News

The University of Louisiana at Lafayette Mathematics Department is hosting its first annual Enhancing Content for Comprehension (EC^2) in Undergraduate Mathematics Institute on May 20-21, 2010. The focus of the institute is undergraduate mathematics instruction that emphasizes the understanding and interpretation of mathematics and calculations. Teaching students to understand and comprehend mathematics satisfies initiatives set forth by the mathematical community and curriculum goals set forth by colleges and universities. To this end, the Institute will create a network of experts and peers from across the country to support and encourage college faculty in accomplishing these goals. The schedule of events and registration form are posted on the EC^2 Institute website at http://www.ucs.louisiana.edu/~jxk3947/institute.html

Deep Sea Coral Diversity

Research from the Department of Biology was featured in the January 29, 2010 issue of Science. The laboratory of Dr. Scott France is finding that deep ocean environments harbor a much higher diversity of corals than anyone ever expected. Researchers always thought that deep sea corals were a low diversity and evolved from the diversity of shallow water reef corals. Research from the France lab tells a different story. One of his graduate students, Eric Pante, gathered museum collection data from 3,100 coral specimens and found that most lived in the deep ocean. France and colleagues constructed phylogenetic trees from DNA sequences of three families of octocorals and concluded that all diversified from a single common ancestor that lived in the deep ocean. Similarly, another France graduate student, Mercer Brugler, constructed phylogenetic trees three families of black coral and concluded that they diversified in the deep ocean.

Brown Pelican Conservation

The research by Scott Walters, a graduate student in the Department of Biology, was featured in the October 2009 issue of National Geographic magazine. The brown pelican was historically abundant in coastal Louisiana, but by the time the legislature named the brown pelican the state bird in 1966, nary a brown pelican lived in the state. The rookeries had been decimated by pesticide runoff that resulted in egg shells so thin that they collapsed under the weight of the nesting parent. Soon after, state biologists initiated a relocation program to bring brown pelicans from Florida, which successfully established the Louisiana population. The population rebounded spectacularly with 350,000 births since 1971. Then hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005 badly damaged rookeries on the barrier islands. The largest remaining colony, consisting of 5,500 nests, is located on fragile skinny island barely above water called Raccoon Island. Walters is relocating chicks from Raccoon Island to other barrier islands in hopes that the chicks will imprint on these new locations and establish new colonies. The more colonies that are spread across the Louisiana coast, the better the population can recover from future hurricanes. Walters is a student in the laboratory of Dr. Paul Leberg.

Undergraduate Program in Mathematical Biology (UBM)

The University of Louisiana Lafayette program for undergraduate training in mathematical biology, led by Drs. Azmy Ackleh (Mathematics) and Susan Mopper (Biology) is celebrating success at the five year anniversary of its inception. The program, sponsored by the National Science Foundation, is structured to encourage interdisciplinary training and collaboration for undergraduates majoring in Mathematics and Biology. In the evolving nature of scientific research, interdisciplinary training is an important factor in maintaining competiveness for admittance to graduate programs and landing the best jobs. In this program, the students work closely with faculty and graduate students in conducting biomathematical research from project inception to publication of result. In the first five years, UBM students and graduate assistants have co-authored 7 peer reviewed papers either published or in press, and two others that are in review. Student research in the program has resulted in seven awards for presentations at university, state, and regional meeting and symposia. Out of the 20 students who have completed the program, 8 are enrolled or accepted to graduate programs, 2 are in medical school, 2 are teachers, two are still in the undergraduate program, and 1 is working in the private sector for a private computing company.

Graduate Research in the City of Lights

Two graduate students in Biology took advantage of the winter break to study specimens in the National Museum of Natural History in Paris, France. Eric Pante, from the Scott France laboratory, was working on the coral collection and DNA sequences from coral collected in a cruise to deep-sea habitats south of New Caledonia. At the same time Emmanuel Maxime from the laboratory of Dr. James Albert, conducted research on museum specimens of a South American electric fish, Gymnotus inaequilabiatus, and other fish species from the Guiana Basin of South America. Emmanuel created a 3-dimensional representation of the species holotype, a 180 year-old specimen, to better understand the species. In addition, Emmanuel made morphological measurements of various Gymnotus species, particularly Gymnotus carapo, to estimate morphological variation and to use in determining whether a certain population belongs to this species or is a new undescribed species.

After Katrina, since 2006, University of Louisiana Systems (ULS) Serves, in cooperation with Learn and Serve America, has awarded several grants for service learning projects in Louisiana. This year Dr. Barbara Benson teamed with Chance Gabehart, the founder of the Resourceful University Network (RUN), and RUN members, received a ULS Service-Learning Grant for the completion of RUNbus. RUNbus will be an exhibition vehicle, established by a group of UL Lafayette students that have formed a non-profit organization exclusively to support higher education by fostering a resourceful support network on campus. RUNbus is a refurbished 65 passenger school bus fueled by used cooking oil, and with the help of the grant, it will be equipped to exhibit practical demonstrations of clean energy, community-based food production, natural building strategies, and conscious consumer choices. The goal of project RUNbus is to engage students and faculty to complete the RUNbus for participation in the Sustainable Living Road-show (SLR).

The Computer Science Department recently celebrated its 50th anniversary. The ceremony included naming of the Computer Science building James R. Oliver Hall, in honor of the creator of the program at UL Lafayette. During the celebration, Computer Science students had the opportunity to showcase their games to an audience consisting of alumni from industry and academia. Videos of the games produced by the students in the gaming classes are available for viewing on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/ullcmpsvgdd.