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May 2023

Ponchartrain Institute for Environmental Sciences Awarded $568,000

The Pontchartrain Institute for Environmental Sciences (PIES) was awarded a Louisiana Board of Regents Comprehensive Enhancement grant ($568k) titled "Reimagining the Pontchartrain Institute for Environmental Sciences to meet evolving environmental challenges facing Louisiana, the Gulf Coast region, and beyond." The award will fund novel environmental data collection instrumentation and equipment to build a real-time monitoring network across the Pontchartrain Basin and bolster and modernize field and laboratory equipment within the institute. This award was one of only 3 Comprehensive Enhancements awarded statewide this grant cycle.

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Creativity and History on Display at Advanced Game Development Final Showcase

Help New UNO STEM Students Get Ahead

The UNO STEM Scholars Camp is a crucial 5-day intensive transition or "boot camp" for incoming freshmen students in late July. The camp allows incoming STEM students a chance to attend lectures, meet people and get a jump start on their coursework, all in a relaxed and safe environment. Your support will help make this program accessible to all incoming STEM freshmen. 

CLICK HERE to support the UNO Stem Scholars Camp or text UNOSTEM to 71777 for more information.

Jonathan Schowalter (Junior – Physics) will participate in the UMass Chan Medical School Summer Undergraduate Research Program. Over a 10-week period, students in the program engage in a research project, attend lectures, participate in career development and networking sessions and work in weekly small group sessions in which they are instructed in written and oral scientific communication. At the end of the summer program, students present their research at a poster session open to the UMass Chan Medical School community. Thank you to alumnus Dr. Terence R. Flotte '82 for helping to offer this opportunity to UNO students. 

The Ochsner-UNO Collaborative Undergraduate Research Experience (CURE) engages undergraduate students with hands-on experience working alongside physicians and Ph.D.s at medical research labs at Ochsner facilities. This unique summer research experience was developed in partnership with alumnus Dr. Kevin Conrad '97. On May 22, 2023, the fifth cohort of students started this 6-week summer program. Congratulations to the following students: An Bui (Senior- Biological Sciences); An Vu (Senior- Chemistry); Danielle Poussard (Senior – Biological Sciences and Chemistry); Karenisha Jackson (Junior- Biological Sciences); and Leen Seder (Junior- Biological Sciences).

Students and faculty from the College of Sciences will participate in the UNO-Innsbruck International Summer School in Austria from July 1st through August 11th. Freshmen Sophia DeWald (Biological Sciences) and Ocean Stansbury (Biological Sciences) will attend the six-week program. Both students were recipients of scholarships awarded through the Division of International Education at UNO. Dr. Matt Scalco, assistant professor in the Department of Psychology, will teach two courses in the summer program, including field trips to expose students to local historical sites. 

Amanda Xuan Nguyen and Daijohn Gustave with the Department of Computer Science were selected for paid summer research internships by the Naval Research Enterprise Internship Program (NREIP). NREIP provides competitive research internships to college students at Department of the Navy research laboratories during the summer. A main goal of the program is to make interns aware of the research activities of the Department of Navy laboratories in order to facilitate employment by that agency after graduation. Both students will intern for 10 weeks at the Naval Information Warfare Center (NIWC) in New Orleans.   >> LEARN MORE

Undergraduate student Loandi Cruz was recognized by the Louisiana Local Section of the American Chemical Society as an Outstanding Senior Chemistry Major. She was honored at a banquet held at the UNO Alumni Center along with representatives from regional universities (Tulane, Loyola, Xavier, Southeastern Louisiana University and Nicholls State University). Loandi graduated this spring with high honors in Chemistry and the title of her undergraduate thesis was “Heterogeneous Cu@Hal catalyzed [3+2] Cycloaddition Reactions for the Synthesis of 1,2,3-triazoles” (mentor: Dr. Mark Trudell). 

The 12th Annual UL System Academic Summit was held on April 20-21, 2023. Congratulations to the six science majors who traveled to Northwestern State University to present oral and poster presentations. For the Department of Physics, Avery Landeche’s oral presentation was titled “Using Wavelets to Compress Acoustic Data”. With the Department of Chemistry, Danielle Poussard presented her research with a poster titled “Synthesis of Rilmenidine analogues as potential therapeutic agents for the treatment of breast cancer.” For the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Victoria Sanchez presented her research poster “Growth and Decay of River Dunes at Slow, Medium, and Fast Flood Rates Within a Flume”. Three students represented the Department of Biological Sciences – Sable Murphy gave an oral presentation titled “Ecological Niche Modelling of the Leptosiphon”, Emalee Swisshelm presented a poster titled “Chlorophyll a Production on Artificial Reefs in the Northern Gulf of Mexico”, and Haley Beaulieu presented her research poster “Effects of Ocean Warming and Acidification on the Rates of Suspension Feeding for Two Reef Invertebrates in the Northern Gulf of Mexico”. 

Women in Computer Science Scholarship Winners Announced

Two University of New Orleans students have been selected to receive a Women in Computer Science Scholarship, which was created by alumna Sabrina Farmer, a vice president at Google.

The award, which is administered by UNO’s Women’s Center, covers in-state tuition for the academic year and comes with mentorship from Farmer, who established the scholarship a year after she graduated from UNO in 1995 with a computer science degree.

This year’s recipients are Kailey Bergeron and Lenaoria Guerin, both juniors who expect to graduate in fall 2024.

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On May 8th, 2023, the Office of Student Involvement and Leadership hosted the Annual Student Leadership Recognition Ceremony. Congratulations to the students and organizations from the College of Sciences recognized this year.  

Computer Science Professor Atriya Sen Awarded NSF Grant for AI Research

University of New Orleans computer science assistant professor Atriya Sen has been awarded a two-year, $175,000 National Science Foundation grant to develop artificial intelligence (AI) techniques for biodiversity science, in collaboration with biologists at Arizona State University.

Sen’s research will employ AI to help predict population decline of certain biological species. He proposed this project to the NSF with UNO doctoral student Rasha Alshawi.

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After earning a PhD in 2012 from the previously named Conservation Biology doctoral program (now Integrative Biology), Dr. Garzón-Orduña '12 is now the curator for moths and butterflies in Mexico's National Insect Collection, Mexico's largest entomological collection located in Mexico City. She has described multiple species of moths new to science. When she is not teaching Systematics at Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), Dr. Garzón-Orduña is collecting moths all over the country. Learn more about Dr. Garzón-Orduña’s research here