Postdoc: University of Florida Department of Neurology 

Ph.D.:  University of Pennsylvania, Anthropology 

MA: Hunter College, Creative Art 

BA: Bard College, Fine Art 

2017 Accomplishments  

During the 2017 calendar year, Dr. Blonder has had significant effort devoted to teaching and service.  In the Spring semester of 2017, Dr. Blonder taught an upper level undergraduate proseminar (HON 301-002) in the Lewis Honors College entitled “Frontiers in Integrative and Alternative Medicine.” She has also taught electives during the Spring and Fall 2017 semesters on this topic to first and second year medical students (BSC 815/825-003 and BSC 825-005).  She served as a preceptor in Introduction to Clinical Medicine (MD 811) during the Spring and Fall 2017 semesters as well.  She has consistently received excellent evaluations in these courses.  Dr. Blonder is currently developing a fully online undergraduate course on integrative and alternative medicine to be taught in the Spring of 2018 (BSC 425).  This course is open to all UK undergraduates of junior or senior standing. The enrollment in that class has reached its cap of 27 and currently students are on the wait-list.  Dr. Blonder received faculty development funds from UK Analytics and Technology to develop this course.         

Dr. Blonder serves on six doctoral committees. One doctoral student will receive her Ph.D. in December.  She also supervised the capstone project of an Honors undergraduate student. That student presented her project to the National Conferences on Undergraduate Research (NCUR) in Memphis in April and was later accepted into the graduate Physical Therapy program at UK.  Dr. Blonder is currently the COM supervisor of a capstone project of a second year medical student who is a candidate for an MPH degree.      

With respect to research and scholarly activity, Dr. Blonder is the author of a manuscript based on Parkinson’s disease that is currently under resubmission review.  She is also presenting a paper at the annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association in Washington D.C.

Dr. Blonder’s service activities are extensive. She continues to serve on the Board of Trustees, having been elected by the UK faculty in 2016.  During 2017, Dr. Blonder has or is currently serving on the Academic and Student Affairs Committee, the Human Resources & University Relations Committee, and the Finance Committee of the Board.  She also serves as an ex-officio voting member of the University Senate (meeting monthly), and is an elected member of the University Senate Council (meeting weekly).  She was one of several Senate Council members nominated to be the next Senate Council chair but declined that nomination to continue her work as a trustee.  At the college level, Dr. Blonder was elected to serve on the College of Medicine Faculty Council (2017-2020) and is a member of the COM Wellness Committee.  At the state level, she is a member of the Coalition of Faculty Senate Leadership. Nationally she served as a consultant reviewer for the Loan Repayment Programs for both the National Institute of Mental Health and the National Institute of Drug Abuse.  She is also actively involved in the peer-review of manuscripts for various journals.