LSU Research

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about the artist David Achee is an LSU undergraduate student majoring in graphic design. His piece, “Pelicans”, was a final selection in the Great Oil Leak of 2010 Poster Project, an art show designed to assist Gulf Coast fishermen.

“With this poster, I wanted to draw attention to the spill with a very stark image that would catch people’s attention immediately.”

For more information on the Community Foundation of Acadiana or to support its efforts toward protecting the coastline, visit www.cfacadiana.org.

Earth Scan Lab

OFFICE OF RESEARCH & ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT | FALL 2010

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Greetings

A Model Pandemic

FEATURES

From Interim Vice Chancellor of Research & Economic Development Doris Carver . . . . . . . . . . . .1

Reporting Back: Q&A with John Hamilton

Bret Elderd discusses statistical modeling of pandemics and the impact on public health . . . . . . .26

Getting Back to Brother Time

LSU’s Provost discusses his newest award-winning book, “Journalism’s Roving Eye: A History of American Foreign Reporting”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .15

Shaking Things Up Juan Lorenzo uses seismography to evaluate New Orleans levees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .18

Annual Report 2009-2010 A look at LSU’s research productivity over the year . . .AR2 New Frontiers of Energy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .AR3 Radical News . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .AR4 A Tale of Two Fishes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .AR5

LSU Rainmakers A selection of LSU’s top faculty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .21

Wesley Shrum looks at the violence following the Kenyan elections of 2008 . . . . . . . . . . .31

Fish Food Kelly Rusch develops a system to help the commercial fish farming industry . . . . . . . . . . . . .36

Ashes From the Past Huiming Bao studies ancient volcanic eruptions and their impact on climate . . . . . . . . . . . .38

The Art of Aging Neila Donovan works to develop unique testing tools to identify hearing and speech issues in older adults . . . .41

2009 Distinguished Research Masters Sumanta Acharya and Nina Lam receive the 2009 Distinguished Research Master awards . . . . . . .43

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When Oil Meets Water: An overview of LSU’s response to the Gulf Coast Disaster Leading the Way

Taking the Stand

How LSU and its faculty reacted to the Deepwater Horizon Disaster . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3

LSU Receives Grant for Oil Research BP gives LSU $5 million for oil spill-related research . . .4

Endangered Traditions James Catano and Carolyn Ware document the vanishing culture of Croatian oyster farming families on the coast . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5

Finding a Pearl of Wisdom Kenneth Brown studies the potential impact of oil on oysters in their natural environment . . . . . . . .7

Spreading the Word

Dean of LSU’s School of the Coast & Environment testifies before the House of Representatives . . . . . . .10

Stressful Times Troy Blanchard and Matthew Lee survey coastal residents for health issues related to the oil spill . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .11

Bacterial Solutions John Pardue works with oil-eating microbes to develop new clean-up solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .12

NSF Recognizes LSU Oil-Related Research Several LSU researchers receive NSF Rapid Response Grants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .13

LSU scientists inform the public about the oil spill . . . .9

in this issue

novative tools to measure environmental conditions of the Earth’s surface. The software, which is a product cumulating from her basic research on fractals, wavelets and other related spatial indices, has been accessed by researchers throughout the world.

In the early 1980s, Lam’s study on cancer mortality patterns in China revealed the unusual clustered patterns and identified possible links between environmental conditions and cancers. Her research on the spread of HIV/AIDS in the United States was the first to confirm a national trend of HIV/AIDS spread in rural America.

This pioneering research received national attention. Lam’s current research focuses on developing models to understand business return decisions in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and to measure community resilience.

Lam has published one book, 56 refereed book chapters and journal articles and has served as the principal or co-principal investigator of 30 external grants. She has mentored 14 doctoral and 23 master’s students. She has served on numerous national and international advisory panels and journal editorial boards such as the National Research Council; the National Science Foundation, or NSF; the National Institutes of Health; and NASA, and was an NSF program director. In 2004, Lam was honored with an Outstanding Contributions in Remote Sensing Award by the Remote

Nina Lam, LSU 2009 Distinguished Research Master, giving a presentation in acceptance of the award.

Sensing Specialty Group of the Association of American Geographers. In 2006, she was selected for an LSU Distinguished Faculty Award and in 2008 was named as an LSU Rainmaker.

Lam presented a public lecture during the award ceremony in May 2010, entitled “From Disease to Disaster: Geospatial Analysis for Environmental Decision Making.” Lam is considered an intellectual leader and a truly distinguished research master by leading research collaboration, developing research initiatives, mentoring graduate students and providing expert/professional services to the community.

noteworthy research The Department of Oceanography and Coastal Sciences celebrated its 40th anniversary this year.

Fact and Figures: 245 masters and 179 doctoral degrees have been awarded through 2009.

The current faculty of 27 has published more than 1,400 scientific articles and has a solid record of achievement in many areas including wetlands, deltaic processes, fisheries and the Dead Zone.

As the only oceanography department in the state, it offers the right mix of teaching, research and service to the people of Louisiana.

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Greetings from the Interim Vice Chancellor This year, 2010, is LSU’s sesquicentennial anniversary. On this special occasion, we celebrate our rich heritage as a land grant institution and look forward to continuing to serve the public through the innovations and discoveries of our outstanding faculty and students. The year has brought difficult challenges with looming budget cuts and the Deepwater Horizon oil spill right at our back door in the Gulf of Mexico; however, our researchers continue to rise to the occasion to support LSU’s land grant mission through the creation of new knowledge that benefits not only the state of Louisiana but also provides worldwide benefits.

This combined research and annual report provides a glimpse into the research, scholarship and creative activity taking place at LSU, along with our 2009-2010 external funding and intellectual property data.

The articles contained in this report cover a diverse set of topics, ranging from volcanic eruptions to disease transmission patterns. We have included numerous articles related to the oil spill, including research that addresses environmental issues as well as research concerning health and economic impacts.

Since the spill occurred in April of 2010, LSU has been making contributions not only through its research but also through numerous other activities. LSU faculty have testified before Congress; hosted meetings with the EPA and with the Consortium for Ocean Leadership; partnered with institutions from across the Gulf Coast region and beyond to foster research opportunities; and have received funds from the National Science Foundation as well as from BP that provide resources that allow our researchers to conduct research that will positively impact the people who have been affected and the environment that has been damaged by the spill.

As we look from LSU’s sesquicentennial anniversary to its future, we remain dedicated to advancing the research enterprise at LSU by continuing the development of innovative research that solves problems and impacts lives.

We hope you enjoy reading about the achievements of our excellent and dedicated researchers.

Doris Carver Interim Vice Chancellor for Research & Economic Development July 30, 2010

LSU Research is published annually by the Office of Research & Economic Development, Louisiana State University, with editorial offices in 130 David F. Boyd Hall, LSU, Baton Rouge, LA 70803. Any written portion of this publication may be reprinted without permission as long as credit for LSU Research is given.

Opinions expressed herein do not necessarily reflect those of LSU faculty or administration.

Send correspondence to Office of Research & Economic Development, to the address above, or e-mail to research@lsu.edu. Phone: 225-578-5833 Visit us on the Web at www.research.lsu.edu Louisiana State University Administration

LSU Research

Michael Martin, Chancellor John Hamilton, Provost, Executive Vice Chancellor,

Publisher and Executive Editor:

Academic Affairs

Doris Carver, Interim Vice Chancellor, Research & Economic Development

Carol O’Neil, Interim Associate Vice Chancellor, Research & Economic Development

Carol O’Neil Ashley Berthelot Coordinator: Holly Carruth Editorial Assistant: Zac Lemoine Contributing Writers: Ernest Ballard, Billy Gomila, Kristen Sunde Design: Tim Elder/LSU Design Services Photographers: Eddy Perez and Jim Zietz Editor:

on the cover LSU Earth Scan Laboratory, Coastal Studies Institute, Department of Oceanography and Coastal Studies, School of the Environment. MODIS satellite image taken July14, 2010 approximately 12 weeks into the Deepwater Horizon event.

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Leading the Way Offshore oil drilling has been a part of the industrial landscape for as long as most can remember. In the Gulf of Mexico, the horizon is dotted with oil platforms, some abandoned and serving as artificial reefs, but with many others still in operation, plunging deep beneath the water’s surface in search of oil. The Deepwater Horizon disaster on April 20, 2010, was a devastating reminder that the world’s dependence on oil can have dangerous repercussions. Eleven lives were lost at the onset of what quickly became known as the world’s worst environmental disaster.

When it was clear that oil was in the water and the flow wasn’t stopping anytime soon, BP and the federal government began looking for answers. LSU was identified as one of the key places to find expert opinions and a base of knowledge that would support the search for real solutions.

“We have such a wealth of expertise in just about every area of research applicable to this situation,” said Doris Carver, interim vice chancellor for research & economic development. “It only makes sense that we would be tapped to assist with finding solutions and understanding the impact of such a devastating event.”

Within days, the Office of Research & Economic Development put together a forum drawing together expertise from around the campus. Hundreds of scientists and interested researchers attended, resulting in a packed house and more than 30 proposed joint-research projects from that single meeting. By June of 2010, more than 200 researchers were involved in more than 300 projects.

Since the traditional methods of securing grants are slow and involve many steps and long approval periods, finding support for the necessary research became a paramount concern. Instead of waiting to receive funding for these proposals through traditional means, many faculty reached

into their own pockets to support this research, well aware that time was rapidly slipping away.

“This well blowout has created a very complex environmental situation with potentially very serious long term impacts,” said Christopher D’Elia, dean of the School of the Coast and Environment. “It’s imperative that researchers get in and find a baseline measurement, so that we can test the impacts and repercussions of this situation on the affected areas in six months, a year, five years and even more.”

LSU researchers were among the first to receive rapid response grants from the National Science Foundation, with projects ranging from studies to determine the oil’s impact on oyster beds to the repercussions the disaster will have on human populations. “Several faculty have ongoing research that is directly relevant to the environmental impact of oil and they were able to quickly engage scientifically with this disaster,” said Kevin Carman, dean of LSU’s College of Science. “I’ve been particularly pleased that other faculty with peripheral but highly relevant scientific expertise have also stepped up, and that faculty from a variety of disciplines are engaging in collaborative research. The work that we are doing will help us understand and better manage the current crisis, and it will provide a critical foundation for understanding how to minimize the environmental impacts of future events.”

Individual labs and units across campus also stepped up in a different way, offering demonstrations at the Petroleum Engineering Research and Technology Transfer Laboratory, or PERTT, to educate the public on the techniques being employed to shut down the flow of oil.

“The PERTT lab is a one-of-a-kind facility that offers our students hands-on experience in reacting to and controlling situations like the Deepwater Horizon blowout,” said Dean of LSU’s College of Engineering Richard Koubek. “Because of its relevance to the events in the coast, our PERTT lab faculty thought it very important to give vi-

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sual demonstrations underscoring the kind of work going on in the Gulf.”

With researchers such as John Smith from the College of Engineering and Joseph Mason of the E. J. Ourso College of Business being called upon to testify on Capitol Hill about the response capabilities of our nation, and environmental scientist Edward Overton becoming the scientific community’s spokesperson on the impact of the disaster, the university easily stepped into a leadership role in the scientific response. LSU welcomed EPA administrator Lisa Jackson to meet with faculty and brainstorm about the response efforts, then later

hosted the National Ocean Leadership Council and several other high-profile meetings in order to facilitate research.

“LSU researchers from numerous disciplines are working to address many aspects of the aftermath of the blowout,” said Carver. “Time will tell, but LSU’s research capabilities in science and the arts have always been a core strength. We will be there on the forefront to take our research from the field to the lab and into the lives of many impacted by the Deepwater Horizon incident.”

financial support

LSU Receives Grant for Oil Research Since the oil disaster in the Gulf began, LSU researchers have been trying to determine the effect the spill will have on the environment, people in the Gulf region and possible engineering solutions. In recognition of LSU’s research expertise, BP selected the university as the recipient of $5 million in funds to support research geared toward expanding scientific understanding of oil spills and their ecological impact.

Key players at LSU include the School of the Coast and Environment, the College of Engineering and the College of Science, all examining areas such as environmental science and ecology, engineering, coastal science and humanities.

The funds come from BP’s Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative, which will support universities in the Gulf area in research on the fate and effects of oil, dispersed oil and dispersants. “This grant will allow teams of researchers to formulate solutions to one of this state and country’s most multi-faceted challenges in recent history,” said College of Engineering Dean Richard J. Koubek.

BP and LSU have agreed that LSU researchers will have complete academic freedom to conduct research without interference from BP. “These funds will allow our faculty to do what we do best: conduct research that solves problems,” said LSU Interim Vice Chancellor for Research & Economic Development Doris Carver.

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Endangered Traditions The past five years have been a constant rebuilding effort for many people in the Gulf Coast region. Initially hit by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, followed three years later by Hurricane Gustav, the awesome power of nature has pounded the Louisiana coastline almost relentlessly. With the recent explosion of the drilling rig Deepwater Horizon and the spread of oil across the Gulf, Croatian oyster farmers are one group that find themselves waiting and hoping for the chance to rebuild once again.

For generations, the oyster beds located at the southernmost tip of Louisiana marshland have served as the primary work place and community center for the Tesvich, Barisich, Cibilich and Vujnovich families. These families, that can trace their heritage back to fishing on the Dalmatian coast of the Adriatic Sea, came to the New Orleans area in the late 19th century and began farming oysters. At that time, most oyster farming was done on wild reefs, with natural production providing the main source of the famous Louisiana staple.

But early in the 20th century, these families left New Orleans, moving to the wetlands in lower Plaquemines and St. Bernard Parishes. There they leased offshore land from the state, which added to the natural oyster beds along the lower Mississippi delta coast of Louisiana and created the highly productive oyster grounds they have maintained for more than 100 years.

James Catano and Carolyn Ware, English faculty at LSU, began visually documenting the continued rebuilding efforts of these families after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita damaged their oyster crops in 2005. “What was supposed to be a oneyear dramatization of their struggle to get back from Katrina has turned into a four- and now five-year project,” said Catano.

Just as Catano was finishing the final cut of “After the Aftermath,” the documentary drama-

tizing these families and their struggles, the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded, leading to the worst man-made environmental disaster in U.S. history. “We were done with shooting, we had a closing quote, and now we’re reworking the whole story,” said Catano.

Catano spent the time following the oil spill conducting further interviews with the families, documenting the impact of the oil on their livelihood. “What we have here are farmers whose crop is underwater. It’s like somebody poured oil all over their farmland, and they don’t know what they’re going to do next.”

Farming oysters has been the family business WPA photo of 1930s oyster farmer for the Croatian unloading after a hard day’s work. families for generations, and oyster farming serves not just as a job, but as a foundation on which their community is built.

Catano spoke with one oyster farmer who relies on help from his son during the summer months; this provides both another set of hands and a source of income that will help pay for his son’s college tuition. Now that money for college is in doubt. “You go down there and it’s pretty devastating, these people are looking at the end of a way of life,” said Catano.

The oil spill is affecting everyday life for the oyster farmers now, but it also poses potential long-term problems. It may affect the life cycle of the oysters, which – at the time of the oil spill – were in the early growth stage called spat. Spats take two to three years to reach market size. “At best they may be looking at getting a crop in two years and they don’t know if they can hold out

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that long,” said Catano. But these farmers refuse to give up.

Even if the families survive the two-year wait for the next crop, it is difficult to determine the effect the oil will have on the oysters’ growth. Oyster development is based on several factors, most notably the salinity of the water, which also has a direct influence on the oyster’s unique taste. With freshwater being flushed to the Gulf to halt the incoming oil, the oysters are losing the salt water they require to fully develop and maintain their flavor. Should the oil have a minimal effect on the oysters’ development, the change in taste due to the freshwater could reduce the marketability of the crop.

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“We have to be more hopeful than most people,” said George Barisich, “because we have so much more to lose.”

According to Catano, the worst part of the situation is the uncertainty. “No one really knows, no one can plan beyond a day-to-day basis.” While they wait to learn the fate of the oysters, the families are trying to get work from the only company hiring in the area, BP. “As ironic as it is,” said Catano, “in order for them to survive the oil spill

by BP, they have to work for BP cleaning it up.”

Catano’s documentary “After the Aftermath: Louisiana’s Croatian Fishing Families” is expected to be released in late 2010 or 2011.

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Finding a Pearl of Wisdom Kenneth Brown, LSU professor of biological sciences, is no stranger to the sometimes unexpected impact oil can have on oysters.

“I’ve done research on the effects of oil on oyster reproduction and the associated animals that live on oyster reefs,” he said. “However, the large scale nature of the current Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf is unprecedented.”

Brown has conducted experiments testing oysters’ reaction to oil in their environment, and was

surprised at some of the results. One experiment, which entailed hanging clay tiles treated in oil in the ocean water column, actually increased the number of oysters settling there. “Apparently, the film of oil weathered enough to form a biofilm that attracted oyster larvae,” he explained. “While not what was expected, it’s also not representative of the current situation in the Gulf. The amount of oil there may not degrade naturally into a biofilm in a short enough time to not do integral damage to oyster reproduction.”

His team also treated oyster shells with oil and placed them in a healthy reef to gauge the impact on surrounding aquatic life.

Oiled marsh grass in the Breton Sound, near the natural habitat of wild oysters.

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Kenneth Brown gives a thumbs-up after another successful oyster research trip.

“We found that the biodiversity of the reef decreased, though not by a dramatic amount,” he said. “However, this is a small-scale experiment. If one were to extrapolate based on size and spread, I’d say that it would be easy to imagine this situa-

tion having serious results on the oyster populations in the Gulf of Mexico area.”

However, it’s the uncertainty that intrigues the scientist. Since an oil spill of this magnitude has never occurred before, it’s nearly impossible for researchers to predict the exact course ecosystem reaction and remediation will take. “It’s very important for the research community to take an active role in investigating the impacts,” he said. “Oysters play an integral role in the ecosystem, ecology and culture of Louisiana. We need to watch how they are impacted so that we can be prepared for future events.”

In response to the Deepwater Horizon oil disaster, Brown and his research team are engaging in new experiments, placing oysters out in bags at several sites along the coast of Louisiana. Although capping the well has resulted in less surface oil, there is still concern that a major storm might push sub-surface oil into the marshes.

“We will monitor their [oysters] survival, growth and look at their tissues for signs of oil related stress at the physiological and molecular levels,” he said. “These are long-term problems that, unfortunately, we don’t have short-term solutions to.”

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Brenton Bird, one of Brown’s students, holding an oyster bag.

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Spreading the Word In addition to research efforts to determine the effect of the oil spill, dozens of LSU researchers and administrators freely gave their time to help inform the public on matters related to the oil spill. They spoke with the local, state, national and international media to lend their expert opinions to media stories about the spill. LSU scientists are highly respected media sources who provided balanced views of the challenges of developing energy resources while preserving quality of the environment. Immediately after the oil spill, there were 10-15 mentions of LSU per day in the media. Edward Overton, professor emeritus of environmental sciences in LSU’s School of the Coast and Environment, conducted over 200 interviews.

Some of the most notable media appearances by LSU experts were in the New York Times, The Financial Times, the New Orleans Times-Picayune, National Geographic, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, Christian Science Monitor, Scientific American, the Los Angeles Times, the Associated Press, as well as on CNN, NPR, NBC, CBS and Fox News.

It is with a sense of pride that in the time of a national event such as the oil spill that LSU researchers were recognized for the expertise to help inform the public or to help provide research to help identify solutions that may prevent future occurrences.

Also as another example of LSU’s contributions to public service, the Petroleum Engineering Department has a well-control facility on campus that teaches students how to prevent blowouts and other catastrophes when working on an oil

rig. The facility is the only one of its kind (a university-based training facility) in North America. LSU hosted a demonstration of the facility for the local and national media on Friday, June 4.

Numerous student volunteer groups offered services to help with the aftermath of the oil spill.

The Stephenson Disaster Management Institute, or SDMI, helped with management of vendor proposals for the Governor’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness, commonly referred to as GOHSEP, and other state agencies.

At the time of publication, they have handled more than 1,358 proposals. At the request of LSU’s SDMI, the Office of Coastal Protection and Restoration, and the GOHSEP, LSU Sea Grant personnel reviewed and evaluated nearly 200 oil-spill related proposals. The SDMI also assisted the Louisiana National Guard in searching their vendor data base for specific capabilities needed.

SDMI worked through a virtual activation of the GOHSEP Louisiana Business Emergency Operations Center in providing the listed services. Finally, the SDMI supported Dek Terrell, in the Department of Economics, and his group in providing economic impact analysis of the oil spill to Louisiana Economic Development.

A Sea Grant Seafood Specialist represented Sea Grant on a working group composed of seafood experts from the Gulf Sea Grant programs, NOAA and FDA. This group developed protocols to determine the safety of seafood products from the Gulfland criteria for re-opening areas previously closed to seafood harvest due to the spill.

During this time, our faculty, staff and students gave freely of their time for public service to help address the national issues that were crucial at the time of the disaster.

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Taking the Stand On June 15, 2010, Dean of LSU’s School of the Coast & Environment Christopher D’Elia testified before the U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Insular Affairs, Oceans and Wildlife on “Ocean Science and Data Limits in a Time of Crisis: Do NOAA and the Fish and Wildlife Service have the Resources to Respond?” The meeting was called nearly two months after the Gulf of Mexico disaster in an effort to address current deficiencies in the nation’s science capabilities. D’Elia was chosen because of his extensive experience in environmental research and administration.

D’Elia joined a panel of peers, including Chris Reddy, associate scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution; Robert Weisberg, professor in the Department of Marine Science at the University of South Florida; Valerie Ann Lee, president of Environment International Ltd.; and Denise Reed, interim director of the Pontchartrain Institute for Environmental Sciences and professor at the University of New Orleans.

D’Elia provided perspective on the existing gaps in observation data as related to tracking the oil plume trajectory, as well the adequacy of pre- and post-impact data to determine natural resource damage assessments. He also gave his opinions about what other data and support would be critical to advancing the scientific mission of understanding and controlling the well then mitigating its consequences. D’Elia emphasized that the scientific community needed more immediate re-

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search support in order to develop a baseline from which to interpret future test results.

“The baseline to measure change and impacts is slipping away with each day and week that supplemental funds are absent, or that adaptive and focused new initiatives are stalled,” he stated.

“The environmental, social and economic insults have come quickly [months], but the results will be here for decades.”

D’Elia stated that increased technical support for responding scientists, high frequency radars covering the Gulf of Mexico and a better understanding of this event’s impact on the wildlife of the area were needed.

He also pointed out that: · The research community is capable of making more significant contributions if allowed to participate fully; also, communication between the federal government and the academy should be enhanced. · More impetus should be placed on studying human health impacts. · Dedicated resources should be made available to research and monitor “inevitable” conflicts arriving between energy needs and environmental protection.

“If we are to truly learn from this disaster, then we need to know much more about the pre-existing conditions and the transition as the spill progresses. We cannot start this in December – it needs to begin now,” he explained.

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Stressful Times Another facet of the Deepwater Horizon disaster and its ensuing environmental impact is the sudden emotional blow it dealt to coastal communities dependent upon fishing, seafood harvesting or the petroleum industry as a way of life.

“The oil invading our coast threatens not only our marshes and our wildlife, but also our communities and our way of life,” said Gaines Foster, dean of LSU’s College of Humanities & Social Sciences. “Understanding the human impact of this environmental disaster is vitally important, and a task LSU scholars in the social sciences and humanities are uniquely qualified to study. Indeed, they have already begun the task.”

Arguably the most immediate impact was felt along the coastal parishes of Louisiana, where generations have built livelihoods on their proximity to the Gulf of Mexico. Populations are stable in these areas, with few new people entering into existing communities and even fewer leaving. LSU sociologists Matthew Lee and Troy Blanchard surveyed residents of coastal Louisiana to determine the current health impacts they face.

and Plaquemines Parishes, located in the southernmost tip of Louisiana nearest the actual site of the Deepwater Horizon explosion. The phone survey, conducted by the LSU Public Policy Research Lab, interviewed 933 residents of these areas between June 17 and July 1, 2010. More than five percent of respondents lived within five miles of the coast; more than 60 percent lived within 20 miles, making the survey population especially susceptible to impacts stemming from the spill.

When completed, there were some troubling results.

Self-rated stress levels of respondents have doubled since this time last year, according to the study. Nearly 60 percent of those surveyed indicated that they were in a state of almost constant worry during the week before they were interviewed, and 40 percent reported feeling sick to their stomach nearly all the time or some of the time during that same period. Similarly, 46 percent of respondents worried about how they would be able to take care of their families in the wake of closed fishing grounds, drilling moratoriums and the absence of tourism due to concerns about the spill.

“The indication is, at least at this point, that the human health impacts are real and substantial,” said Blanchard. “Right now, the data suggest that significant public health resources may be required to assist residents in the coastal parishes of Louisiana in dealing with the consequences of this disaster.”

“Louisiana’s coastal communities are the most geographically proximate human settlements to the actual disaster site,” said Lee, interim associate vice chancellor in LSU’s Office of Research & Economic Development and professor of sociology at the university. “It is imperative that we begin work now to better understand the human impacts of this situaPercent Reporting tion because the results During the Last Week are expected to be long80 60 lasting and diverse.”

statistics

Lee and Blanchard targeted their survey to LaFourche, Terrebonne

40 20 0

Worry

Fear

Hopelessness

Sadness

‘Almost Constantly’ Because of the Oil Spill

Anxiety

Anger

Nervousness Happiness

Depression

Excitement

Note: Weighted data for N=925 respondents

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Bacterial Solutions In a sweltering greenhouse just off LSU’s campus, John Pardue watches a container of oil-covered saltwater marsh grass from the Louisiana coast as bacteria breakdown the oil. A professor of civil and environmental engineering at LSU, director of the Louisiana Water Resources Research Institute and co-director of the EPA Hazardous Substance Research Center, Pardue has been studying the effects of oil on marshlands for more than a decade.

When the Deepwater Horizon well exploded, Pardue began gathering samples of the oil and plant life along the coast, specifically a saltwater marsh grass called Spartina alterniflora, with the hope of promoting the natural breakdown of the oil as bacteria feed on the oil’s carbon. Crude oil contains a large amount of carbon, a natural food source for bacteria found naturally in marshes. Nitrogen and sulfates enhance the bacteria and encourage a faster breakdown of the oil. This is where Pardue’s research begins, adding different mixes of nutrients to augment the bacteria. “We are comparing different nutrient variations, and after a period of time we will take the plants and soil, extract the oil and see which variation works the best,” said Pardue Salt marshes are some of the most productive

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ecosystems on the planet, equivalent to rainforests in terms of plant matter produced annually.

With the abundant plant life comes a host of bacteria. The oil breakdown would happen naturally without any outside assistance, but by adding nutrients to enhance the bacteria, Pardue hopes to shorten the time it takes the bacteria to breakdown the oil.

The oil from Deepwater Horizon is washed ashore as an emulsion, a thicker form of oil compared to what would be seen from a pipeline spill.

But that doesn’t change the fact that it contains carbon. In fact, the form of oil hitting the coast is more receptive to bacterial breakdown than other variations, making the process faster. “We knew [the breakdown] was going to happen due to the experiments we have done before, but why this is so dramatic in this case is because this type of oil is more adaptable to the treatment we are applying, so it has actually worked better than we expected,” said Pardue.

With the scope of the oil spill disaster, many are working to provide options for oil cleanup, but Pardue feels his 15 years researching disaster recovery has given him a head start. “We have some of the first data on the spill, combined with marsh grass, that’s available in the country, and I think that will go a long way in helping us get further opportunities,” said Pardue.

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financial support

NSF Recognizes LSU Oil-Related Research LSU researchers have received a number of National Science Foundation Rapid Response Grants in the days since the Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf.

The awards listed below showcase both the depth and breadth of LSU research, as they range in topic from oyster health to the use of social networks in the wake of the disaster and beyond. · Robert Twilley, Department of Oceanography and Coastal Sciences Title: “Extension of the ADCIRC Coastal Circulation Model for Predicting Near Shore and Inner Shore Transport of Oil from the Horizon Oil Spill” · Christopher Kenny, Kathleen Bratton and Christopher Weber, Department of Political Science Title: “Social Context and Emotional Response to Disaster” · Crystal Johnson, Edward Laws, of the Department of Environmental Sciences, along with Gary King of the Department of Biological Sciences Title: “Phytoplankton and Environmental Stressors as Determinants of Vibrio Ecology” · Robert Cook, Department of Chemistry Title: “The Effects of Oil Contamination from the Deep Horizon Disaster on the Composition of Dissolved Organic Matter in LA Coastal Marshes” · R. Eugene Turner, Department of Oceanography and Coastal Sciences, together with Laurie Anderson, Department of Geology and Geophysics Title: “Community-level Wetland Stressors, Northern Gulf of Mexico” · Andrew Whitehead, Department of Biological Sciences Title: “Genetic Impact of the Deepwater Horizon Oil Release” · Michael Malisoff , Department of Mathematics Title: “Autonomous Control and Sensing Algorithms for Surveying the Impacts of Oil Spills on Coastal Environments” 13

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Reporting Back: Q&A with John Hamilton In his most recent book, John Maxwell Hamilton, executive vice chancellor and provost, delves deep into the world of American foreign reporting, writing the definitive history of intrepid foreign correspondents and the enterprise of foreign news-gathering in the award-winning “Journalism’s Roving Eye: A History of American Foreign Reporting.”

1.

What spiked your interest in American foreign reporting? Was it your own experience as a foreign correspondent for the Christian Science Monitor and ABC Radio?

I had an early interest in foreign affairs, which was added to by my undergraduate education in journalism school and then service abroad in the Marine Corps during the Vietnam War. By the time I was in graduate school, I knew I wanted to be a foreign correspondent.

2.

Why write this book?

I have written other books on foreign affairs, one being a biography of Edgar Snow, whose reporting on China was so important. In the process of writing those books, I thought more and more about journalists and what they did abroad historically. I became interested in various people who were foreign correspondents. From time to time I did research on an individual correspondent with the idea of doing a biography. Ultimately, I decided that what was needed was a history of foreign reporting. There hasn’t been such a book in over 40 years, and none have gone back in time as far as I did.

3.

What makes you the person to write this book?

Any number of better qualified people than I am could have written such a book. It is just a

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matter of wanting to do the work and being willing to stick with it over many years.

ing and wanting to attract as many readers as possible, it all started to change.

4.

7.

“Roving Eye” has won several awards and received a great deal of praise. How does it feel to have your work so praised?

It’s very gratifying to win awards. I am completely honest when I tell you there are a lot of good books out there that could have just as easily won these awards. But sure, I’m glad I won the Goldsmith Prize and other accolades.

5.

What is Americans’ interest in foreign reporting and what is its significance?

One of the things that I talk about [in the book] is why foreign reporting isn’t very interesting to the American people. That’s one of the problems with maintaining the quality; it is one of the most expensive kinds of journalism and has one of the smallest audiences. The great majority of Americans care about local affairs, which seem more relevant. For that reason foreign reporting – in modern times – has been a tenuous enterprise.

As I noted in the book, foreign correspondents like to say Americans would read more foreign news if editors would only give it to them. That’s not the case. What the public says about its interest and what those interests are aren’t necessarily the same. News stand sales of weekly news magazines featuring foreign news on the cover have very low sales compared, say, to covers talking about improving interpersonal relations. The fact is that editors and publishers give the public pretty much what they want. What I try to do in this book is avoid recycling some of the old, unanalyzed views on foreign reporting, which sound good but are simply not true.

6.

In what major ways has foreign reporting changed from Ben Franklin to today?

The high watermark of foreign reporting was the colonial period. The percentage of foreign news in newspapers was never higher than in Benjamin Franklin’s time. Although there weren’t reporters or editors, [news media] lifted news from foreign papers. That news was cheap to acquire and highly relevant to Americans because they saw themselves as being tied to Europe.

Once news began being presented to a mass audience, with editors having to pay for newsgather-

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What is the highlight of foreign reporting now, war and disaster or economic news akin to Bloomberg News coverage?

For much of the 20th century we had a single clear model for a foreign correspondent. Correspondents tended to write for relatively elite audiences through relatively elite media: The New York Times, The Washington Post or one of the major networks. Today we have many models of foreign correspondents: bloggers and other citizen journalists, specialized media like Bloomberg’s financial news, parachute correspondents who – thanks to modern travel – can go abroad relatively easily on short-term assignments for local news media, in-house corporate journalists who write for management and staff, and so forth.

8.

What is the highlight for you in American foreign reporting? Do you have a favorite reporter?

I think the Golden Era was paradoxically during a time that is generally considered isolationist, the period between the two world wars. For a lot of reasons – economic, social, technological – we had a large number of dedicated, highly qualified foreign correspondents who had a great deal of freedom to cover news that was urgent to a great number of Americans – namely the rise of communism and fascism and, of course, the drift to world war.

9.

In several interviews and reviews about your book it’s mentioned that you brought some foreign reporters out of the “bog of history,” like Victor Lawson and Jack Belden. How did you go about unearthing these journalists?

Jack Belden was a good friend of Edgar Snow’s, whom I wrote the biography of, so I was interested in him, in particular his coverage of China.

At one time, I thought about doing a biography of Belden and unearthed new information. He may not be the greatest combat reporter of WWII, but he was one of the greatest for many reasons, for instance his courage and knowledge of fighting. Although I did not do the biography of him, he becomes a major figure in my book.

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There are so many out there who were – in their own ways – great. Edgar Snow is someone for whom I have great deal of admiration. Victor Lawson, the owner of the Chicago Daily News, is important because he fielded the first great corps of foreign correspondent at the beginning of the 20th century. Vincent Sheen was another giant.

He was a kind of genius and also was a bit mad.

He had an extraordinary intuition. He predicted that Gandhi would be assassinated by a Hindu, and he was right. He was there when Gandhi was murdered. He did that kind of thing all the time.

He also was a brilliant writer. His book, “Personal History,” is a work of great literature as well as insightful journalism.

10. What was the research process for you and what part did LSU play in this research?

What helped me enormously, without any question, was the Hopkins P. Breazeale LSU Foundation Professorship that I was awarded some years ago. To research this book I needed considerable resources. I went to libraries and traveled to interview people. Without the professorship, I don’t know how I would have been able to do it all. The LSU Foundation can take credit for the book.

11. In your book you mention the glamour of foreign reporting, how has this changed? Is the job still as prestigious as it was in the early part of the 20th Century?

It used to be that going abroad wasn’t easy; it wasn’t something just anyone could do. This helped make correspondents elite. Today, anyone can go overseas. So, correspondents aren’t so special.

12. How has technology changed foreign reporting?

What aspect has been most affected: the writing, the editing or the publishing?

Technology has changed things in many ways.

Thanks to the Internet, we have citizen correspondents. Traditional correspondents can travel to a news story much faster than in the past, thanks to jet travel, and they can report back home more quickly because of satellite phones.

This same technology, of course, has put a great deal of pressure on the old mass media model, which has resulted in lower profits for traditional media and hence prevented them from fielding as many correspondents.

Publisher’s Description of Roving Eye: In Journalism’s Roving Eye, John Maxwell Hamilton – a historian and former foreign correspondent – provides a sweeping and definitive history of American foreign news reporting from its inception to the present day and chronicles the economic and technological advances that have influenced overseas coverage, as well as the cavalcade of colorful personalities who shaped readers’ perceptions of the world across two centuries.

—LSU Press

Journalism’s Roving Eye’s Awards Winner of the 2009 Goldsmith Award Named as one of Slate Magazine’s Best Books of 2009 2010 Book of the Year award from the American Journalism Historians Association 2010 Tankard Book Award

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Shaking Things Up

LSU’s Juan Lorenzo and graduate student David Smolkin with Seismeauxbile, Lorenzo’s mobile lab, in the background.

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LSU’s Juan Lorenzo studies the processes that formed the earth, applying them to everything from finding valuable mineral deposits to helping identify weak spots in the New Orleans levee system.

If you’ve ever been on LSU’s campus, you probably noticed the Seismeauxbile. It’s hard not to.

Parked behind the Howe-Russell Geoscience Complex, its purple-and-gold body draws quite a few confused glances. And its “Cajun-ized” spelling of mo (meaux!) evokes laughter and some university pride. But most are unaware of the Seismeauxbile’s true purpose – and of the mind behind the machine, Associate Professor of Geology and Geophysics Juan Lorenzo.

does. We use sound to measure solids … when the waves run into liquid, or perhaps empty space, our readouts indicate as such.”

Lorenzo and his team of students travel widely to put their skills to good use. They have traveled often to study a giant fault line in central Chile.

Recently, their work was supported by a national copper company there. “The copper deposits in Chile are generally found next to great faults, pathways for crustal water. So, the company hires us to find the buried fault. The students benefit from learning how and why water moves from depths of 40 miles or more, and the company benefits from learning where deposits might be located. It’s definitely a win-win,” said Lorenzo.

Though its spirited décor is fun and lighthearted, its mission is serious science – structural Lorenzo’s most recent research now focuses on seismology, the forms and faults of Earth. something of a Louisiana icon – the New Orleans “Since I was young, I’ve been fascinated by earth levees. After Hurricane Katrina and the failure of processes. Everything is governed by them, Lorenzo and his students use a seismometer to measure seismic activity during whether you’re looking for LSU football games. Since his office is located so close to the football stadium, oil or studying how the it makes for a perfect educational experience for students. “It’s exceptionally Earth began,” said Lorenzo. clear,” said Lorenzo. “You can pinpoint when the band plays, or when there’s a “It’s all based on the same touchdown. It’s particularly intriguing for undergraduate students – I think it fundamental processes.” really illustrates the field [of seismology] to them.”

It’s the mystery behind these ancient processes, primarily the fact that no one truly understands the city’s barrier levees, the levee boards charged why most of the activity below the Earth’s crust with their upkeep were reorganized, and new leghappens, that really piques Lorenzo’s curiosity. islation dictated that a geologist sit on each one.

“Think about it,” he said. “After all this time and After that, Lorenzo and his team started work. all this research, we still don’t know exactly why “This is an instance where good government and earthquakes happen. Plates move almost conlegislation fueled good science, which leads to the stantly, but earthquakes are relatively rare. They development of better tools, which in turn leads only happen when the moving rocks hit a snag. to the ability to ask more, and better, questions,” But why doesn’t that happen more often?” said Lorenzo.

Although not an earthquake specialist, Lorenzo He and his team travel to the levees frequently. does study seismology, using sound waves (up Using the Seismeauxbile, the mobile lab they’ve and down) and shear waves, which travel side-todeveloped, they distribute “geophones,” small side, to “see” from tens to thousands of feet below sensory devices that translate ground movement the Earth’s surface. This is useful for determining into seismic readings. These geophones are so what lies beneath … whether it’s valuable minerseismographically-sensitive that they will record als, water deposits or even underground caverns the movement of an ant along the area of interand valleys. est. Using an ATV, they string out several geo“We use explosions, which vary in size from phones, then place a metal plate on the ground being quite modest to pretty impressive, to gener- and essentially hit it with a hammer to create ate recordable movement below ground,” said sound waves. Shear waves are created by shaking Lorenzo. “It works a bit like medical imaging it from side to side. Sounds simple, right? Wrong.

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Seismeauxbile is Lorenzo’s design. Made completely from recycled materials, it is steel-encased to prevent radio-wave interference to the sensitive measuring equipment inside.

“It’s a mobile office,” said Lorenzo. “And we made the whole thing right here at LSU.”

“It’s not just that the equipment is so sensitive,” said Lorenzo. “It’s that it’s also relatively delicate, extremely heavy, and there’s a lot of ground to cover. We have managed to speed the process by connecting the geophones together into a long seismic snake which we pull slowly behind our ATV.” It’s a slow and tedious project, especially during hot Louisiana summers when the group might consist of Lorenzo and a single student. But the work is important, and knowing that problems cannot be addressed until they are identified keeps the group motivated.

“There is a direct relationship between natural soil makeup and the strength of a levee system,” said Lorenzo. “When a levee is so vital to a city’s survival, it necessitates lots of upkeep and maintenance. Our job is to get a ‘picture’ of the problem early on and define its boundaries.”

Once their seismic readings have identified the size and scope of a potentially problematic area in the levee, the information is passed to the levee board so the appropriate preventative measures

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Juan Lorenzo demonstrates the advanced technological features of the Seismeauxbile.

can be taken. “We’re not solving problems,” he cautioned. “We’re identifying them. It’s the first step in a complicated process.”

Since Lorenzo’s methods are comparatively quick and inexpensive, they are of immense value to the area. Natural subsidence and slumping are ongoing problems in levee systems, and maintenance, which traditionally includes rigorous visual inspections and protection of the groundcover, can be difficult and time-consuming. But in New Orleans, where the annual threat of hurricanes is never far from thought, time is a precious commodity. “As a seismologist, simply working in Louisiana is a learning experience,” he said. “Here, sound travels faster in the air than it does in the ground. But to work in such a unique climate and geographical location and also have the opportunity to make a real impact with research is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

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LSU Rainmakers 21

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Each year, LSU recognizes a group of Rainmakers, those faculty members who are nationally and internationally recognized for innovative research and creative scholarship, compete for external funding at the highest levels and attract and mentor exceptional graduate students. For these individuals, research and artistic endeavor is a passion – one that offers valuable insight into life. From creating music through new technology to understanding the impact of post-traumatic stress disorder on children, their work facilitates a better understanding of the world around us.

For achieving excellence in their respective fields and furthering the research mission of the university, we present a selection of this year’s Rainmakers.

Caring for Katrina’s Kids Mary Lou Kelley, a professor in the LSU Department of Psychology, landed on the frontlines of Hurricane Katrina’s aftermath with a special mission: to gain a better understanding of the longterm psychological impacts of natural disasters on children.

Using her expertise in child psychology, Kelley paid for the study out-of-pocket at first. But she fought for funding and soon received one of the largest grants ever awarded to an LSU faculty member by the National Institute of Mental Health.

Her research, designed to follow the children until high school graduation, could play a role in helping everyone from parents to politicians better understand how to help children affected by

natural disasters. Her tentative results suggested a higher number of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD, symptoms than seen in children from previous disasters, later results yielded another disturbing fact.

“It turns out that what we did find was that exposure to violence was equally important as a predictor of PTSD symptoms as exposure to a hurricane,” said Kelley.

But Kelley didn’t stop there. In the past year, she had four articles published and another six accepted for publication in prestigious scholarly journals. She’s also been awarded funding by the Department of Homeland Security and, thanks to her leadership, LSU is now the lead institution for the assessment, “Psychological Adjustment Following Coastal Disasters.”

“I felt like I just had to do something, and what I do well is research.”

Mary Lou Kelley works with her research group to study the long-term psychological impacts of natural disasters on children.

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A Working Relationship

Arthur Bedeian

Managers of all kinds often devote a lot of time wondering how to increase productivity and profit. Attracting quality employees plays a big role in this equation, but retaining and motivating them once they are hired is even more demanding. But what makes employees tick? How can managers boost employee satisfaction and output at the same time?

Such questions are asked every day in offices around the world, and here at LSU, Arthur Bedeian is working to find a solution.

Research Council of Canada. With an outstanding publication record and teaching history, Arthur Bedeian is truly changing today’s work environment into a better place.

Directing a Model Program LSU’s Center for Internal Auditing, or CIA, has been the international leader in internal audit education since its inception in 1985, when the Institute of Internal Auditors designated the LSU CIA program as the Internal Audit Pilot School to develop internal audit education. Since then, LSU has established the most recognized internal audit program internationally.

Students graduating from the program will be part of a small group that can claim a specialization in internal auditing, significantly increasing employment opportunities and career enhancement.

“The real challenge for both employees and businesses in a world that is changing in nano-seconds is not so much being great,” said Bedeian, “but staying great.”

Bedeian recently found that agreement among employees regarding their leaders promotes improved dedication and less burnout, despite the quality of leadership. “When co-workers agree about the nature of their supervisor’s leader style, they are more dedicated in their work and experience less stress and work-group conflict,” said Bedeian. “This in turn increases their personal commitment and decreases the impact of emotional exhaustion.”

Bedeian is a Boyd Professor, the highest professional rank awarded by LSU. He is also the Ralph and Kacoo Olinde Distinguished Professor of Management in the Rucks Department of Management in the E.J. Ourso College of Business. An internationally renowned expert on role theory and human motivation, Bedeian has served on government committees such as the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholar Board, the National Science Foundation, the National Academy of Science and the

Glenn Sumners, director of LSU’s Center for Internal Auditing, has helped the center to rise to international acclaim since its start in 1985.

More than 40 universities have initiated programs similar to or modeled after the LSU program.

A large part of the program’s success can be traced back to Glenn Sumners, director and faculty member in the LSU CIA. Sumners, a member

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strong digital media program are just a part of Stephen Beck’s research interests.

Beck is a professor with the LSU School of Music and Interim Director of the Center for Computation and Technology, or CCT, specializing in composition and computer music, where his current research includes sound diffusion systems, which are high-performance computing applications in music and virtual music instruments.

LSU’s Stephen Beck has spearheaded many programs integrating technology, music and the visual arts, including the Red Stick Animation festival in Baton Rouge, La.

of the LSU faculty since 1980, was named IIA’s Educator-of-the-Year in 1987 and received the Society of Louisiana CPAs Lifetime Achievement in Accounting Education Award in 1999. In 2006, he received the Bradford Cadmus Memorial Award. Sixteen students from the LSU CIA program have won international awards for the highest score on the CIA exam, with Trista Sanders most recently accomplishing the feat in November 2007. Sumners also received the 2001 CIA Academic Outreach International Award. In 2003 LSU CIA received the AHIA Institution Award.

In the last 20 years, Sumners has made over 1,100 presentations to companies, organizations and IIA Chapters. This list includes numerous CIA exam reviews. In addition, he provides quality assurance and consulting services to internal audit departments and audit committees.

Researching in the Real World … and Virtual Worlds, Too Composing music, exploring novel ways of using technology to create music, co-founding the largest animation festival in the United States and leading a campuswide initiative to develop a

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In 2003, Beck developed the Laboratory for Creative Arts & Technologies at CCT. Beck’s lab explores the intersections among art, technology and computational science, and has been a campus leader in digital media development.

In 2005, Beck and colleague Stacey Simmons created the Red Stick International Animation Festival to showcase their research to the public. Red Stick takes place each year in downtown Baton Rouge, and it is now the largest festival of its kind in the United States.

At CCT, Beck leads the Cultural Computing Focus Area, in which faculty explore how computational science technologies and infrastructures can benefit the arts, humanities and social sciences. In 2008, Beck’s group led the creation of LSU in Second Life, a popular online virtual environment, and established an LSU Virtual Worlds Research Group so people from across campus can see how these new environments can foster learning.

Beck also led a team of faculty to create the Arts, Visualization, Advanced Technologies and Research, or AVATAR, Initiative, a multidisciplinary hiring initiative that will establish a research focus on the intersections among arts, technology and computational sciences with scholars from across the university throughout the coming years. AVATAR will recruit interdisciplinary faculty, scholars and artists who are dedicated to developing new technologies, exploring new realms of creativity and engaging students at all levels in their research activities to the LSU campus.

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A Year in Rome

phenomenal identity that is Southern Louisiana.”

Ursula Emery McClure works at LSU but lives in Rome. While this doesn’t seem like the most feasible of living arrangements, McClure resides in the Eternal City to finish work she and her husband laid the groundwork for at LSU – landscape architecture that brings together the stand-out traits of Louisiana’s laid-back culture with the staggering beauty of ancient Rome.

Aside from teaching in LSU’s Department of Landscape Architecture – an internationally renowned program noted annually for the talent it produces – McClure runs emerymcclure architecture with her husband, Michael. They recently took home the prestigious Rome Prize of Architecture, an award that gives recipients a one-year tenure at the American Academy in Rome, Italy.

The project, “Terra Viscus: Hybrid Tectonic Precedent,” encompasses what McClure and her husband see as the very essence of southern Louisiana.

“Ancient Rome’s ability to focus on communicative tectonics over pragmatic safety offers unique counter-lessons to the Gulf Coast’s current fixation of solely pragmatic solutions,” said McClure. “Our hope is to apply the analytical methodology of terra viscus to Rome, focusing on its hydro-tectonic development.”

“The terra viscus is a super-saturated condition, never completely solid or liquid, consisting of geological, economical, cultural and ecological conditions that interweave and overlap,” said McClure. “This condition allows us to vivify, analyze and create relevant building strategies in the

The final product will include a pamphlet of graphic, written and design proposal studies, which will serve as a continuation for her existing research.

“Our hope is to apply the analytical methodology of terra viscus to Rome, focusing on its hydro-tectonic development.”

LSU landscape architecture students benefit from exposure to innovative ideas such as those demonstrated here by McClure.

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A Model Pandemic

Bret Elderd, assistant professor of biological sciences, develops models to help officials stop the spread of deadly pandemics.

Few things stir public hysteria like the potential of a pandemic. Recent scares such as avian flu, Ebola and SARS inspired mass panic across the globe. In response, airports developed screening methods, travel plans were canceled and families isolated themselves from public spaces. But the fear associated with each seemed to fade from society’s memory all too quickly. In the spring of 2009, though, a new epidemic swept North America and soon the world over, bringing with it

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panic and a global lack of preparedness encapsulated into four characters: H1N1.

Because the disease seemed to travel faster than accurate scientific reporting, fear and misinformation were widespread. H1N1 spread rapidly, crossing borders with ease, infecting children, adults and senior citizens alike. According to estimates made by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or CDC, approximately 57 million cases of H1N1 occurred in the United States between April of 2009 and January of 2010. It took months before a vaccination was made available to the public, and by that time demand had

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individual pass it on to?” said Bret Elderd, assistant professor of biological sciences at LSU and expert on disease transmission.

Elderd studies disease transmission patterns in human populations and natural systems, developing predictive models for use by public health institutions and land managers, respectively.

“To describe disease transmission, I use a suite of mathematical models,” said Elderd. “One of the great things about the mathematical models that I use is that they describe disease transmission equally well in both human and wildlife populations.”

For public health institutions, one of the key questions is the reproductive rate of the disease, or how many healthy people can be infected by one infected individual. “Basically, if you are infected, you have to pass the disease on to at least one person or the disease will die out,” said Elderd. “They then pass it to at least one person and so on. This way, the disease will maintain itself in the population. If you are able to pass the disease onto more than one person, then the disease will spread. The greater number of people that you and other infected individuals can pass the disease to, the faster it spreads.”

reached a fever pitch. CDC health officials issued the first vaccination deliveries to “priority lists,” or groups of people at exceptionally high risk of contracting the flu, including pregnant women, the elderly, caregivers and people who might be exposed to the aforementioned groups.

While frustrating to those not considered a “priority,” researchers agree that in pandemic situations, a strategy must be employed to ensure maximum coverage from minimum output.

“With any transmittable disease, you have to look at the reproductive rate of spread. Basically, I mean, how many people can you as an infected

According to Elderd, the rate of spread varies greatly between diseases. For example, feline immunodeficiency virus has a relatively low rate of spread, coming in at approximately 1.1 – 1.5 cats infected by one carrier. However, whooping cough in humans has a relatively high rate of spread, with a single infected person spreading the disease to between 16 and 18 others. Obviously, the rate of spread should have a direct influence on the methods officials choose to employ toward controlling an outbreak.

To protect the population against any disease, one of the main weapons employed is vaccines.

Vaccination takes susceptible individuals who could potentially catch then spread the disease and makes them immune. If you do this for enough people in the population, the rate of spread can be drastically reduced or even negated.

“If vaccinations are conducted correctly, you can knock the reproductive rate of spread, which we call Ro, below one,” Elderd explained. “In epi-

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demiological terms, you create ‘herd immunity’ to the disease.” Herd immunity occurs when the disease effectively goes extinct in the population.

The development of mathematical models to answer key questions surrounding the rate of spread and vaccination rates helps public health officials determine the best method of responding to a pandemic, such as H1N1.

“Vaccinations are nearly always considered,” said Elderd. “It brings down the rate of spread.

But during an epidemic, decision makers have to follow a path of thought that is quite different than one for preventative vaccinations, such as those we give children when they’re infants.”

According to Elderd, there are many vaccination strategies, but two are generally the main ones considered to combat an outbreak of infectious disease. The first, called trace vaccination, is a plan that calls for the vaccination of only those people already having been exposed to the carrier of the disease. The second strategy, called mass vaccination, does exactly what its name implies: vaccinates the population en masse.

“People often wonder why we don’t respond to every contagious biological threat with a mass vaccination plan, but in reality it’s just not a good idea,” he explained. “It’s cost-prohibitive, timeconsuming and can even be dangerous, as some vaccinations have serious, sometimes fatal, side effects.” However, Elderd cautions that disease spread estimates are often quantified by a single number – the average rate of spread – with the as-

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sumption that no uncertainty is associated with the prediction.

By employing Bayesian statistics, Elderd directly quantifies how certain we should be about our estimates of Ro. In regard to smallpox or any other communicable disease, the rate of spread is not just a single number.

“On average, Ro could be seven, but in some outbreaks it can be much lower, say, five. But in still other outbreaks, it could be outrageously high at 15 or more,” he said. Because of this variability, there is some degree of uncertainty about how severe an outbreak or an epidemic can be.

Quantifying this uncertainty is important and can help public health officials and policy makers make better informed decisions regarding protecting the populace.”

In previous work, Elderd used statistical methods to determine if trace or mass vaccination would better protect the populace against a smallpox epidemic using data from a series of smallpox outbreaks in the United States during the 18th and 19th centuries. The data comes from historical records kept by Spanish missions in the southwest region of the country. For the smallpox example, it took dozens of computers running computations over thousands of hours to arrive at an answer that correctly incorporates uncertainly about the rate of spread of smallpox.

Currently, Elderd is using Bayesian statistics to develop a spatial model of how the smallpox

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virus spread throughout the Southwest mission populations in the 1700s. The results from these studies show dramatic variability in smallpox Ro, meaning an equally variable number of deaths after an outbreak. “In fact, there is often a considerable amount of variability associated with disease reproduction, which can have dramatic impacts on disease dynamics and, in turn, host survival,” said Elderd. “That’s why modeling is so important.”

The development of such models is vital to help public health officials determine the best method of responding to a pandemic such as H1N1. “By incorporating known variability in epidemic dynamics into policy decisions regarding vaccination strategies, a more well-informed policy choice can be made,” said Elderd. “In the case of

smallpox, due to the uncertainty in determining its rate of spread, the most effective decision to decrease the number of deaths associated with an epidemic would be to employ a mass vaccination strategy to combat that uncertainty, basically protecting the populace against the potential of a horrific outbreak.”

The results and similar models could be useful for officials dealing with the next potential pandemic, which is only a matter of time. With the growing human population, the threat of a rapidly transmittable illness is truly never far away, and disease-spread modeling capabilities need to be quick and easy for laypeople to understand so that implementation of an effective vaccination plan can begin early in the process.

“I think that researchers often get carried away

louisiana biomedical research symposium In January, the College of Science and the LSU School of Veterinary Medicine hosted the Louisiana Biomedical Research Symposium to highlight biomedical research and excellence and enhance collaboration among scientists and research centers in Louisiana.

The symposium, held at the Baton Rouge Marriott Hotel, featured more than 300 participants and 150 research abstracts. Most research featured was from National Institutes of Health, or NIH, sponsored centers supported by program grants from the NIH Center for Research Resources, NCRR, Institutional Development Awards, or the IDeA program.

“The [conference] is an excellent opportunity to showcase our excellent work to the state and the nation and, most importantly, to forge and advance collaborations with talented faculty at other universities in Louisiana,” said Kevin Carman, dean of the LSU College of Science.

Research and development topics discussed in the symposium included cancer genetics, cardiovascular biology, hypertension, infectious disease, oral health, obesity and diabetes, neurologic diseases and molecular and tumor virology. A special emphasis was given to prospects for developing medical translational research in Louisiana.

During the past few years, Louisiana’s biomedical research community has obtained significant funding – more than $131 million per year – from NCRR. These grants, held at LSU, the LSU Health Sciences Centers in New Orleans and Shreveport, the Tulane Health Sciences Center, the Tulane National Primate Research Center and the Pennington Biomedical Research Center, focus on developing and expanding the biomedical research activity and capacity at all levels in the state.

Event sponsors included the Louisiana Biomedical Research Network, the LSU-Tulane Center for Experimental Infectious Disease Research and the Pennington Biomedical Research Center.

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Elderd at work on his most recent disease transmission research, which focuses on fall army worms and plantinduced defenses to such outbreaks.

“People often wonder why we don’t respond to every contagious biological threat with a mass vaccination plan, but in reality it’s just not a good idea.” with developing overly complex models that deliver every possible scenario. But that leads to information overload and doesn’t really help the decision-making process when it comes to public health. It also doesn’t allow us to quantify our uncertainty about the likelihood of an outbreak or its severity,” said Elderd. “By combining Bayesian statistics with a simple mathematical model that keeps track of whether individuals are susceptible, exposed, infected or recovered from the disease, or an SEIR model, I’ve been able to keep these models quite simple, relatively speaking, and they are thus more informative in modeling the paths future outbreaks might take.”

The focus of Elderd’s research though, isn’t tied to one specific answer or solution. “Often people are looking for science and epidemiology to provide ‘the answer,’” he explained. “For instance, how many people do we need to vaccinate so that there won’t be an outbreak?” Elderd’s work points out that there is some uncertainty about what

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that answer would be. Outside of the laboratory environment, there are too many variables affecting the outcome, so there is never only one solution.

“Hurricane forecasting makes for a good analogy – as the storm approaches, you get a better and better idea of where it might make landfall, but you are never really certain,” he said. Elderd’s findings support preparation for that uncertainty.

Future outbreaks of contagious illnesses could be relatively small or quite large.

“With that in mind, we should protect the general populace against the large outbreaks that could have horrific consequences,” said Elderd.

“When you develop a plan to protect people, you want to hope for the best, but at the same time, be prepared for the worst. That’s what we’re trying to do – develop an idea of what each possible scenario will look like, that way practitioners can develop a plan accordingly.”

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GETTING BACK TO BROTHER TIME

Wesley Shrum prepares to film a scene of “Brother Time” in Kenya.

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LSU sociologist Wesley Shrum journeys to Kenya to explore the human catastrophe of the 2007-08 election riots … producing a documentary with a mythic tale of violence and humanity.

While Africa is certainly no stranger to violence, the responce to the Kenyan Presidential elections of 2007 came as a surprise. Political unrest evolved into outright and unmitigated violence, marring the relatively peaceful history of Kenya’s educated and mainly urban population. During allegations of voter manipulation and election fraud, two of Kenya’s largest tribes, the Kalenjin and the Kikuyu, found themselves divided by anger, fueled by another tribe’s promises of power and control.

Wesley Shrum, LSU professor of sociology, had experience dealing with human tragedy after Hurricane Katrina devastated the city of New Orleans.

As a member of Team Louisiana, a team of Louisiana scientists commissioned by the state government to gather and document data relevant to the failure of the levees, he is intimately familiar with the impact of disaster on a population. For the past five years he has been documenting the effects of both the hurricane and its aftermath for the Louisiana State Museum.

Although he has conducted fieldwork in Africa for years to learn more about the cultural landscape there, he never imagined he would be making a movie about African politics. His interviews with Kenyan scientists conducted over the span of two decades took a radically different turn after the killings began – they were no longer studying culture in hypotheticals. Theory had become all too real, and he felt that as a social scientist, it was his duty to research and respond.

“In 2008, they could not talk about their research in a vacuum – the violence had just ended,” said Shrum. “It was like Louisiana after Katrina. An event consumes all your thoughts and actions.” He had a difficult time dealing with the emotional burden of Katrina. But Kenya was different. “The Louisiana hurricane was the worst thing I ever experienced or studied, until this,” said Shrum. “In Kenya, the deaths were from people killing each other because of their ethnicity.

Katrina was tragic, but this was sickening.”

After compiling a number of interviews on

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video, Shrum decided that the emotional depth of this conflict could only be expressed accurately through ethnographic video. The result? “Brother Time,” a full length documentary about the postelection violence. “It’s a difficult situation for most Americans to understand,” said Shrum. “We don’t have a culture of rigged elections; Kenya does. Even students do it for their elections – it’s expected. So for this to break out into such an epidemic of violence was shocking. For me, there was no other option but to make a film.”

The political environment in Kenya is always complicated, even during times of peace. The country is home to more than 40 individual tribes, which generally get along well, although there are undercurrents of animosity – but elections are always tense. The explosive reaction to the 2007 election was fueled by the Luos, who were contesting for the presidency against the Kikuyus. The Luos promised the Kalenjins they could regain land in the Rift Valley, their traditional home. Because of the perceived decadeslong supremacy of the Kikuyus over other Kenyan tribes, the proposal gained traction. The two joined forces against the Kikuyus and the violence began in earnest. The fighting lasted for months, with more than 1,200 killed and even more injured and displaced.

To Shrum, one of the intriguing aspects of the situation was the role that Kenyan universities and their students played in the revolt and ensuing violence. “Often the youth, and especially university students, are the ones demonstrating in the streets,” he said. “You can look at the 2008 presidential elections in the United States to see the impact young voters had on the outcome there.”

In places like Kenya, a university student is often the only highly educated person from his or her village. There, the status of “student” brings with it immense respect, as it conjures images of serious study, commitment and intelligence.

Shrum believes Kenyan university students and officials played a positive role in the cessation of the political upheaval, acting as catalysts of social change rather than pandering to the political urgings to take to the street.

However, as sociologically relevant as the situa-

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tion was, it wasn’t without inherent danger. But Shrum felt it was worth the risk. The National Science Foundation’s Political Science Division agreed, providing the resources for Shrum to continue his study of scientists and educators in Kenya, this time focusing on their experiences during the election.

“We never ask for support for a movie, just as an LSU researcher does not usually get federal funds for writing a book or essay,” explained Shrum. “You get resources for doing research, but the way you disseminate your work is up to you.”

Using qualitative methods and video ethnographic techniques, Shrum studied the role of

audio into sociological research along with more traditional methods, such as surveys, interviews and observations, enables researchers to tell the sociological story in a more balanced and thorough way. “It makes the whole thing more approachable,” he said. “Now, you can show people in classrooms and lecture halls or even on the Web, instead of relying solely on textbooks and lectures. It’s much more engaging. I hate to agree with the old radical slogan, but sometimes I think anyone over 30 doesn’t get it.”

Although the film is suitable for all forms of outreach, Shrum is insistent that “Brother Time” isn’t solely for educational purposes – it’s also for the people who went through the madness.

“Most of our movies are just for presentations and classes, but not this time. We have that luxury as academics, to decide when something needs a wider audience,” said Shrum.

“This one is for the Kenyans. When people saw the rough cut, they said, ‘you have to show this before the next election, to prevent it happening again’.”

The ethnographic video “Brother Time” seeks to visualize this murderous struggle on a human level by focusing on two main characters, a Kikuyu from the Rift Valley and his Kalenjin neighbor, who had become nearmortal enemies during the electoral violence.

Shrum follows a Kikuyu through the cycle of violence.

Wesley Shrum frames a shot on location in Kenya.

these institutions in the election and its aftermath. “We began to shoot our interviews in lab and field, and we couldn’t help seeing the broader story. It’s a mythic tale, if not biblical. A man takes up bow and arrow against his neighbor – neighbors who have been friends, but from different ethnic groups,” he said. “That was the origin of ‘Brother Time.’ The method of video ethnography allows us to create a dynamic document that will not only allow us to disseminate our findings to students and professionals but to a broader audience, as well.”

Shrum believes that incorporating new methods of data collection such as high quality video and

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“The main character says ‘As a Christian, we would say all men are brothers. But now … it’s not the brother time,’” said Shrum.

“When he said that, standing there where a lot of the killing took place, I felt a chill going up my spine.”

While Shrum knows the overall experience was worthwhile and the outcome could be positive, it wasn’t an entirely positive experience. “I couldn’t say documenting the trajectory of violence was a ‘good’ research experience, but it was an invaluable human experience,” he explained. “When I was editing the movie, it literally made me sick to my stomach. You have to share that with a broad audience.”

Shrum just received a major grant from the National Science Foundation to continue his work

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on new communication technologies in developing areas.

He hopes that his work on “Brother Time” eventually helps Kenyans understand that they can break the cycle of violence and resentment.

“I’m a cynic, but a hopeful one. You have to try your best.

When we were filming in New Orleans during the Super Bowl, there was an African American man dressed in full Drew Brees regalia. He said to me, ‘the politicians never brought people together, but the Saints did’,” said Shrum. “Maybe this is the same. Kenyan politicians have not done a great job, so let’s try a movie with a positive message. Let’s get back to brother time.”

“...we couldn’t help seeing the broader story. It’s a mythic tale, if not biblical.”

noteworthy research Eight LSU researchers have been honored with the rank of “Fellow” by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) the world’s largest scientific organization. LSU ranks among the top 10 institutions in number of honorees, with only seven others having more fellows this year.

Terry M. Bricker, Moreland Family Professor in the College of Sciences Barry Dellinger, Patrick F. Taylor Chair for the Environmental Impact of Hazardous Waste Jonathan P. Dowling, Hearne Research Chair in Theoretical Physics Brooks B. Ellwood, Robey H. Clark Distinguished Professor of Geology and Geophysics Mark S. Hafner, DeSoto Parish Alumni Chapter Alumni Professor of Biological Sciences and curator of mammals at LSU’s Museum of Natural Sciences Kevin M. Smith, LSU Foundation James C. Bolton Professor of Chemistry Steven A. Soper, Dr. William L. and Patricia H. Senn Jr. Endowed Professor of Chemistry Kalliat T. Valsaraj, Charles and Hilda Roddey Professor and Department Chair of Chemical Engineering.

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Fish Food

LSU’s Kelly Rusch has developed an automated continuous rotifer culture system that could help the U.S. maintain internal fisheries production – and potentially decrease the nation’s trade deficit.

Fish is a healthy, lean source of protein. Fatty fish, including salmon, mackerel, herring, lake trout, sardines and albacore tuna, are rich in Omega 3 fatty acids, making them a highly desirable staple for health-conscious people. The American Heart Association, or AHA, recommends eating fish, especially fatty fish, at least twice a week. But since the majority of the world’s natural fisheries have reached or even surpassed sustainable harvest limits, traditional fishing methods are often no longer feasible, leaving a gap in the supply chain.

Aquaculture production, or breeding and raising fish in a controlled environment, is a rapidly growing industry geared toward addressing supply and demand. But under existing conditions, the amount of product developed in these fisheries is simply not enough for everyone to meet the AHA recommendations.

“Seafood is the second largest U.S. trade deficit next to petroleum. We currently import 80 per-

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cent of our seafood, while domestic aquaculture production supplies approximately 5 percent,” said Kelly Rusch, LSU professor of civil and environmental engineering. “Our current annual seafood trade deficit is more than $9 billion annually.” Rusch began researching zooplankton and microalgae in the 1980s, with the intention of promoting and developing growth in the aquaculture industry. “In order to successfully and positively impact the growth and production of a species, you have to start at the base of the food chain,” said Rusch. “And controlling the base often entails developing a more effective culturing process.”

Aquaculture production faces numerous technical complications. Developing a more efficient method of feeding some marine fish larvae is a significant concern. Many commercially important fish produce larvae with gapes, or mouths, too small to eat processed dry foods or even the typical food base of large zooplankton such as brine shrimp. To increase production, food development for these larvae needs to become easier for the farmers. Microscopic zooplankton, including rotifers, provide a viable solution. The only problem is a lack of availability of the sheer number necessary to support a hatchery.

“Fish larvae have a high metabolism and need lots of nutrition to gain weight and grow,” said Rusch. “Since the mouths of many marine larvae are too small for commercial fish food, rotifers, which are smaller than the diameter of one strand of hair, are the only way to feed these larvae until they reach the next stage of development. Until then, a hatchery would require literally billions of rotifers a day.”

In response to the enormous need and lack of supply, Rusch, along with a team of graduate students, developed a prototype automated continuous rotifer culture system focused on the culture and breeding s- and ss-type rotifers, the smallest

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types available. This system is considered a breakthrough since there is currently no commercial source of these rotifers available in the United States.

Her system is based on a bioreactor. It begins with an original “batch” of rotifers being introduced to the system. Computer software monitors and controls dissolved oxygen, temperature, pH and microalgal feed levels and harvest frequency, allowing the system to maintain a stable environment for the zooplankton. Because their reproductive rate is relatively high, the system can almost constantly harvest a predetermined number of rotifers, dramatically increasing availability.

Continuous production of these zooplankton translates into a more constant source of food that will help the hatcheries produce more fish in a shorter amount of time. And because it is automated, the rotifers are continually produced without human supervision.

Rusch is currently working with Aquaculture Systems Technologies, or AST, LLC in New Orleans, La., to adapt the rotifer system into a commercially viable product. The company specializes in aquaculture technology development, fabrication and marketing and has already received funding from the National Science Foundation’s Small Business Innovation and Research grant division for this system. This will allow them to fi-

The automated continuous rotifer system developed

by LSU’s Kelly Rusch allows the zooplankton population to remain stable despite continuous harvests.

nalize design concepts, perfect the science and standardize production of the system.

“Because currently available commercial products rely on batch cultures, meaning that they depend on breeding one large ‘barrel’ of rotifers at a time, they fall into a sort of boom and bust scenario,” said Paul Hightower, research biologist at AST. “But that puts your hatchery in the very precarious position of facing a crash in rotifer numbers. To put it very simply, these are delicate creatures that are very susceptible to bacteria. The continuous rotifer production system eliminates this variability because the computer measures population inside the tank and constantly controls it through harvesting.”

LSU, through its Office of Intellectual Property, Commercialization and Development, recently entered into an agreement granting to AST for a limited time the exclusive rights to negotiate a license to the technology. Through AST’s scientific process, the system will undergo some significant changes. “We’re looking for the most cost-effective way to develop and commercialize Dr. Rusch’s technology,” said Hightower.

Rusch is pleased with the progress so far. “It’s nice to see your research go from idea to final concept,” she said. “After spending more than 20 years on research in this field, it’s very fulfilling to see your ideas culminate in such a tangible way.”

A microscopic image of the rotifers bred in Rusch’s system.

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Ashes From the Past

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Associate Professor Huiming Bao of LSU’s Department of Geology & Geophysics recently published in the journal Nature, furthering the knowledge about volcanic eruptions in the past with the hope that this understanding might help us prepare for future events. His research focused on massive volcanic eruptions and their atmospheric consequences in North America 20 to 40 million years ago.

“Past volcanic eruptions have had significant impacts on the environment,” said Bao. “We humans have witnessed various impacts of volcanic eruptions like the 1991 Mount Pinatubo and the more recent Icelandic one. The physical aspect of the impacts such as explosion or ash plumes is often short-lived, but the chemical consequence of its emitted massive gases can have a long-lasting effect on global climate.”

The Nature paper, titled “Massive Volcanic SO2 Oxidation and Sulfate Aerosol Deposition in Cenozoic North America,” details research into the past history of volcanic eruption and associated atmospheric chemistry in North America.

Using computer models and geologic data, Bao and his colleagues, Shocai Yu of the Environmental Protection Agency and Daniel Tong of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, were able to simulate the sulfur gas oxidation chemistry and atmospheric condition of the northern high plains region of North America long before human activities began to significantly impact the air quality.

Katy Jenkins, one of Bao’s former students, samples volcanic ash in western Nebraska during a research trip.

Katie Howell, another past student, examines a volcanic ash bed at Scotts Bluff National Monument.

Yu and Tong contributed to the three-dimensional atmospheric sulphur chemistry and transport model simulating the atmospheric conditions necessary for the observed sulfate isotope data preserved in rock records. Bao collected and analyzed the geologic data, a process that involved data collection from volcanic ash beds in Scotts Bluff National Monument in Nebraska and adjacent areas in South Dakota and Wyoming.

According to Bao, the most important volcanic gas, as far as atmospheric implications go, is sulfur dioxide, or SO2, which is oxidized to sulfate in the atmosphere. Bao and his colleagues discovered that many of the volcanic ash beds they sampled are rich in sulfates with distinct stable isotope signatures that can describe which oxida-

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“The French Revolution in 1789 may have been triggered by the poverty and famine caused by the eruption...”

tion pathways they went through on the way to becoming sulfate aerosol. Aerosolized sulfate can affect radiation balance, biologic productivity, the high altitude ozone layer and short- and longterm climate change. When the sulfate aerosol is dense or long-lasting and the depositional condition is right, the sulfate aerosol can be preserved in rock records.

To explain the geologic data gathered, the research team did extensive testing and found that for these sulfates to form, it is important to have an initial alkaline cloudwater pH condition. This atmospheric condition, however, rarely exists today since post-industrial revolution waste output ensures a near-constant state of cloudwater acidity. Another possibility, as Bao and his co-authors mentioned, is that the alkaline dust from roof rocks ejected by explosive volcanic eruptions may have played a role in determining the initial sulfur gas oxidation pathway. The idea can now be tested by real-time satellite data on active volcanic plumes.

“These sulfate aerosol deposition events were so intense that the sulfate on the ground or small ponds reached saturation and gypsum mineral formed,” Bao said. He pointed out that the closest analog event is perhaps the 1783 Laki eruptions of Iceland and the subsequent “dry fogs” in continental Europe. “That event devastated Iceland’s cattle population. People with lung problems suffered the worst. In North America, the next year’s winter was the longest and one of the coldest on record. The Mississippi River froze at New Orleans. The French Revolution in 1789 may have been triggered by the poverty and famine caused by the eruption, as some have suggested.”

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Although these more recent volcanic eruptions had widespread and significant repercussions, the ancient and explosive eruptions that Bao studies were much more intense and sulfur rich than anyone has ever experienced or recorded.

“It is important to note that the volcanic eruptions we experienced in the past thousands of years are nothing compared to some of the eruptions that occurred in the past 40 million years in western North America, either in the level of power or the amount of SO2 spewed,” said Bao. But that doesn’t mean that eruptions of such magnitude can’t happen today. In fact, geologists know there’s almost certainly a major volcanic eruption in our future. The next Yellowstone eruption, which many believe is already overdue, may equal or surpass the intensity of these past super-eruptions.

“What we reported in our Nature paper is that there were many massive volcanic SO2 emissions and dense sulfate aerosol events in the northern High Plains of North America in the past,” said Bao. “We show that in the past the sulfate aerosol formed in a very different way than today, indicating a difference in the past atmospheric condition or something peculiar with these explosive eruptions in the west.”

Having found a new way to look into the link between Earth’s past volcanism and climate change, Bao is now trying to extend this approach even further to the distant past, particularly focusing on a time when a mass extinction coincided with the global impact of volcanic activity. “People have not previously looked at the rock record the way our team does,” said Bao. “Now that we know what we’re looking for, there might be new stories to tell soon.”

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The Art of Aging Neila Donovan is working to develop unique testing methods for early identification of speech and hearing problems in older adults … problems that could be warning signs of serious illnesses.

As the Baby Boomers enter retirement age, developing methods to identify potential health concerns before they turn into problems becomes more urgent. Communication issues, such as the ability to speak clearly and hear well, are particularly difficult to identify in aging adults because these changes happen over long periods of time and are imperceptible to the person in question.

However, it is often the aspects of embarrassment and denial that make it even more difficult to diagnose.

“The majority of people over 65 [years of age] have some degree of hearing loss,” said Neila Donovan, assistant professor in LSU’s Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, an investigator in the LSU Life Course and Aging Cen-

ter for Research and director of the Communication Outcomes Research Laboratory. “It’s our hope to identify early communication problems in order to help older people maintain independence and a better quality of life.”

Donovan is working to develop a questionnaire using computer adaptive testing, similar to the Graduate Records Examination and other computer-based testing that increases or decreases the difficulty of each question based on the testtaker’s success with each previous query. When it is completed, Donovan foresees it being used at health screening and at regular doctor’s visits because it will be easy and quick to complete. The goal is to relieve the burden of time and expense that long tests take and give caregivers and patients the opportunity to report their own perceptions. If a questionnaire is quick and easy to complete that also increases the likelihood that those in need of assistance would get it.

“The burden of completing long tests and questionnaires by self-reporting – or reporting by caregivers – is incredible. We want to lighten that burden while at the same time help to alert those older patients or their caregivers to potential problems as early as possible,” said Donovan.

“Many people don’t think of communication disorders as particularly debilitating, but they really can be devastating.”

There’s also a misperception that all communication problems in older people are an irreversible part of the aging process. While some loss of communicative effectiveness is to be expected as one ages, extreme cases or rapidly diminishing faculties could be an indication that there’s something wrong. In fact, many neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s disease and Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, or ALS, list difficulty in speaking as one of the first noticeable warning symptoms.

“Many people don’t think of communication disorders as particularly debilitating, but they really can be devastating.”

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One of the most feared common diseases affecting older people in our society today, Parkinson’s disease has no cure; however, surgical, pharmacological and rehabilitative treatment Photo of Neila Donovan working in options are improving the LSU Speech-Language-Hearing the quality of life for Clinic courtesy of The Daily Reveille people with the disease.

The movement disorder is degenerative, and may result in difficulty controlling the muscles used for moving arms and legs and also for producing speech. Earlier diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease generally leads to a better prognosis, but since symptoms may go unnoticed or unreported for decades, this is problematic, to say the least.

Donovan, the recent recipient of a grant from the Louisiana Board of Regents that might just change the way communication issues are identified for older people, extended her dissertation work on standardizing of communication effectiveness surveys to the next level. And she hopes that in the near future, people with Parkinson’s will benefit from her work, as will those without the disease.

“Our research is focused on a two-fold solution.

How do you help people maintain their independence and keep working, either with normal or above average communication issues or with the onset of a disease like Parkinson’s?” she said.

With a team of students, post-doctoral fellows and community volunteers, Donovan started with the existing communicative effectiveness survey, consisting of eight very general items, such as how effective one feels while talking in a car. Using information collected and analyzed from more than 30 hours of interviews with older people with and without Parkinson’s, the research team increased the survey to include 30 items that were more specific, for example, effectiveness felt having a conversation while being a passenger in a car.

“Having a large number of items that go from the most basic to the most complex will allow us to differentiate between older people who have changes because of typical aging from those who are experiencing significant difficulty communicating,” she said. “The National Institutes of Health have invested millions of dollars into computer adaptive testing self-report questionnaires like mine. There’s obviously a great capacity for benefit there. However, it just hasn’t gained momentum in our field yet. I’m hopeful that it will do so as we are able to demonstrate a positive impact on lives of people with Parkinson’s disease.”

Donovan’s survey, when it is completed, will be the only computer adaptive test targeted specifically to identify communication problems in older individuals with and without Parkinson’s disease. “We feel very confident about this effort,” said Donovan. “The response so far has been very positive, and we’re working very hard toward the goal of really helping people identify potential problems while they’re still treatable.”

noteworthy research · LSU physicists T. Gregory Guzik’s and John P. Wefel’s article in Nature, titled “An excess of cosmic ray electrons at energies of 300-800 GeV,” was ranked among the 50 most cited high energy physics article of 2009 by the SPIRES database. · Brooks Ellwood received the Medal of Science from the Vietnam Academy of Sciences and Technology in May 2010. · Janna Oetting received a $1.8 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to study essential tools for language development specifically targeted to Louisiana dialects.

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· Heather McKillop and Karen McKee from LSU’s Department of Geography and Anthropology, with Harry Roberts from the university’s Department of Oceanography and Coastal Sciences, have received funding from the National Science Foundation to carry out three seasons of interdisciplinary archaeological fieldwork on the Maya salt industry in Belize.

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LSU Distinguished Research Masters 43

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Since 1972, LSU has awarded the prestigious title of Distinguished Research Master to members of faculty with a long-term record of truly distinguished research and scholarship while at the university. As LSU continued to grow, the award was expanded in 1996 to include researchers in two categories: engineering, science and technology; and the arts, humanities and social sciences. The recipients are chosen by the Council on Research from nominees proposed from the university community. The career award provides an annualized salary supplement as well as the University Medal.

programs covering the areas of heat transfer, combustion, fluid mechanics and scientific computation. His diverse scholarly contributions include nearly 150 refereed journal articles, most of which appear in top-tier journals of his field, where he is recognized as a leader. He has also presented extensively in national and international conferences with more than 200 refereed papers.

This year, LSU named Sumanta Acharya and Nina Lam the 2009 Distinguished Research Masters.

Acharya’s research sponsorship portfolio, nearing $25 million dollars during his LSU career, reads as the “who-is-who” of federal funding agencies and includes major efforts in the area of gas turbines and computational fluid dynamics.

He has developed the necessary infrastructure and has successfully transitioned his research to impact gas-turbine industry internationally.

Sumanta Acharya, a graduate of the University of Minnesota, joined the LSU faculty in 1987 and holds the L. R. Daniel professorship and the Fritz and Francis M. Blumer professorship in the Department of Mechanical Engineering. He is the founding director of the Center for Turbine Innovation and Energy Research, which focuses on energy generation and propulsion research.

“Addressing problems relevant to industry is very important in engineering research and has high potential impact on economic development,” said Interim Department Chair Dimitris Nikitopoulos. “His accomplishments in this area are indicative of Professor Acharya’s abilities beyond the academic norm, which he has amply exceeded.”

During his 27-year career at LSU, Acharya has developed multifaceted, continuously funded, nationally and internationally recognized research

Nina Lam, professor in LSU’s Department of Environmental Sciences, came to LSU in 1985.

Lam is a renowned expert and leader in Geographic Information Systems, or GIS, remote sensing, spatial analysis and environmental and public health.

Lam’s research spans continents and decades, in both methodological and applied domains.

Her earliest, award-winning work on spatial interpolation provided a new and comprehensive framework for interpolating and integrating various spatial data and has helped in defining modern-day analytical cartography and GIS.

2009 Distinguished Research Master Sumanta Acharya assists students in his lab.

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Lam’s subsequent work on fractals and scale, including her influential book “Fractals in Geography,” has generated many new applications and followers in the field. She developed the software Image Characterization and Modeling System as part of her NASA-funded projects, to provide in-

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Greetings

A Model Pandemic

FEATURES

From Interim Vice Chancellor of Research & Economic Development Doris Carver . . . . . . . . . . . .1

Reporting Back: Q&A with John Hamilton

Bret Elderd discusses statistical modeling of pandemics and the impact on public health . . . . . . .26

Getting Back to Brother Time

LSU’s Provost discusses his newest award-winning book, “Journalism’s Roving Eye: A History of American Foreign Reporting”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .15

Shaking Things Up Juan Lorenzo uses seismography to evaluate New Orleans levees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .18

Annual Report 2009-2010 A look at LSU’s research productivity over the year . . .AR2 New Frontiers of Energy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .AR3 Radical News . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .AR4 A Tale of Two Fishes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .AR5

LSU Rainmakers A selection of LSU’s top faculty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .21

Wesley Shrum looks at the violence following the Kenyan elections of 2008 . . . . . . . . . . .31

Fish Food Kelly Rusch develops a system to help the commercial fish farming industry . . . . . . . . . . . . .36

Ashes From the Past Huiming Bao studies ancient volcanic eruptions and their impact on climate . . . . . . . . . . . .38

The Art of Aging Neila Donovan works to develop unique testing tools to identify hearing and speech issues in older adults . . . .41

2009 Distinguished Research Masters Sumanta Acharya and Nina Lam receive the 2009 Distinguished Research Master awards . . . . . . .43

SPECIAL SECTION

When Oil Meets Water: An overview of LSU’s response to the Gulf Coast Disaster Leading the Way

Taking the Stand

How LSU and its faculty reacted to the Deepwater Horizon Disaster . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3

LSU Receives Grant for Oil Research BP gives LSU $5 million for oil spill-related research . . .4

Endangered Traditions James Catano and Carolyn Ware document the vanishing culture of Croatian oyster farming families on the coast . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5

Finding a Pearl of Wisdom Kenneth Brown studies the potential impact of oil on oysters in their natural environment . . . . . . . .7

Spreading the Word

Dean of LSU’s School of the Coast & Environment testifies before the House of Representatives . . . . . . .10

Stressful Times Troy Blanchard and Matthew Lee survey coastal residents for health issues related to the oil spill . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .11

Bacterial Solutions John Pardue works with oil-eating microbes to develop new clean-up solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .12

NSF Recognizes LSU Oil-Related Research Several LSU researchers receive NSF Rapid Response Grants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .13

LSU scientists inform the public about the oil spill . . . .9

in this issue

novative tools to measure environmental conditions of the Earth’s surface. The software, which is a product cumulating from her basic research on fractals, wavelets and other related spatial indices, has been accessed by researchers throughout the world.

In the early 1980s, Lam’s study on cancer mortality patterns in China revealed the unusual clustered patterns and identified possible links between environmental conditions and cancers. Her research on the spread of HIV/AIDS in the United States was the first to confirm a national trend of HIV/AIDS spread in rural America.

This pioneering research received national attention. Lam’s current research focuses on developing models to understand business return decisions in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and to measure community resilience.

Lam has published one book, 56 refereed book chapters and journal articles and has served as the principal or co-principal investigator of 30 external grants. She has mentored 14 doctoral and 23 master’s students. She has served on numerous national and international advisory panels and journal editorial boards such as the National Research Council; the National Science Foundation, or NSF; the National Institutes of Health; and NASA, and was an NSF program director. In 2004, Lam was honored with an Outstanding Contributions in Remote Sensing Award by the Remote

Nina Lam, LSU 2009 Distinguished Research Master, giving a presentation in acceptance of the award.

Sensing Specialty Group of the Association of American Geographers. In 2006, she was selected for an LSU Distinguished Faculty Award and in 2008 was named as an LSU Rainmaker.

Lam presented a public lecture during the award ceremony in May 2010, entitled “From Disease to Disaster: Geospatial Analysis for Environmental Decision Making.” Lam is considered an intellectual leader and a truly distinguished research master by leading research collaboration, developing research initiatives, mentoring graduate students and providing expert/professional services to the community.

noteworthy research The Department of Oceanography and Coastal Sciences celebrated its 40th anniversary this year.

Fact and Figures: 245 masters and 179 doctoral degrees have been awarded through 2009.

The current faculty of 27 has published more than 1,400 scientific articles and has a solid record of achievement in many areas including wetlands, deltaic processes, fisheries and the Dead Zone.

As the only oceanography department in the state, it offers the right mix of teaching, research and service to the people of Louisiana.

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about the artist David Achee is an LSU undergraduate student majoring in graphic design. His piece, “Pelicans”, was a final selection in the Great Oil Leak of 2010 Poster Project, an art show designed to assist Gulf Coast fishermen.

“With this poster, I wanted to draw attention to the spill with a very stark image that would catch people’s attention immediately.”

For more information on the Community Foundation of Acadiana or to support its efforts toward protecting the coastline, visit www.cfacadiana.org.

Earth Scan Lab

OFFICE OF RESEARCH & ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT | FALL 2010

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