Johne Parker

[BME 1985, MSME 1992, Ph.D. ME 1996]
Associate Professor
Department of Mechanical Engineering
University of Kentucky
Lexington, Kentucky

e-mail: jparker@engr.uky.edu

The quality of the Woodruff School graduate program is excellent. I enjoyed the benefits of this excellence as a graduate student, but can even more fully appreciate just how wonderfully the program is run from my current perspective as an Associate Professor. The program is extremely well-organized, with all the attributes and infrastructure of a big, top-ten program, and all the niceties of a smaller program. The Woodruff faculty is simply phenomenal. My professors challenged me to think critically in the classroom and my advisors encouraged me to push the boundaries in the lab.

My time as a ME 3056 (Experimental Methodology Laboratory) TA helped me learn to balance the demands of teaching and research in a supportive environment and several of my faculty mentors, both officially recognized and informal, continue to set (and frequently raise) the bar for concurrent excellence in research and teaching. The staff is equally incredible (they often know your name before you've told them and, generally, what you need before you've asked for it). It takes a lot to make a program run this seamlessly, yet it looks almost effortless.

The Woodruff School is a wonderful place to learn and conduct research - the students matriculating here have very diverse backgrounds and opinions. However, students and alumni also share several traits; we're all extremely competitive, yet we work well in teams and find commonality in a love of learning and a respect for the power of technology. The program challenges you (many times past the point of frustration and to the brink of quitting) yet, after you've persevered, you know that you're capable of accomplishing just about anything.