In honor of International Day of Women and Girls in Science, UofL News talked with Ganzel about her journey into medicine and science.

UofL News: Tell us about your journey into medicine.

Toni Ganzel: I didn’t grow up with the goal of going into medicine. In fact, my first life aspiration that I can remember was wanting to be Wonder Woman because I fancied the idea of flying around the world and saving people. And I also was fond of the red high heel boots and the outfit.

The sixth grade was a pivotal time in deciding what career to pursue because it was then that I fell in love with science. Science mesmerized me – especially biology – and I was fascinated by how the body worked. So, what I thought I wanted to do then was to be a high school biology teacher. My other two areas of avid interest in middle school and high school were cheerleading and student government. This led to deciding my dream job was to be a high school biology teacher, cheerleading coach and student government sponsor.

But when I got to college and took more advanced sciences, I realized that teaching high school biology may not challenge me enough and I considered medical research instead. A friend suggested I take the MCAT and go into medicine, which is something I hadn’t considered. I took the advice, took the MCAT, applied to medical school, got accepted and have never looked back. I can’t imagine any other profession bringing me the joy and fulfillment that being a pediatric ENT surgeon and medical educator did. And for the past 10 years, being the dean is equally rewarding and has been an amazing opportunity to help shape the future of the institution and to work every day with talented students, residents, faculty and staff.

My path to medicine was almost serendipitous and I tell students today that path doesn’t necessarily work for everyone, that more intentionality is needed. As I take a step back and think about how to find the sweet spot of a career, it’s marrying your goals and passions and seeking opportunities to bring those two things together. I loved science, loved helping people and loved learning. Medicine was the perfect marriage.

UofL News: What are some of the biggest challenges you have faced in your career?

Ganzel: The biggest challenge was and is the time commitment. The time challenge started in medical school and has continued ever since. While I try and make a conscious effort to balance work and family, it’s always a struggle.

UofL News: What has been your most rewarding moment in medicine?

Ganzel: Rather than a single moment, it has been a series of moments and it’s on really two tiers – thinking about being a physician versus thinking about being dean. My field of training was ENT surgery and specifically pediatric ENT, so I did lots of tonsils and tubes and airway work and every one of those was so rewarding. I probably did 15,000 tubes and 10,000 tonsillectomies and adenoidectomies, and never got bored. Children had repeated ear infections and hearing loss and they nearly always got better when they got tubes. Children snored and obstructed at night from large tonsils and adenoids, and they nearly always got better when they had their tonsils and adenoids out. It was so gratifying to be able to improve the quality of life of not just the children, but their families as well.

Then, when I think about being the dean, and previously the student affairs dean, it has been so rewarding to touch students’ lives and watch their own professional growth and development. I had the joy of teaching students and then watching them develop incredibly successful careers as physicians and as leaders. Now, as dean, I not only get to work with students and trainees, but with incredible faculty and staff and fantastic colleagues and leaders across the institution and across the country. I am very blessed to be able to do work that I love.

UofL News: What would you tell other women interested in joining the medical field?

Ganzel: If you love science, if you love learning, if you love helping people, it is a wonderful field. However, you also need to be mindful of the time commitment because it’s a big one. And while work-life balance will be a challenge, it is a profession that will bring you great joy, humility and gratification.

UofL News: What is one thing you wish you could tell your past self during medical school?

Ganzel: I would tell myself to remember that medical school is not a destination, but it’s part of a career journey. And on those days that feel daunting, to keep the long view in mind and take time to remember why I chose this life career.

UofL News: What do you like to do outside of work?

Ganzel: I love spending time with my family and my dogs. I like to exercise, my husband and I like to travel and we love mountain sports of hiking, skiing and mountain biking. And while we like to be active, we also enjoy reading and relaxing as well.Ìę

UofL News: What is your hope for the future of medicine?

Ganzel: That this pandemic gets over. It has been a nightmare. But I’m proud of the way that we have risen to the occasion and the resilience that we have shown.

Another hope for the future of medicine is that our increased focus and commitment around health equity will result in better health care and better health for all. Finally, I hope that our research discoveries will continue to lead to new cures and healthier people.

UofL News:ÌęWhat attracted you to the University of Louisville when you initially applied for the provost role last year?

Lori Gonzalez: Well, first, it’s home. I am originally from Rockcastle County, so Kentucky is home. We’re happy to be closer to family and friends.

More important, the fact that UofL is a premier metropolitan research institution and a community engaged institution was intriguing to me. I saw similarities between the cities of Louisville and Memphis, where I worked at the UT Health Science Center. It was important to me that the institution was committed to addressing the Grand Challenges aimed to bring together all the intellectual capacity across Louisville to improve lives while elevating UofL’s national reputation. As I have stated many times, as UofL is elevated, so are Louisville and Kentucky.

UofL was a match for my interests and experiences – a strong traditional campus and an academic health center. Its rich history in athletic excellence corresponds with a loyal fan base.

I see UofL as an institution that embraces its history, identity and distinctiveness. UofL sets lofty goals then works to achieve them. The acquisition of KentuckyOne Health is an example of taking a risk to achieve important goals. Because of the acquisition, UofL Health made a huge difference during the pandemic, serving over a million patients last year alone. Many lives were saved because of this strategic acquisition.

Finally, I was attracted to UofL because it clearly demonstrates that is a student-first institution. Equity and diversity are hallmarks of UofL, and it leads the way in its continuing quest for becoming the university for all. UofL graduates move into the workplace as leaders ready to meet the challenges of today and tomorrow.

UofL News: What was your initial reaction when President Bendapudi announced she was leaving, elevating you to the president’s role in just a short amount of time?

Lori Gonzalez:ÌęIt was bittersweet. I was happy that she was tapped to lead such a prestigious institution as Penn State, but I was sad to have her move on. She has been a terrific boss and I was looking forward to our partnership to build on the momentum that I saw when I first applied for the position of provost. I wish her very well and know she will continue to take my calls as I navigate this interim role.

UofL News: Do you feel you’ve settled into the role of interim president?

Lori Gonzalez:ÌęI have been in higher education administration for over 20 years, and I’ve worked closely with several presidents. My experiences as a dean, vice chancellor and a provost have prepared me for this challenge. While the focus of the provost is internal, the work of the president has much more public-facing responsibilities. As both Provost and President I have enjoyed very productive interactions with business, community and governmental leaders as well as our donors and other academic leaders.

I’m just about two months into the job, so I am sure there will be some surprises. I inherited a strong, talented and supportive team and because they excel in their roles, the campus has continued its forward momentum, if not accelerated it. I am also grateful that the Board of Trustees provided such strong support during and after the transition.

UofL News: Now that you’ve had some time to acclimate, what are your biggest priorities in the president’s role?

Lori Gonzalez:ÌęOur three-year strategic plan is in its third year so we will begin work on a refresh of the plan. While the focus will remain on being a great place to learn, work and invest, I would like to see the goals within each pillar focus on those areas that will make us distinctive. We should answer the question, ‘What makes UofL different from any other institution?’

One of our highest priorities will be student success. We want to focus on growing enrollment. I view enrollment as an opportunity to offer the population of the state a high quality and life-changing education that we are honored to provide. Strategies for enrollment range from strategic recruitment of out-of-state, international and transfer students and adult learners to creating exciting, interdisciplinary face-to-face and online options. We should ensure every student has an engaged learning experience and an opportunity to increase their digital literacy. Finally, by focusing on retention as a responsibility of everyone on campus, we can graduate more students in less time and help the state in so many ways, especially in workforce and economic development.

Financial sustainability is critical and through the efforts of our outstanding CFO, Dan Durbin, and our unit leaders, we have had improved budgets for several years in a row. We want to find continuing funding sources for compensation to ensure that employee salaries are competitive. So far, the state budget looks favorable to higher education, and we hope our budget requests are included in the final budget.

Building strong connections with the community, business and industry, donors, governmental officials, friends and fans also remains a top priority. UofL is well positioned to make contributions in the workforce, life-changing research and civic engagement. We want to share our accomplishments and partner with others to address the challenges of the university, city and state.Ìę

UofL News: You’ve made some key appointments since December. How will they support your plans moving forward and what appointments remain?

Lori Gonzalez:ÌęBecause my appointment to the interim role happened very quickly, our initial focus was both retaining our current high performing leaders and strengthening our leadership structure. While we needed key positions filled, we needed to take the time to do it right. As we move further into the semester, the leadership team is working well together. I am grateful to those who agreed to important interim roles and to work to keep the business of the university on track.

UofL News: How big a role has athletics played in your first weeks on the job? Has it been more or less what you expected?

Lori Gonzalez:ÌęA strong athletic program is critical to the overall success of the university. Our student athletes are leaders and their dedication to their sports bring students, faculty and staff together as Cardinals. The loyal fans support our teams with enthusiasm and this, of course, builds community.Ìę

As everyone knows, we have had several transitions in athletics, including both the athletic director and men’s basketball coach positions. I have made a point to interact with and support many of our terrific coaches and their staff.Ìę

So, while I have been more engaged with athletics in the interim president role than I did as provost, it hasn’t been surprising. I enjoyed watching our volleyball team at the Final Four and have cheered enthusiastically for our women’s and men’s basketball teams. I look forward to seeing all our teams take to the field, court, track and pool to show the community and nation what a No. 1 athletic program looks like.

UofL News: How would you describe your leadership style?

Lori Gonzalez:ÌęI characterize my leadership style as open and informal with an emphasis on building consensus. An institution is strongest when all the members of the campus are engaged. When an academic leader builds consensus, enables talent and establishes priorities, the campus can achieve its strategic vision. I believe that when core principles are at question or at stake, leaders should be prepared to work hard to reach consensus, if possible, but they must be able to make difficult decisions when necessary. I have spent my career focused on outcomes and taking action to meet the goals of the institution.Ìę

My approach to leadership has been influenced by my father. He taught me that any opportunities I was given weren’t afforded to me because I deserved them more than any other person. My life is shaped by the belief that with great opportunity comes great responsibility. Giving back to one’s community and world was expected of me, and I also believe it represents one of the core principles of higher education.Ìę

The Cardinal Principles resonate with me and the one I keep in top of mind every day is Noble Purpose. The Noble Purpose is my ‘why.’ I believe in the transformative power of education and work every day to ensure our students have an engaging experience in and out of the classroom and that our employees can thrive while meeting the academic mission of our university. By having the Noble Purpose as my touchstone, I have a constant reminder of UofL’s role in shaping the future.

On a lighter note, in the commonly used StrengthsFinder program, my five top strengths are: Arranger, Maximizer, Futuristic, Relator and Individualization.Ìę

UofL News: What would you consider some of your biggest professional wins?

Lori Gonzalez: These wins aren’t mine alone. They resulted from the collective efforts of so many people. I’ll just list of few of the accomplishments from my past that bring me the most pride.

• As dean at UK, I invested in the research mission of the College of Health Sciences through hiring of strong research faculty. This investment, along with funding from the university, allowed the college to move from 44^th in research funding for schools of allied health by NIH in 2004 to 12^th in 2009.
• As provost at Appalachian State University, I led the strategic planning process that evolved to embrace sustainability as a core value underlying our plan. We had broad campus support and the plan, The Appalachian Experience: Envisioning a Just and Sustainable Future set the stage for the campus to move forward in very meaningful ways.
• As vice chancellor at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center, I led an effort to execute a plan to education students to address health equity and inculcate a focus on health as a human right by addressing the social determinants of health throughout our institution. Through our plan, titled Community Engaged Care, we created classroom and engagement activities to educate students about the social determinants of health.
• Thus far, as provost at UofL, we opened the Center for Engaged Learning which came of out the UofL strategic plan. The center will be the hub for students to become engaged in the high impact practices of undergraduate research, experiential education and community engagement.
• I am equally proud of my contributions toward the university’s enrollment stability since assuming the provost role. Our retention numbers have returned to pre-pandemic levels. This stability is critical to ensure students remain on track toward their academic success.
• The campus safely returned to in-person classes in the fall and we continued in the spring. We were successful and our campus remains one of the safest places in Louisville.
• I should mention the 1 percent salary increase for our full-time faculty and staff. Although the increase is small, our team continues to explore ways to support our faculty and staff.
• I am also very proud of the individuals I have mentored over the years. It is so fulfilling to see them move into positions of leadership in higher education including positions of chair, dean, vice president and president.

UofL News: What are some challenges you’ve overcome in your professional career?

Lori Gonzalez: Throughout my career, I’ve faced challenges large and small. I have had to deal with budget reductions that resulted in loss of positions and have had to discontinue low enrolled programs. I have addressed scientific misconduct and academic integrity cases. One of the biggest challenges came during my time as provost at Appalachian State. I placed a faculty member on administrative leave with a pay-pending investigation related to complaints about discrimination, retaliation and creating a hostile environment in the classroom. A small but vocal group of faculty members claimed that due process and academic freedom had been violated. The faculty senate considered a vote of no-confidence, and the motion carried by one vote.

I was fortunate to have strong public support from both the Chancellor and the Board of Trustees throughout and after this situation. Most importantly, I had overwhelming support from most of the other faculty along with many of the staff and students. As closure, all the documents associated with this situation were reviewed in full by our independent accrediting body (SACSCOC) review team during their onsite reaffirmation visit and they found no issues or irregularities with how the situation was handled.

While the vote was unfortunate, I stand by the decisions made because the role of the provost is to uphold the integrity of the academy. I went on to successfully lead the campus in the creation of the strategic plan and a review of academic programs. Because of the public nature of this challenge, I made a point to openly discuss the situation throughout the interview process at both the University of Tennessee Health Science Center and here at UofL. I also shared the details with President Bendapudi during my interview with her.

The experience was quite some time ago, but I continue to carry the lessons learned as a leader. Leadership within higher education, as with many large organizations, requires the ability to make difficult decisions under pressure and with the integrity of the institution and the students we serve in mind. I learned how important it is to seek advice and counsel in balancing the difficult task of applying policy and accountability. It is rare when everyone agrees with a decision, and it is important to hear other opinions and perspectives. However, at the end of the day, the leader must make hard decisions if the public investment in an institution is to be honored and sustained.

UofL News: Is there any issue or concern that keeps you up at night?

Lori Gonzalez: Along with so many UofL faculty and staff, I want to ensure our students have access to critical services, especially services focused on mental wellbeing. The pandemic has been hard on everyone, but especially our students. We know they are anxious and nationally the number of students with depression has increased over this period. While they’re enjoying classes and engagement on and off campus, they’re observing what is going on in our world – from political polarization to the devastating effects of climate change and – this too, must add to their anxiety levels.

Our faculty and staff deal with these same concerns. They have had many challenges balancing work and personal commitments in the most difficult circumstances. They’ve worked hard through this extraordinary time, and I want to be sure that we can begin to find the means to increase compensation that is too long in coming. We are working to identify strategies for long-term sources of funding to make UofL a truly great place to work.

UofL News: What would you say so far is your favorite thing about UofL?

Lori Gonzalez: That’s an easy one; its people. When I came to campus to interview, I received such a warm welcome from everyone. I told my spouse, Randy, that I just had to get the job! So many people have reached out during the transition with words of support and encouragement. Their actions, along with a fantastic leadership team, underscores that UofL is a great fit for me.

UofL News: What about the city of Louisville?

Lori Gonzalez: I feel a bit like Goldilocks – Louisville is just the right size – not too big and not too small. Randy and I have come to love the city and we are proud to call it home. The rich history and culture and the wonderful food scene are all part of why we enjoy living here. But as I said before about UofL, it is really the people that make us feel at home. We received such a warm Kentucky welcome when we returned home, and we are so glad to be back in the commonwealth.

UofL News: How do you spend your free time?

Lori Gonzalez: Randy and I are serial remodelers. We are currently working on our third house renovation. The kitchen and living room are completed and the bathrooms are up next. This is our third remodel and I must admit, I hope it is our last.

Our son, Clay is a musician and composer, so by extension, we are music lovers. We enjoyed going to his performances when he was an undergraduate and master’s student. He broadened our exposure to many different types of music. Our tastes run from the beautiful Bluegrass music of Kentucky to alternative rock.Ìę Two of our favorites are John Prine and the Avett Brothers.

I enjoy baking although I am not a master baker. We just finished watching every season of the Great British Baking Show and the amateur bakers put me to shame. Their creations made me realize I’m really not a baker, I just put things in the oven and hope they turn out!

UofL News: Are you a candidate to be the permanent president?

Lori Gonzalez:ÌęSince becoming interim president, I have been working to ensure the campus moves forward and that important initiatives continue and are successful. I will spend time reflecting on the position and whether I can add value in this role and then decide about applying for the permanent position. It was an honor to be tapped for the interim role and right now I’m focused on doing my best to lead our campus forward.

UofL News: Any other messages you want to share with the Cardinal community?

Lori Gonzalez: UofL is a catalyst for engagement, economic development and the creation of future leaders. I believe in UofL and will spend my time articulating the value of higher education to the state and the value of an education at UofL specifically. In the next few months, we will be working on spreading the amazing story of UofL to national audiences in ways we haven’t done before. This campaign will help extend our current Here and Beyond new branding initiative.Ìę

Wise recently received a $6.7 million grant from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences through the Revolutionizing Innovative, Visionary Environmental health Research (RIVER) program to conduct research over the next eight years to better understand how metals disrupt chromosomes and cause lung cancer, with the ultimate goal of finding ways to prevent and reverse this process. UofL News talked to Wise about what drives him to chase this important discovery, which has long stumped scientists.

UofL News: What inspired you to do biomedical research?

John Wise Sr.: I was interested in science from when I was 5. People would ask me what I want to be when I grow up and I would say I wanted to be a naturalist, which is a strange thing for a 5-year-old to say. I was a very outdoorsy kind of kid. Then I was interested in genetic engineering, which is also strange for a kid to say. I don’t have an explanation for where that one came from.

Growing up, my mother said I had two choices for my life, I could be a doctor or I could be a lawyer. That was just understood.

When I was doing my degree in biology at George Mason University in Virginia, I faced that decision that a lot of biology undergraduates face: whether to go to medical school or graduate school.

You can boil them down to two jobs: you can either be a mechanic and fix things, or you can be a detective and solve puzzles. If you like fixing things, medical school is where you go. If you like solving mysteries, graduate school is where you go. I like to solve puzzles, so I went to graduate school and got my PhD in pharmacology with a research focus on toxicology and how metals cause cancer. After a decade in Virginia, I was a faculty member at Yale for four years. Then I spent 12 years at the University of Southern Maine before coming to UofL in 2015.

UofL News: Was your mother satisfied with the graduate school decision?

Wise: No, but she wasn’t negative, either. She was very happy I got my PhD. My brother is an attorney, so she went 1-for-2.

UofL News: How would you describe your research – the big picture?

Wise: One of our driving interests is in lung cancer. It is the number one killer for cancers. It kills nearly as many people as the next three cancers combined. But lung cancer suffers from a stigma and that is smoking. Most of the world thinks that if you smoke you are going to get lung cancer and you should just quit smoking.

But when you dig into it, you learn that 1 in 5 women and 1 in 12 men who have lung cancer never smoked, so something other than tobacco is a big issue, especially for women. And when you look at what in the environment is causing lung cancer, the most prevalent group of chemicals that are known to cause lung cancer are metals.

Traditionally, people think of cancer resulting from minute changes in the sequence of DNA, but metals don’t do that well. What metals do well is change the chromosomes, which means big change in the structure of the DNA.

Humans all have 46 chromosomes. Metal exposure will change the number of chromosomes and will change the structure of the chromosomes, so a piece of chromosome 1 might end up on chromosome 2. These changes are hallmarks of lung cancer, but it’s poorly understood how chemicals cause this chromosome instability and that is at the heart of what we do.

We got interested in the great whales because they have low rates of cancer. Why?

We reasoned that maybe whales have better repair mechanisms, so we have started to ask that question with chromium. We found that in humans, chromium will break DNA and inhibit the ability to fix it, leading to the chromosome instability.

In whale cells, chromium breaks the DNA but it cannot inhibit the repair so you don’t see those changes in the chromosomes.

What is it in a whale cell that prevents the loss of repair? That’s what we are trying to figure out. If we can figure out how the whales are resistant, we can try to adapt that to human systems.

UofL News: Your team’s field work involves obtaining cell samples from whales in the ocean using a crossbow from a sailboat. What prompted this work and how did you begin using this method?

Wise: When I was at Yale, we were doing cancer and cell culture, so I called the Mystic Aquarium, which was an hour or two away from New Haven, because they had Beluga whales. Belugas have high rates of cancer in the wild, so I asked if I could get some tissues from the whales. I figured if I could get to the whales that don’t get cancer, I should get cells from whales that do get cancer for a comparison point.

The research director at Mystic said, ‘Are you only willing to do these two whales? Why don’t we do all of them?’ I thought, ‘How many marine mammals can there be?’ so I said, ‘Sure, let’s do all of them!’

So far, we have cultured cells from 35 out of about 130 marine mammal species in the world. We have 900 individual animals in culture. In fact, the University of Louisville has the world’s largest collection of marine mammal cell lines in our freezers.

The Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010 led to us going to sea to sample the whales directly.

A group we collaborate with, Ocean Alliance, had developed a technique to biopsy whales with a crossbow. This allows us to get a pen cap-sized sample of the whale’s skin and blubber without interrupting their activity. Now we go out each year and gather as many species as we can find.

UofL News: Why is your new grant through the RIVER program a special opportunity?

Wise: The reason this is such an exceptional grant is one, you have eight years of a lot of money. On top of that, the program requires that half of your time be spent on this research question, so you have an amount of your own time that is committed to work on the ideas. And because the grant is funding a scientist’s vision, not a specific project, you have the freedom to change ideas and move into different directions.

It is a highly prestigious honor to receive this award.

UofL News: What other research are you working on?

Wise: The whales get a lot of attention, but we also sample sea turtles and alligators. It’s the same approach, but additional species that live a long time and get exposed. They are also sentinels for climate change. Because they are cold-blooded animals, they are going to be affected first.

We are also looking at how space travel and chromium interact. We did some experiments with NASA where we flew samples on the “vomit comet” [parabolic flights creating brief periods of weightlessness] and we found that altering gravity greatly increases the negative impacts of chromium. We hope to get onto the space station and see if chromium is going to cause a problem there. More and more people are going into space, so it is a concern.

UofL News: Do you have a favorite place to contemplate the problems you are trying to solve?

Wise: My favorite place to contemplate is at sea on a boat with the whales. There are moments in the research when we aren’t actively sampling for one reason or another. During that time – the best time is sunset, the whales are breeching and breathing – I always make a point to stop the boat, turn everything off and have everybody just listen and think about things with that background. It just reminds people of the importance of the work we do and just how complex the world is.

You can get overfocused on work. Always remember where you are because you won’t be doing this forever. Let it be special.

The article examined Postel’s work since taking the reins nearly nine months ago amidst growing controversies, such as a $48 million budget deficit, academic probation from the university’s accrediting body, and an FBI investigation into the men’s basketball program.

“I’ve been at the university a long time and I wouldn’t have agreed to do this if I didn’t care so much about the place,” Postel told the publication.

Highlights from the interview include:

• Postel’s family, including wife Sally, twin 7 year olds and golden doodle, help him balance a work/life schedule.

“I spend time with them every day. I get a good night’s sleep every night. I get up early and exercise 
 I eat well. I’m organized 
 I think that people who are organized and rested and balanced are able to stay sharp.”

• Postel hopes to continue a tuition freeze, but it is still early in the budget development process and no decision has been made yet. “Our goal is to make school as affordable as possible,” he said.

• Postel also offered a piece of advice to new UofL graduates: “View your education as a tool, not a confining instrument 
 Stay open to possibilities and opportunities.”

• Finally, Postel said he tries to motivate employees by setting an example.

“If I’m trying to be fair and I’m in the office early and working hard and answering emails quickly and trying to raise money and doing the right kind of things, I hope people see that and try to do the same thing,” he said.

The entire profile on the 55-year-old Canton, Ohio, native is available on the Business First website.

Ìę

That skill will come in especially handy as he serves as interim dean of the law school through the end of December.

Smith joined the Brandeis LawÌęfaculty in 2000, teaching courses such as Intellectual Property Survey, Trademark Law, Business Planning, Law and Economics, Property and Secured Transactions. He is particularly interested in helping students build practice skills, and so incorporates various practice-based exercises in his Trademark Law and Business Planning courses.

In 2012, Smith received the University of Louisville Distinguished Faculty Award in Teaching. In 2011, he received a Fulbright Scholarship Award to teach at Zhongnan University of Economics and Law in Wuhan, China, where he taught Chinese Masters of Law students about U.S. intellectual property law.

Smith’s scholarship focuses on issues related to intellectual property, commercial law and technology. His work has focused on the challenge of applying existing intellectual property legal structures on new technologies.

Smith took some time to talk to UofL News about his hidden talents, advice for law students and more.

UofL News: What was your bestÌęsummer job?
Smith: I was an ordinary seaman on a chemical tanker the summer before I started college. The S.S. Bow Star left Philadelphia and went to Holland, England, Belgium and sailed through the Mediterranean and the Suez Canal to Kenya, Mozambique and South Africa. I was the youngest person on board and chipped rusted paint and helped load and unload chemicals.Ìę

UofL News: What’s your favorite Louisville restaurant?
Smith: Jack Fry’s and Lilly’s Bistro.Ìę

UofL News: What might people be surprised to know about you?
Smith: I can juggle. I can spin a Frisbee on my finger. As long as it’s solid, I can spin about anything.

UofL News: What class impacted you the most when you were in law school?
Smith: Contracts and Secured Transactions. I had the same professor for both: Susan Finneran. She was really engaging. I probably model my teaching after her the most.

UofL News: What advice do you have for law students today?
Smith: Put in the time. There are some people who are innately good at studying at the last minute. Those are few and far between. Put in the time.

Brown was one of five festival princesses who earn their spots through high scholastic achievements and dedication to service within the community. She won the crown on April 8 by a spin-of-the-wheel at the annual Fillies Derby Ball.

Brown, from Crestwood, Kentucky, decided to attend UofL when she received a full-ride from the Trustees Scholarship. SheÌęis active in Greek life andÌęserves as a campus tour guide and an intern in UofL’s Office of Communications and Marketing.

UofLNews had the chance to talk to Brown about why she embarked on this journey and the process of becoming part of the royal court:

UofLNews: What has been your fondest moment at UofL?

Brown: GettingÌęto work under (director of Digital Media) Jeff Rushton, specifically getting to cover football games for the (OCM) department. We get to take the cameras and be down on the field and capture the excitement of the fans and the excitement of the games and it really is a unique experience as a student, not sitting in the stands but getting to be down on the field, and it’s been my favorite part of college.

UofLNews: Least fond moment?

Brown: It’s gotten a little trying, with all of the stuff going on in the media lately, especially since I’m a tour guide. You get questions about it, but just got to kind of take it in stride and remember why you love UofL so much.

UofLNews: Why did you choose to embark on this journey and become a KDF princess?

Brown: I really liked what I do as a representative of the University of Louisville as a student, and I wanted to expand that, and I know that the Kentucky Derby Festival Princesses represent not only the entire city of Louisville but the Commonwealth of Kentucky during Derby season. Also we work with a lot of kids and we promote education a lot. I love working with little kids; it’s been my favorite part of the whole experience.

UofLNews: What were your favorite things about the process?

Brown: It’s a really good experience. The first interview is a 5-minute interview and you do it in front of five judges so that’s a really unique experience and interview opportunity. You won’t do that a lot, so you have to make sure that you make the points you want to make and get who you are across to those judges to make it to the final round. This year it was really cool (because) one of the final judges was Monte Durham from “Say Yes To The Dress,” so you got to meet him and get the experience of interviewing in front of a high profile client as well.

UofLNews: What surprised you about the process?

Brown: I felt a lot more comfortable than I thought I would in the interviews, especially the final round judges. They’re all from out of state but they did a really good job of making the room a comfortable environment.

UofLNews: How do you want to change the world?

Brown: I think kindness is really important and just being a genuinely good person, making sure you treat others the way you want to be treated. It’s an old rule but I think it’s a quality rule and that’s why it’s stuck around for so long. That’s something that I hope shines through in my everyday life, that’s something that I hope to instill in my children as well.Ìę

UofLNews: What is your favorite book?

Brown: Recently my favorite book has been “The Nightingale.” It’s a love story and a women’s empowerment story, and a survivor’s story all in one about the holocaust, so you get a bunch of different perspectives. It’s really moving and the ending is not predictable, which is the best part, but also very upsetting.

UofLNews: Favorite restaurant?

Brown: I love to eat. I think my favorite one right now is The Eagle on Bardstown Road. They’ve got a fried chicken sandwich and mac and cheese … I will say this as a power move, The Eagle has the best mac and cheese in the city of Louisville. The fried sandwich is really good, too.

UofLNews: Do you have any advice for incoming students?

Brown: My biggest piece of advice is to keep going, to apply for things and if you don’t get it pick yourself back up and apply for something else. I know a lot of students, especially if they were successful in high school, come to UofL and it’s a much larger student population. So they apply for something and they don’t get it the first time and they get super discouraged. Don’t give up on yourself, keep applying for things, and find your groove in college.

Photo provided by Jonathan Roberts.