Faculty and Staff

LSU Professor Tammy Dugas is developing a new cardiovascular stent that releases red wine antioxidants slowly over time to promote healing and prevent blood clotting and inflamation.

LSU Professor Naohiro Kato is developing biodegradable Mardi Gras beads to prevent tens of thousands of pounds of plastic beads from ending up in landfills each year.

Art history Assistant Professor William Ma won the Site and Space in Southeast Asia research award, a two-year funded research opportunity in Southeast Asia.

Professor Milen Yakimov is part of the 2018 class of Fellows of the American Mathematical Society.

The AMS recognized his contributions to noncommutative algebra and service to the community. This year the AMS selected 63 new fellows from its 30,000 members.

Milen Yakimov joined the LSU Math Department in 2008. He is the Michael F. and Roberta Nesbit McDonald Professor.

Louisiana Sea Grant Executive Director Robert Twilley is the recipient of the 2017 National Wetlands Award for Science Research from the Environmental Law Institute, or ELI. He will receive his award in a ceremony in Washington, D.C., on May 18, at the U.S. Botanic Gardens.

The National Academy of Sciences announced today that LSU Department of Physics & Astronomy Professor Gabriela González has been elected as a member to the academy. González is one of the 84 new members recognized for her distinguished and continuing achievements in original research. She is an experimental physicist with the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory, or LIGO, who contributed to the detection of gravitational waves in 2015 predicted by Albert Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity. 

Dean Alkis Tsolakis, along with two other LSU faculty – Alexandre Leupin and Olivier Moreteau – were named to the French Republic’s prestigious Ordre des Palmes Academiques (Order of the French Academic Palms).

Nancy Isenberg, the T. Harry Williams Professor in the Department of History, is named the fourth most influential thinker, doer and visionary in American politics by Politico Magazine for her New York Times best-selling book, White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America.

School of Education faculty Dr. Margaret-Mary Sulentic Dowell, Director of the Louisiana State University Writing Project and the Coordinator of the Grades 1-5 Teachers Education Program, selected as Earnest Oberholtzer Foundation Participant.

Four LSU researchers are recipients of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine’s Gulf Research Program Early-Career Research Fellowships and Science Policy Fellowships for 2016 announced today. These competitive awards are among the suite of activities in the program’s 30-year mission to enhance oil system safety and the protection of human health and the environment in the Gulf of Mexico and U.S. outer continental shelf regions. 

Brian Chandler, the LSU AgCenter area forestry agent for southeast Louisiana, has been named a fellow of the Society of American Foresters.

University Laboratory School's Head Athletic Trainer Melissa Sorrells has been awarded the "Back to Sport" Grant, funded through the National Football League and American Hospital Association, in recognition of exemplary efforts as an advocate for youth sports safety.

James E. “Jay” Shelledy, professional-in-residence and Fred Jones Greer Jr. Endowed Chair at LSU’s Manship School of Mass Communication, has been named the 2016 Educator of the Year by the Newspaper and Online News Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, or AEJMC. The award honors professors for outstanding achievement in preparing journalism students, advancing journalism education and promoting career development.  

AEJMC, the nation’s largest organization of journalism professors, will present the award to Shelledy at its annual conference in Minneapolis in August.  

Dr. Petra Munro Hendry, St. Bernard Chapter of the LSU Alumni Association Endowed Professor, received the American Educational Research Association (AERA) Division B Lifetime Achievement Award in Curriculum Studies on April 9, 2016 at the AERA National Meeting in Washington D.C.

Dr. Pam Blanchard is one of five people in the nation to receive a National Wetlands Award from the Environmental Law Institute, which honors excellence in wetlands conservation. Blanchard was honored on May 11, 2016, at the U.S. Botanic Garden in Washington D.C.

LSU Department of Physics & Astronomy Professor Gabriela González was awarded the Brigadier General Juan Bautista Bustos prize from her home state of Cordoba, Argentina for her work that led to the detection of gravitational waves. She is the spokesperson for the LIGO Scientific Collaboration, a group of more than 1,000 scientists. Cordoba Governor Juan Schiaretti presented her the prize on May 17, 2016.

Boys & Girls Clubs of America have announced that LSU President F. King Alexander will be inducted in to the Boys & Girls Clubs Alumni Hall of Fame on Wednesday, May 11, during a ceremony in New Orleans.

Jerry Ceppos, dean of the Manship School of Mass Communication, was named a fellow of the Society of Professional Journalists. The recognition is the society’s highest honor and honors those who have made an “extraordinary contribution to the profession.”

The American Society of Civil Engineers, or ASCE, recognized a paper written by Emeritus Boyd Professor Harry Roberts and colleagues as historically important to the offshore civil engineering field. The paper, 3D-Seismic Amplitude Analysis of the Sea Floor: An Important Interpretive Method for Improved Geohazards Evaluations, was written 20 years ago. The paper was inducted into the ASCE Offshore Technology Conference Hall of Fame in Houston in May 2016. 

The American Society of Landscape Architects has elevated 28 members, including LSU's Charles Fryling and Lake Douglas, to the ASLA Council of Fellows for 2016. Fellowship is among the highest honors ASLA bestows on members and recognizes the contributions of these individuals to their profession and society at large as demonstrated by their works, leadership and management, knowledge and service.

LSU Associate Professor in the Department of Geography & Anthropology Andrew Sluyter's book, Hispanic and Latino New Orleans: Immigration and Identity since the Eighteenth Century, received the John Brinckerhoff Jackson Prize by the Association of American Geographers. The prize is awarded to "a serious but popular book about the human geography of the contemporary United States."

Center for Energy Studies Assistant Professor Mallory Vachon has been granted a W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research 2016 Early Career Research Award for her project, "The Temporary Migration Response to Industry-Specific Shocks: Evidence from the U.S. Shale Boom." The award provides resources for junior faculty to pursue research related to labor markets and public workforce policy. Vachon’s research interests include energy, labor, and public economics, with a focus on the local economic impacts of natural resource extraction.

LSU AgCenter forestry economist Shaun Tanger received a Southern Regional Extension Forest Resources Award for Excellence. Tanger’s award was for his forestry market blog, Stumpage Speak, which details price reports, market trend analysis and the economic outlook for the forestry industry.

Charlie Johnson, professor emeritus of horticulture in the LSU AgCenter School of Plant, Environmental and Soil Sciences, has been awarded life membership in the Louisiana State Horticulture Society.

LSU Assistant Professor in the Department of Physics & Astronomy Ivan Agullo has received a five-year National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development, or CAREER, award to support his research on the early universe.

LSU AgCenter vegetable specialist Kathryn Fontenot has been named the recipient of the 2016 John E. Hutchinson Extension Award for Young Professionals from the Southern Region of the American Society for Horticultural Science. Fontenot’s focus is developing and conducting statewide educational programs in the areas of commercial vegetable production, community gardens, school gardens, farmers markets and home gardens.

LSU School of Veterinary Medicine assistant professor to be published in prestigious research journal.

Lawrence Datnoff has been named to receive the 2016 Alumni Award from the Virginia Tech University Department of Plant Pathology, Physiology and Weed Science. Datnoff is a professor and department head in the LSU AgCenter and LSU College of Agriculture Department of Plant Pathology and Crop Physiology.

Associate Professor Marsha Cuddeback of the LSU School of Interior Design was elected to the Interior Design Educators Council (IDEC) 2016–17 Board of Directors as director-at-large of the organization’s Teaching Collaborative. Cuddeback will assume her new IDEC leadership role on May 1, 2016.

Guillermo Scaglia, a beef cattle researcher at the LSU AgCenter Iberia Research Station in Jeanerette, and Stan Dutile, an LSU AgCenter extension agent in Lafayette Parish, each received the Merit Award from the American Forage and Grassland Council.

The film “As It Is in Heaven,” directed by LSU Theatre Assistant Professor of Television and Film Joshua Overbay has played around the country at several Film Festivals and has been mentioned by many critics as one of the top 20 films of 2014.

• Christner’s work on the exploration of lakes beneath Antarctica’s ice sheet came in at number 12 in the list. His groundbreaking work in this arena has been attracting international attention for years, and this is his second time being featured in Discover’s Top 100.
• Kutter’s and Tzanov’s work with the Tokai to Kamioka, or T2K, international collaboration has also received international attention for several years. Coming in at number 66 in Discover’s list, the magazine describes the team’s discovery of new evidence of neutrino oscillations from one “flavor” to another as information that “may lead to insights about why there is more matter than antimatter in the universe.”

Briggs Depew, assistant professor in the Department of Economics, was recently published in both Labour Economics and Explorations in Economic History.

• “Elasticity of Supply to the Firm and the Business Cycle,” which appeared in Labour Economics, examines the idea that businesses possess a certain level of wage setting power.
• “New Deal or No Deal in the Cotton South: The Effect of the AAA on the Agricultural Labor Structure," which appeared in Explorations in Economic History, examines the role of the Agricultural Adjustment Act in the rapid reduction of share tenants and sharecroppers.

LSU Assistant Professor of Communications Studies Graham Bodie receives two prestigious recognitions in the field of communication:

• named one of the most prolific scholars in the field of communication, ranking in the top 1 percent of scholars who published articles in communication journals from 2007 to 2011, based on a study published in Communication Education.
• 2012 Early Career Award from the Interpersonal Communication Division of the National Communication Association, or NCA. The award was recognizes “a scholar whose body of work contributes significantly to knowledge of interpersonal communication and shows promise for continued contributions.”