Louisiana’s university researchers successfully demonstrated their national competitiveness in landing three major NSF Research Infrastructure Improvement grants in Oct. 2010 to address cutting-edge research and education matters of vital importance to Louisiana. The largest of the three grants, $20 million, is the also the largest grant ever awarded to Louisiana by the NSF, and will be used to develop the LA-SiGMA alliance to study the complex behavior of materials.
A novel thermal barrier coating that can lead to more portable yet highly productive, robust, and economical engines with increased power-to‐ weight ratio and power‐specific fuel consumption is being developed by NASA EPSCoR researchers.
EPSCoR assists small companies to compete for Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) grants. SBIR and STTR grants increase the incentive and opportunity for small firms to undertake cutting-edge, high-risk, high-quality scientific, engineering, or science/engineering education research that have a high-potential economic payoff if the research is successful.
Louisiana EPSCoR has partnered with researchers across Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama to form the Northern Gulf Coastal Hazards Collaboratory (NG-CHC). The consortium leverages cyberinfrastructure, partnerships, and resources to address problems such as engineering design, coastal system response and risk management of coastal hazards while enhancing research competitiveness.
EPSCoR-funded research is leveraging the supercomputing resources provided by the Louisiana Optical Network Initiative (LONI) to mine the vast, heterogeneous and rapidly growing Protein Databank to reduce the cost and time required for drug development.
LA EPSCoR-funded researchers Dr. Yuri Lvov and Dr. Anshul Agarwal are developing a novel nano-encapsulation technology that releases cancer treatment drugs in selective amounts and rates, which will have the potential to treat cancers with substantially less traumatic impact to the patient.
The Louisiana Optical Network Initiative (LONI) network links supercomputer resources across the state and centers around one of the Top 25 supercomputers in the world. This 50 Teraflop core supercomputer, known as Queen Bee, is capable of performing 50 trillion floating point calculations per second.
The FIRST Louisiana State Science &Technology Plan, developed collaboratively by research leaders under the leadership of Dr. Les Guice and formally adopted by the Board of Regents in January 2010, builds on Louisiana’s long history of strategic investments to provide direction for science and technology research and education over the next fifteen years. View the S&T Plan
Hundreds of researchers gathered at the “Collaborative Scientific Research Opportunities Relative to the Gulf Oil Spill” conference in November 2010 to identify multidisciplinary research priorities, foster collaborative research, and build partnerships to study the complex issues of the oil spill. View the conference proceedings
Imagine being able to visualize ripples in the fabric of space-time or phenomena 1/1000th the size of an atom’s nucleus. The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) facility in Livingston, LA provides these experiences with the interactive kiosks developed by Louisiana scientists funded by an NSF EPSCoR grant.