Shane Barton joined the CEDIK team in May of 2017 as the Promise Zone Downtown Revitalization Coordinator.  He is a 9th generation Appalachian resident with deep family roots in the mountains of central Appalachia and a strong appreciation for its people and places.  Before joining CEDIK, Shane most recently served as the Assistant Director of the University of Kentucky Appalachian Center.  He received two undergraduate degrees from Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU), one in Environmental Science and a second in Urban Studies and Geography, before earning his Masters of Urban and Regional Planning from VCU’s L. Douglas Wilder School of Public Policy and Administration.

Shane has a long-term commitment to inclusive and representative community development strategies with a particular focus on rural communities.  He started serving the Appalachian region as a VISTA volunteer for the Upper Tennessee River Roundtable while a member of the Appalachian Coal Country Watershed VISTA team in Southwestern Virginia in 2005. Shane later won a National VISTA Alumni Service Award for those efforts. 

He has been at the University of Kentucky since 2009 and has coordinated various programs in Eastern Kentucky including the Growing Local Economies Program, The Eastern Kentucky Local Motive Alliance, and an extensive internship program called the UK Tomorrow Corps, before joining the CEDIK team. Shane has presented collaborative work on community/university engagement and development strategies at national and international conferences, coedited the Coal Camp Documentary Project, coauthored articles on “materializing Appalachian Kentucky coal towns,” and serves as the board president for the nonprofit Appalachia-Science in the Public Interest. He currently lives in Berea, Kentucky with his wife Adanma Barton.

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