SUPERCOLLIDER 2026
September 25th, 2026, 8:00am – 5:00pm
Marriott Griffin Gate
1800 Newtown Pike
Lexington, KY
Registration (tba)
Student Webpage Collection (tba)
What is SUPERCOLLIDER?
The Super Collider conference is an annual all-hands meeting of Kentucky NSF EPSCoR supported research participants. This event features strategic updates from our current project’s research leads, as well as a competitive student research showcase and poster competition. Super Collider is an all-day event with mandatory attendance from CLIMBS participants.
STUDENT RESEARCH SHOWCASE
KY NSF EPSCoR-supported students contribute a large amount of knowledge and effort to the CLIMBS research agenda. Super Collider is an opportunity for students at all levels to showcase recent work, invite engagement, and connect with colleagues.
Super Collider Invited Guests
Invited Speaker, Director Eric Gibson
Gibson was appointed in 2024 as the Director of the Kentucky Division of Emergency Management. In this role, Director Gibson is responsible for the preparation for, response to, recovery from, and mitigation of disaster events in Kentucky. With nearly 30 years of service to the Commonwealth, Director Gibson continues to lead with a focus on service, resilience, and a deep commitment to the safety of all Kentuckians.
Keynote Speaker, Professor Ning Lu
Ning Lu, a professor at Colorado School of Mines, USA, has been working on fundamental concepts of soil water potential (matric suction) and soil e ective stress (suction stress) in the past two decades. He has uni ed soil’s water potential and e ective stress under both saturated and unsaturated conditions. For his work on uni cation of e ective stress, he received American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) Norman Medal twice; rst in 2007 for conceptualization of suction stress, and second in 2021 for formulation of a practical closed form e ective stress equation. He further de nes a general thermodynamics-based soil water potential under both saturated and unsaturated conditions. In the past two decades, he has formulated a new paradigm for slope stability under variably saturated conditions, which has been bestowed by ASCE for its 2017 R. B. Peck Lecture, and M. A. Biot Medal. He is the recipient of 2023 ASCE Karl Terzaghi Award. He is a distinguished member of ASCE, a fellow of Geological Society of America, and Engineering Mechanics Institute. He has published two widely used textbooks: Unsaturated Soil Mechanics (Lu and Likos, 2004, John Wiley and Sons), and Hillslope Hydrology and Stability (Lu and Godt, 2013, Cambridge University Press).
KSTC / KSEF
Maria Labreveux
Maria Labreveux is the Executive Director of the Kentucky Science and Engineering Foundation, an initiative of the Kentucky Science and Technology Corporation (KSTC). She leads strategic efforts to advance Kentucky’s research and innovation competitiveness where she develops and spearheads programs to foster scientific excellence, science-derived technology commercialization and entrepreneurial growth across the commonwealth.
With a career spanning public research, higher education and nonprofit leadership, she has helped secure more than $30 million in competitive funding for research, workforce development and innovation initiatives. Maria has a Ph.D. in Plant Science and takes a special interest in AgTech, STEM education and creating pathways for research to translate into real-world impact.
KSTC / KSEF / CAPTIVATE / KY Flood Watch Working Group / Adopt-a-Sensor
Ellie Derbyshire
Ellie Derbyshire is an Associate Director of Environment and Materials at KSEF. She supports individual clients in their pursuit of federal funding to support research and development in Kentucky and loves learning about all the amazing technology within our state.
Ellie has a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering and biosystems and ag engineering, a B.A. in history and brings 10 years of startup experience as an innovator and researcher including experience in grant writing, patents, machine design and build, customer discovery, fundraising and accounting.
Kay Lee
Kay Lee, Ph.D., serves as the Associate Director of Human Factors at KSEF, where she brings a strong background in social science research and innovation strategy. Prior to joining KSEF, she held research positions at Virginia Tech and Purdue University as a Postdoctoral Research Associate and Research Scientist. She earned her Ph.D. in human development and family studies from Texas Tech University.
Kay specializes in research design, intervention evaluation, grant writing and grant management. With a passion for advancing Kentucky’s entrepreneurial ecosystem, she is dedicated to supporting the growth and success of small businesses across the commonwealth.
Alana Morgan
Alana Morgan serves as the Impact Strategist at Kentucky Science and Engineering Foundation where she supports data tracking and impact reporting efforts to demonstrate the value of KSEF’s programs and initiatives. She brings experience in program evaluation, data analysis and grants management and reporting, applying a detailed-oriented and analytical approach to her work. Alana holds a B.S. in Mathematics with a minor in Physics and a Master of Public Administration from the University of Kentucky.
CAPTIVATE KY
Nicholas Arsenault
Nick Arsenault, Ph.D., serves as the Lead Data Scientist for the Kentucky Science and Engineering Foundation, where he leads researcher engagement, data curation and ingestion, and the development of research data infrastructure for the CAPTIVATE KY project. Nick holds a doctorate in mathematics from the University of Kentucky.
Gabriel Terry
Gabriel is the Software & Data Analyst supporting the CAPTIVATE project for the Kentucky Science & Engineering Foundation. He brings experiences in application development, data tracking initiatives and research data management. Gabriel graduated from the University of Kentucky with a B.S. in Computer Science and a minor in Mathematics.
Resilience Through Music
John McMaine
John McMaine is an Extension Associate Professor in the Department of Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering at University of Kentucky. His Extension and research activity centers on developing and implementing solutions to address challenges related to climate resilience, stormwater, flooding during extreme events, low impact development, green infrastructure, and urban pollutant fate and transport. Dr. McMaine is focused on developing and implementing solutions in conjunction with local communities and stakeholder groups that solve real world problems.
He is working on a project using music, storytelling, and songwriting to explore the impacts of water challenges and weather extremes.
EDEN
Extension Disaster Education Network
Kandice Williams
Kandice Williams is the University of Kentucky Food Systems Innovation Center and Food Biosciences Academic Coordinator. At the university, she is involved in safety, security, and disaster planning projects for food and agriculture. She is involved in faith-based response and recovery efforts. Kandice holds degrees in Animal Science and Veterinary Technology and worked in the veterinary field before joining the university.
WOWCats
UK Student Ambassadors for Sustainable Water & Disaster Preparedness in KY
Diana Byrne
Diana Byrne is an assistant professor in the Department of Civil Engineering at the University of Kentucky (UK). Her lab’s research focuses on sustainable water infrastructure systems. She seeks to apply and adapt quantitative sustainable design tools (e.g., life cycle assessment, life cycle costing, quantitative microbial risk assessment) to inform decision-making around these complex systems. In addition to research, Dr. Byrne teaches undergraduate and graduate courses focused on sustainable infrastructure systems. She and her team received a grant from CLIMBS’s Seed Funding Program to support the WOWCats project.
Kentucky Academy of Science
Amanda Fuller
Executive Director Amanda Fuller (ex-officio) joined KAS as Executive Director in 2013. She currently serves in a leadership role in the National Association of Academies of Science, cultivating relationships and leadership in state-level Academies of Science and sharing best practices. Amanda was named a AAAS Fellow in 2023. She has a B.S. in Environmental Science, and a M.S. in Land Resources from UW-Madison. She has served as a board member and as staff with various nonprofits and served her country as a Peace Corps volunteer. Outside the office, Amanda loves to grow & forage, plant trees, and explore wild and forgotten corners of Louisville.
Ann Kingsolver
Professor Ann Kingsolver is Chair of the Education and Engagement Committee of the Kentucky Academy of Science, and a member of the KAS Governing Board. From Nicholas County, KY, Kingsolver is a cultural anthropologist focusing on rural residents’ interpretations of global processes and policies. She has done ethnographic research (including as an NSF Graduate Research Fellow and Fulbright Scholar) in the U.S., Mexico, Sri Lanka, Italy and the United Kingdom. She is Professor of Anthropology and Arts & Sciences Endowed Professor at the University of Kentucky, and loves connecting students in classrooms at UK with students in classrooms in other countries for transnational collaborative research and learning. For publications, see https://anthropology.as.uky.edu/users/aeki222.