New Team Record: LSU Eclipses Half-Billion Milestone in Research Activity

BATON ROUGE – For four straight years in a row, LSU has soared in research. In the 2023-2024 academic year, LSU’s research campuses in Baton Rouge, New Orleans, and Shreveport achieved a record-breaking $543 million in combined research activity. Not only did this lead to life-changing discoveries and support thousands of jobs—the direct economic impact of LSU research on Louisiana is higher than ever, estimated at $1.5 billion.

“Reaching $543 million in research demonstrates the unified efforts of our faculty and research staff across the LSU enterprise and underscores our commitment to affecting Louisianans where it really matters – improving agricultural yields, biomedical research for better cancer prevention and treatment, saving our coast and fisheries, enhancing defense and national security, and protecting our energy industry,” said LSU President William F. Tate IV. “Our teams have no confusion on their mission, and they are winning for the people of Louisiana.”

Under its Scholarship First Agenda, announced in 2022, LSU set a bold goal of 10% research growth year over year. The 2023-2024 leap, from $488 million to $543 million, represents an increase of 11.5%, marking explosive growth and lighting LSU’s path to joining the Top 50 research universities in the U.S.

“Our continued growth in research at LSU represents our commitment to finding solutions to some of the most critical issues here in Louisiana, from agricultural sustainability and healthy communities to coastal resilience and energy independence,” LSU Vice President of Research & Economic Development Robert Twilley said. “These are also global challenges that national laboratories and distinguished university peers are partnering with LSU to solve, leading to highly impactful team science.”

LSU’s historic growth depends primarily on federal funding for large research teams. It also speaks to the statewide university’s sustained, strategic investment in research areas where LSU’s combined strengths in research meet Louisiana’s greatest needs—such as in agriculture, biomedicine, coast, defense, and energy; the five research priorities in LSU’s Scholarship First Agenda.

These are some of LSU’s winning teams behind the numbers:

In Agriculture and food security for everyone in Louisiana:

Continued support from the Patrick F. Taylor Foundation enabled the LSU AgCenter to increase its research and extension mission across Louisiana by establishing four model farms for rice, corn, soybeans, cotton, and sugarcane on a total of 540 acres to implement and demonstrate science-based best practices for soil and water management in partnership with Louisiana farmers. By reducing agricultural inputs such as fertilizers and pesticides, farmers become more profitable while protecting the Mississippi River watershed. A grant renewal in 2023 brought the total award for this project to $3.1 million.

In Biomedicine and health for everyone in Louisiana:

An LSU Health New Orleans team led by Dr. Jeffrey Carter, LSU professor of surgery and director of the Burn Center at University Medical Center in New Orleans, was awarded $4.6 million from the Department of Defense to improve the treatment of burn and blast injuries during military conflicts and civilian disasters. When victims must be transported by train, truck, or car to nearby hospitals, comprehensive care is often delayed. But with new tools and training on how to clean, clear, depressurize, and dress wounds in the field, first responders can make a difference between a victim needing a skin graft instead of an amputation.

The D4 Child Language Lab team, led by Professor Janna Oetting in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences, was awarded $2.8 million by the National Institutes of Health to work with schools in rural, suburban, and urban Louisiana to make it possible to diagnose developmental language disorder, or DLD, in children who speak various dialects of Louisiana English. DLD is more prevalent than autism, and children with DLD are 12 times more likely to have significant problems with reading, spelling, and math. Without proper diagnosis and support, children with DLD often suffer life-long setbacks.

A team led by LSU Boyd Professor Eric Ravussin at Pennington Biomedical was awarded $7.3 million by the National Institutes of Health to help move the nation beyond a “one size fits all” approach to diet, which fails a large segment of the population. By establishing a Nutrition for Precision Health Center in Baton Rouge and doing a cross-over study of three diets—a hybrid of the Mediterranean diet and the DASH diet, which was developed by researchers at Pennington Biomedical; a mostly plant-based flexitarian diet; and a standard Western diet—Ravussin’s team is developing a first-of-its-kind diet prediction algorithm based on individual factors such as genetics, metabolism, physiology, microbiome, behavior, and environment.

In Coast and resilience for everyone in Louisiana:

Known by its acronyms, ACTIONS and DEEDS, which stand for Anticipating Threats to Natural Systems and Developing Engineering Practices for Ecosystem Design Solutions, two projects led by Professor Robert Twilley in the College of the Coast & Environment have so far been awarded $15 million by the Department of Defense through the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to help the military use—not fight—nature to ensure their operations and infrastructure remain resilient in the face of flooding and strong storms; solutions that translate to coastal communities everywhere.

In Defense and cybersecurity for everyone in Louisiana:

The LSU Cybersecurity Clinic trains and deploys teams of cybersecurity students to help secure small businesses across Louisiana. Led by Associate Professor Aisha Ali-Gombe in the College of Engineering, the clinic was the first of its kind to be funded by the National Security Agency following LSU’s designation as 1 of 22 National Centers of Academic Excellence in Cyber Operations in 2022. The project was awarded $1.5 million.

In Energy and efficiency for everyone in Louisiana:

Professor John Flake in the College of Engineering leads a team of chemists, chemical engineers, and more than 30 students who were awarded $4 million by the National Science Foundation to develop new electrolyzers that industry can use to transform CO2 and water into valuable base chemicals such as acetic acid, ethanol, and ethylene. These base chemicals can then be used to make polymers, medicines, food, and other products people use and need every day.