Eric Welch, Ph.D.
Director of Undergraduate Studies & Assistant Professor
Dr. Eric Welch is Director of Undergraduate Studies and is responsible for curricular development and oversight of the undergraduate program in Pharmacy Sciences.
Welch is an archaeologist and historian whose research focuses on political and economic changes in the Near and Middle East during the Bronze and Iron Ages. He is a senior field archaeologist at the excavations of Tell es-Safi/Gath, Israel, one of the largest known urban centers in antiquity. His current research project examines the Levantine consumption of olive oil as both food and fuel, and as the base ingredient of numerous ancient herbal remedies.
We wish to remember and honor those who inhabited this Commonwealth before the arrival of the Europeans. Briefly occupying these lands were the Osage, Wyndott tribe, and Miami peoples. The Adena and Hopewell peoples, who are recognized by the naming of the time period in which they resided here, were here more permanently. Some of their mounds remain in the Lexington area, including at UK’s Adena Park.
In more recent years, the Cherokee occupied southeast Kentucky, the Yuchi southwest Kentucky, the Chickasaw extreme western Kentucky and the Shawnee central Kentucky including what is now the city of Lexington. The Shawnee left when colonization pushed through the Appalachian Mountains. Lower Shawnee Town ceremonial grounds are still visible in Greenup County.
We honor the first inhabitants who were here, respect their culture, and acknowledge the presence of their descendants who are here today in all walks of life including fellow pharmacists and healthcare professionals.