’s always been a big thing in our family,” Sims said.

Out of all those Derby days, a couple do stand out especially in Sutton’s memory.

In 1967, after studying the racing form and reading up on all the pedigrees, he and his father decided to do something they seldom tried – betting a longshot. Proud Clarion, owned by Darby Dan Farm’s John Galbreath, went off at 30-to-1 odds to win, rewarding Sutton, his father and a buddy for scraping together their $20 bet. Taking a chance paid $62 for even a $2 bet, “like manna from heaven” considering their financial situation at the time.

“That was the biggest thrill we really had at the Derby,” Sutton said.

But excitement reigned again in 2000, when Fusaichi Pegasus won the Run for the Roses. “We put all our eggs in one basket,” betting the horse to win, place, show and in the trifecta, exacta and superfecta, he said. “That’s the only time that ever occurred. It lasted us about 10 years. I don’t expect that to ever happen again.”

“It’s difficult to pick a winner at the Kentucky Derby because there are so many Derby horses (in modern times),” he explained.

His normal approach, therefore, is to take a stab at the winner but place bigger money on place and show.

“Most people, all they want is to have a winner. I hate to lose. I really wasn’t a gambler in the strictest sense. I was just an odds player.”

Over the years, particularly the lean ones, he worked on betting frugally to minimize his losses. Later in life he and his wife went to many tracks to enjoy races but now he’s “become almost exclusively the Derby,” he said.

He really wasn’t cognizant that his penchant for attending the Derby had become such a streak or even unusual until well into it. However, he certainly didn’t ever miss his favorite racing event, even when suffering from pneumonia or angling a trip back to Louisville from his Army service.

It didn’t hurt that his alma mater was situated near the track. He took a test to attend UofL after a less-than-fun stint of factory work in his youth. Without any advising, he chose pre-med because his mother was a nurse, and he kept up those studies while also working a heavy schedule at a grocery to pay for his schooling. His Army service was deferred until his graduation, but then he was drafted and inducted right afterward as a young married man.

After the Army he ultimately worked at a Louisville-area distillery until his retirement as an executive after 35 years. He earned a graduate math degree at UofL during his tenure there.

A former distillery co-worker now accompanies him on Derby day, which invariably includes a cruise around the paddock to observe the race contenders. Sutton still puts into play all the points he soaked up from his father and grandfather plus the longevity of Derby-going that seems unrivaled.

At UofL, researchers in the are pioneering new methods to extract all that information from the wastewater. Building on techniques and collaborations developed to monitor COVID-19, they are exploring new ways to track not only infectious diseases but also chemicals, metals and biomarkers at a neighborhood level to reveal possible connections between those exposures and a myriad of health conditions.

“We are the only university that is actively looking at wastewater for such a wide range of targets, and we have assembled a large group of individuals exploring this area of research,” said Ted Smith, professor of medicine and director of the , part of the Envirome Institute.

Research spawned by the pandemic

At the pandemic’s start, Smith led a team of researchers developing processes to monitor wastewater for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. The work was part of the Co-Immunity Project to track the virus and its spread in the Louisville area in collaboration with the Louisville Metro Department of Public Health and Wellness.

Through a cooperative research agreement with the Louisville/Jefferson County Metropolitan Sewer District, the UofL team obtained weekly samples from 17 key catchment areas in the sewer system and analyzed them for the presence and concentration of SARS-CoV-2 particles flowing through each sample point. The data was reported to the health department, allowing officials to anticipate increases in infections and to focus testing and vaccination efforts in geographic areas with a higher concentration of the virus.

“Wastewater is an anonymous, passive and more reliable way to track SARS-CoV-2 in the community than testing individuals,” Smith said. “We were able to track the virus by concentration, variant strain and geographic area about two weeks ahead of clinical results reported by the health care system, so we were able to create a more accurate picture of the virus in space and time.”

Eric Rouchka, professor of biochemistry and molecular genetics, spent two months establishing and refining the data analysis process to get the genetic information needed to identify variants and better assess the concentration of virus shed in the areas flowing through the sample points.

“The first question was, would we be able to actually sequence the whole virus genome?” Rouchka said. “Once we figured out we could do that, we spent time getting down a process to map the reads back onto the genome and determining which variants of concern were in the data.”

They streamlined the process to rapidly analyze the samples and delivered 87 weekly reports to health officials.

What else can we learn from wastewater?

Emergency funding from government and private sources, an all-hands-on-deck attitude and the rapid development of new techniques in response to the pandemic provided the UofL researchers with new knowledge, partners and expertise in wastewater surveillance. As the need for COVID surveillance subsided, the team explored other information that could be gleaned from the wastewater, including other pathogens, toxic chemicals and biomarkers of human disease.

Rouchka, working with Melissa Smith, director of the UofL Sequencing Technology Center, started by taking a broader approach to infectious diseases. They are putting the finishing touches on a process that will allow them to detect and quantify not only SARS-CoV-2 and its variants but also multiple pathogens such as influenza, polio, RSV respiratory virus, mpox and other diseases from a single sample.

“The work done with SARS-CoV-2 allowed us to pivot and now be able to address other pathogens and to analyze similar types of data sets so if – or when – the next thing comes down the pipeline, whether it’s a virus or bacteria, we should be able to step into the analysis fairly quickly once we have a sequence of that genome,” Rouchka said.

Mapping the ‘exposome’

Christopher States, director of the , is taking an even deeper look at sewer contents.

“Everything winds up in the wastewater. You get stuff rained out from the atmosphere, the dust. Everything everybody eats and drinks eventually winds up in the sewers. So, you’ll get that whole entire spectrum,” States said.

That spectrum is part of the “exposome,” which is everything an individual is exposed to in a lifetime and how those exposures relate to health.

States is using UofL’s wastewater expertise in a pilot study to identify the many pathogens, contaminants, metals and other substances in the sewers and show their prevalence by geographic area. He will use the information to map Jefferson County’s exposome.

“We have an incredible resource here in the wastewater project that’s been going on for viral monitoring,” States said. “We’re just expanding upon that.”

States worked with MSD and Smith to identify 27 locations in the Jefferson County sewer network for sampling. The first set of samples is being tested for metals at for metals and at a sister NIEHS core at Emory University, which uses mass spectrometry to identify thousands of nonmetal substances.

“Along the I-65 corridor, I would expect to see high levels of platinum, which is emitted from catalytic converters on the automobiles. We’re going to see volatile organic compounds in that area, which the Superfund Research Center is interested in, and in the Rubbertown area. We should be able to see big differences in the profiles throughout the county,” States said.

He plans to overlay the exposure data from the wastewater with human health information for the same areas to see if there are correlations between specific exposures and health risks. Ongoing sampling and testing over time could provide data showing connections between toxins and both infectious diseases and chronic conditions that take decades to develop such as heart disease, type 2 diabetes and cancer.

“When it takes 20 years for something to manifest, you know people are exposed to a whole lot of things over that time. Whether you can say this thing that happened 20 years ago was the initiating event is very difficult to prove,” States said. “My hope is that people will do these mappings periodically for years and see what happens.”

Crossing borders

As the COVID-19 pandemic began, wastewater epidemiologist Rochelle Holm was working in sanitation, rural water supply and public health in Malawi in southeastern Africa. With international borders closing, she evacuated to Louisville. When it became apparent her stay would be more than a few months, she enthusiastically joined UofL to lend her unique experience in sampling and analysis to the wastewater project.

“All of a sudden in a pandemic, how to collect wastewater, especially focused on community monitoring, was a needed skill,” Holm said. “My work in Malawi is very related to the work that the Envirome is doing in Louisville, so it was a unique fit to my background and skill set.”

Now back in Malawi, Holm has resumed her work in sanitation public health as a UofL associate professor. Prior to the pandemic, her group tested pit latrines for cholera and other diseases but had to send the samples to the U.S. for testing. Through her UofL partnerships, Holm now has access to clinical PCR (polymerase chain reaction) testing in Malawi and, with funding from the Rockefeller Foundation through the Envirome Institute, she is working on a multipathogen surveillance project to see if the new lab methods can be applied to wastewater testing.

Holm also is mentoring Ben Smith, a UofL medical student in the Distinction in Global and Public Health track, who is reviewing published studies to catalog pathogens previously identified in wastewater in low- and middle-income countries. He plans to travel to Malawi in 2024 for additional research with Holm.

Another student, Dhiraj Kanneganti, a senior at Louisville’s duPont Manual High School, is completing a two-year internship with the Envirome Institute where he led a published study using machine learning to assess wastewater treatment plant flow rates.

The wastewater research has led UofL faculty to build collaborations locally with government, industry and utilities and, through the Rockefeller Foundation Wastewater Action Group, with other researchers around the world.

For Ted Smith, the work aligns perfectly with the Envirome Institute’s new vision of health. “Broadly, we are looking at environmental exposure as a way of understanding health, health risk and health equity,” he said.

“Wastewater is a promising avenue for tracking and connecting places with these exposures and health issues. We are expanding and sharing this knowledge to improve lives around the world.”