With Dr. Brian Bolton, the Graduate School and the Division of Research, Innovation, and Economic Development at the 杏吧专区 are proud to announce the recipients of the fourth round of Sustainable Development Research Awards, now transitioning to the Louisiana Impact Awards.
This round of competition recognizes the work of 11 faculty members and 25 graduate students, as well as several undergraduate students and postdoctoral scholars, for innovative projects spanning disciplines from engineering and computer science to communicative disorders and English.
Since 2022, the program has invested more than $250,000 to support 128 faculty, graduate, undergraduate, and staff-led projects. In total, 385 proposals have been submitted from across all seven academic colleges, demonstrating the remarkable breadth of research being conducted on the UL Lafayette campus.
The program will continue forward as the Louisiana Impact: Louisiana Research Collaborative. Showcasing research aligned with the people, place, and purpose of Louisiana, the collaborative is a partnership between Academic Affairs, the Office of the Vice President for Research, Innovation & Economic Development, the Graduate School, the Office of Sustainability & Community Engagement, and Dr. Bolton. Dr. Bolton is a Professor of Finance and the Dwight W. Andrus, Jr. / BORSF Eminent Scholar Endowed Chair in Finance.
杏吧专区淭hrough this work, we杏吧专区檝e created something truly remarkable,杏吧专区 says Bolton. 杏吧专区淭he greatest reward comes when we see research not only advance scholarship but also improve lives here in Louisiana and beyond.杏吧专区
Several of the awardees will be recognized at the Louisiana Impact Research Summit on Friday, Sept. 5, 2025, from 8:30 am to 2 pm at the 杏吧专区杏吧专区檚 LITE Center. The program will include 25-30 brief presentations from award recipients in the third and fourth rounds of competition. Lunch will be provided. The summit is open to the public with registration. View the Research Summit agenda.
Join us in congratulating the 2025 Louisiana Impact Award recipients:
Faculty
- Sercan Aygun 杏吧专区 Assistant Professor, Computing & Informatics, Ray P. Authement College of Sciences
ULL-HT: Unified, Low-Resource, and Language-Assisted Health Tool
- Elena Babatsouli 杏吧专区 Associate Professor, Communicative Disorders, College of Liberal Arts
Louisiana Family Language Use and Child Speech Developmental Norms in English
- Ignatius Cahyanto 杏吧专区 Associate Professor, Management, B.I. Moody III College of Business Administration
Visualizing Empowerment? Tourism and the Experiences of Ethnic Minority Women in Northern Vietnam
- Caitlin deNux 杏吧专区 Visiting Assistant Professor, Geosciences, Ray P. Authement College of Sciences
Terry Chambers 杏吧专区 Professor, Mechanical Engineering, College of Engineering
Evaluating Soil Health Improvements Utilizing Cover Crops in a Pre-Established Broccoli Production AV System in Louisiana
- Natalie Keefer 杏吧专区 Associate Professor, Education Curriculum & Instruction, College of Education & Human Development
Kathe Managan, Anthropology - Assistant Professor, Anthropology, College of the Liberal Arts
Sustainable Economic and Cultural Development of Louisiana Business Practices in French and Creole
- Mo Li 杏吧专区 Assistant Professor, Mathematics, Ray P. Authement College of Sciences
Multiple Changepoints Detection and Estimation in Cross-Sectional Time Series for Improving Livestock Production
- Edward Patterson 杏吧专区 Assistant Professor, Biology, Ray P. Authement College of Sciences
Using Insect-Specific Viruses to Prevent Mosquitoes from Transmitting Arthropod-Borne Viruses
- David Squires 杏吧专区 Associate Professor, English, College of Liberal Arts
Isuru Rathnayake 杏吧专区 PhD Student in English
Reading Ernest J. Gaines in the Archives
- Yu Wang 杏吧专区 Associate Professor, Chemistry, Ray P. Authement College of Sciences
Advanced Smart Hydrogels for Selective and Regenerable PFAS Remediation in Water
- Christine Weill 杏吧专区 Assistant Professor, Communicative Disorders, College of Liberal Arts
Louisiana's View of Speech-Language Pathology Assistants Andrea Westerband 杏吧专区 Assistant Professor, Biology, Ray P. Authement College of Sciences
Mitigating Environmental Stress Impacts on Louisiana杏吧专区檚 Native Prairie SpeciesGraduate Students
- Tamjeed Ahmed, PhD Student in Systems Engineering: Mechanical Engineering
Faculty reference: Solomon Yin, College of Engineering
Integrated Economic-Health Valuation of Backup Power Portfolios for Gulf-Coast Hurricane Shelters
- Kunle Akinkuade 杏吧专区 MSE Student in Chemical Engineering
Faculty reference: Mark Zappi, College of Engineering
Thermochemical Conversion of Plastic Wastes into Sustainable Bio-Oil
- Nelly Ankrah 杏吧专区 PhD Student in Systems Engineering: Civil Engineering
Faculty reference: Julius Codjoe, College of Engineering
The Role of Road Weather Intelligent Systems in Enhancing Climate Resilience and Transportation Safety in Louisiana
- N I Md Ashafuddula 杏吧专区 PhD Student in Computer Science
Faculty reference: Li Chen, Ray P. Authement College of Sciences
KI-M3T: Knee Injury-Adapted Medical Multi-Plane Multi-Slice Transformer Model for Advancing Healthcare Accessibility Through Accurate MRI Diagnosis
- Jacob Badcock 杏吧专区 PhD Student in Environmental & Evolutionary Biology
Faculty reference: Craig McClain, Ray P. Authement College of Sciences
Using Machine Learning to Detect Macrobenthic Regime Shifts in a Louisiana Estuarine Bay
- Sajan Bhandari 杏吧专区 PhD Student in Mathematics
Faculty reference: Azmy Ackleh, Ray P. Authement College of Sciences
Discrete-Time Refuge-Mediated Selection Model
- Xueao Cao and Gulalek Charyyeva 杏吧专区 PhD Students in Communicative Disorders 杏吧专区 College of Liberal Arts
Faculty reference: Judith Oxley and Katherine Mcquitty Hays
More Than Words: Supporting the Development of a Child with Communication Disabilities Through Engineering the Communicative Environment
- Lisa Dizon 杏吧专区 PhD Student in Systems Engineering: Chemical Engineering
Faculty reference: Emmanuel Revellame, College of Engineering
Bioreactor Scale-Up and Testing of Optimum Conditions to Enhance Methanotrophs杏吧专区 Growth and Activity for Lipid Production
- Muhammad Towhidul Islam 杏吧专区 PhD Student in Systems Engineering: Petroleum Engineering
Faculty reference: Boyun Guo, College of Engineering
Visualization of Hydrate Formation of Flowing CO鈧 in Low-Temperature Water for CO鈧 Disposal onto Seafloor
- Asif Istiak 杏吧专区 PhD Student in Systems Engineering: Mechanical Engineering
Faculty reference: Tanvir Faisal, College of Engineering
A Novel Nanocarrier-Driven Therapeutic Strategy for Inhibiting Tissue Damage in Degenerated Joint Disease
- Chimezie Izuazu 杏吧专区 PhD Student in Mathematics
Faculty reference: Cameron Browne, Ray P. Authement College of Sciences
Stochastic Analysis of Interplay Among Drug Mode of Action, Nutrient Availability, and Antibiotic Resistance
- Jenita Jahangir 杏吧专区 PhD Student in Mathematics
Faculty reference: Amy Veprauskas, Ray P. Authement College of Sciences
Invading Populations by Infections in a Discrete-Time Compartmental Epidemic Models
- Afeez Jimoh 杏吧专区 PhD Student in Earth & Energy Sciences
Faculty reference: Erez Aghion, Ray P. Authement College of Sciences
Computational Modeling of Ion Transport Dynamics in Ion Exchange Membranes for Sustainable Energy Systems
- Maria Lindquist 杏吧专区 MS Student in Psychology
Faculty reference: Manyu Li, College of Liberal Arts
Shaping Attitudes Toward GLP-1 Drugs: The Impact of Realistic Advertisements on Disordered Eating Behaviors
- Lovelyn Madu 杏吧专区 PhD Student in Mathematics
Faculty reference: Bruce Wade, Ray P. Authement College of Sciences
Optimization and AI-Driven Advances in Detection Tools for Heart Disease and Cancers
- Sydney McDermott 杏吧专区 PhD Student in Environmental & Evolutionary Biology
Faculty reference: Craig McClain, Ray P. Authement College of Sciences
Observations of the Condition of Deep-Sea Benthic Communities in the Immediate Vicinity of the Deepwater Horizon Wreckage
- Emily Mulcahy 杏吧专区 MS Student in Biology
Faculty reference: Beth Stauffer, Ray P. Authement College of Sciences
Growth of and Microzooplankton Grazing on Pico- and Nanoplankton Communities Along Environmental Gradients
- Sohail Nawab 杏吧专区 PhD Student in Systems Engineering: Petroleum Engineering
Faculty reference: Ning Liu, College of Engineering
Microbial Hydrogen Production in Depleted Oil Reservoirs in Louisiana
- Jacob Norris 杏吧专区 MS Student in Psychology
Faculty reference: Emily Sandoz, College of Liberal Arts
The Relationships Between Ego Depletion and Social Behaviors Across Different Degrees of Psychological Flexibility
- Prince Obeng 杏吧专区 PhD Student in Systems Engineering: Petroleum Engineering
Faculty reference: Nelson Chavez, College of Engineering
Experimental Investigation of the Performance of Clay Inhibitor ZCHN71, ZCHN72, ZCHN73 on High and Low Reactive Clays
- Khairum Orthi 杏吧专区 PhD Student in Earth & Energy Sciences
Faculty reference: Wu Xu, Ray P. Authement College of Sciences
Understanding the Electron Transport Chain in Photosystem I During Photosynthesis
- Tasnim Tabassum 杏吧专区 PhD Student in Computer Science
Faculty reference: Sonya Hsu, Ray P. Authement College of Sciences
Prevent Hospital Finance Failure: An AI-Powered System for Identifying Financial Risk
- Mohammad Nezam Uddin 杏吧专区 PhD Student in Systems Engineering: Petroleum Engineering
Faculty reference: Boyun Guo, College of Engineering
A Feasibility Study of Converting End-of-lifetime Oil and Gas Wells into Geothermal Wells
Gregory Williams 杏吧专区 PhD Student in Systems Engineering: Civil Engineering
Faculty reference: Emad Habib, College of Engineering
A Collaboratively Designed and Managed Flood Resilience Framework for Affected Communities in the Caribbean RegionPostdoctoral Scholars
- Courtney Poirier Chicola 杏吧专区 Postdoctoral Researcher, NASA Regional Application Center and Department of Chemistry
Discovering the Early-Time Photodegradation Mechanisms of Emerging Contaminants in Marine Ecosystems
- Xiaobo Lei 杏吧专区 Postdoctoral Researcher, Energy Institute of Louisiana
Converting Invasive Giant Salvinia in Louisiana into Renewable Biomethane Yihe Zhang 杏吧专区 Research Scientist, Informatics Research Institute
Accelerating Universal Mental Health Access through AI-Powered Suicide PreventionUndergraduate Students
- Elizabeth Drell 杏吧专区 Undergraduate Student in Psychology
Faculty reference: Amy Brown, College of Liberal Arts
Alcohol Intoxication as a Moderator of Bias Against Transgender Victims of Sexual Assault
- Bree Landry 杏吧专区 Undergraduate Student in Environmental Science, Digital Geography and Researcher with the NASA Regional Application Center
Faculty reference: Courtney Poirier Chicola, Ray P. Authement College of Sciences
Tracking Troubled Waters: Community-Based Field Research with the AREN AquaROVER Bailey Singleton 杏吧专区 Undergraduate Student in Psychology
Faculty reference: Amy Brown, College of Liberal Arts
Consent in Media Consumption: Exploring Content Warnings as Accessibility through Sexual Assault Survivor's Perspectives