Faculty and Staff

Gabriela Gonzalez was selected to participate in a National Academy of Sciences panel called “Astro 2010: The Astronomy and Astrophysics Decadal Survey.” Astro 2010 will survey the field of space- and ground-based astronomy and astrophysics, recommending priorities for the most important scientific and technical activities of the decade 2010-2020. Gonzalez will serve on the Program Prioritization Panel for programs in the Particle Astrophysics and Gravitation section.

Virginia Grenier, executive director of the International Hospitality Foundation at LSU, was honored by the National Association of International Educators with the 2009 Hugh M. Jenkins Award for excellence in community programming.

A team of 13 LSU researchers and students, led by faculty at the LSU Center for Computation & Technology, conducted a black hole simulation presentation and demonstration that won first prize at the SCALE 2009 challenge at CCGrid09, a premier conference for cluster and Grid computing. The SCALE 2009 competition, which took place in Shanghai, China, involved researchers demonstrating real-world problem solving using scalable computing, in which scientists use computer systems that can easily adapt, or scale up, to provide greater performance and computing power and give them greater capability to solve complex problems.

Naci Mocan won Economic Inquiry’s 2008 Best Article Award for his paper “What Determines Corruption? International Evidence from Microdata.” The paper uses individual-level data from 49 countries to create a direct measure of corruption, which is a country-level corruption index based on the proportion of individuals in a country who were asked for a bribe in a year.

Mark Batzer was named editor-in-chief of “Gene: An International Journal of Functional and Evolutionary Genomics,” one of the most prestigious and widely respected scientific journals in the field of genetic research.

Elizabeth Derryberry, post-doctoral researcher at the LSU Museum of Natural Science, found a link between alterations in bird songs and the rapid change in the surrounding habitat. Using aerial photographs to map the vegetation and habitat changes that took place between 1970 and 2005, Derryberry was able to determine that in places where plant growth had increased, bird songs were slowing down.

Three LSU researchers - Mark Batzer, Brent Christner and Ken Schafer - were included in Discover Magazine’s Top 100 Research Stories of 2008.

Three LSU researchers - Jim Matthews, John Wefel and T. Gregory Guzik - were included in the American Institute of Physics’ Top 10 Stories of 2008. The three LSU professors were included for their work with cosmic rays.

Robert Carney, professor of oceanography, is leading a team of scientists from the United States and France through the final stages of a project that, when complete, will yield the most comprehensive details ever of the flora and fauna of the continental slopes. Carney and his research partners at LSU are in charge of studying the continental slopes in a project titled COMARGE, or Continental Margin Ecosystems. This is just part of the international effort called “Census of Marine Life.” In December 2007, Discover Magazine called the “Census of Marine Life” one of the six most important experiments in the world.

Isiah Warner, LSU vice chancellor for strategic initiatives, received the 2008 ACS Division of Analytical Chemistry Award in Spectrochemical Analysis.

Since December 2008, five LSU researchers have been awarded the distinction of Fellow in prestigious national societies including the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Physical Society.
In 2008, LSU’s Barry Dellinger was recognized by the American Chemical Society with a $30,000 grant from the Astellas USA Foundation for work on environmental and health effects of combustion.

President George W. Bush honored LSU faculty member Randy Raggio in April 2008 with the President’s Volunteer Service Award for his volunteer work with the Desire Street Academy.

LSU faculty member Ursula Emery-McClure of the School of Architecture received the prestigious Rome Prize in architecture from the American Academy in Rome in 2008. The award includes a fellowship to study at the American Academy.

LSU School of Social Work Professor Brij Mohan was selected to receive the President’s Award from the National Association of Social Workers – Louisiana chapter – in 2008. The award, given to Mohan for his international reputation as a scholar and author, is a special honor that has only been given to one other person in the chapter’s history.

Chris Austin, assistant curator of herpetology at LSU's Museum of Natural Science and adjunct professor in biological sciences, has discovered several new species of amphibians during his research in New Guinea, Borneo and Sri Lanka.

Glenn Sumners, director of the LSU Center for Internal Auditing, was awarded the 2007 Bradford Cadmus Memorial Award, which the Institute of Internal Auditors presents to two individuals who have made significant contributions to the profession of internal auditing through research, education, publications, or development activities.