Student Achievements

LSU College of Science and Roger Hadfield Ogden Honors College sophomore Corey Matyas has been named a 2018 Goldwater Scholar. Matyas, a native of Dahlonega, Ga., was nominated through an internal university process earlier in the year. A list of winners was released on Friday, March 30.

Ten LSU architecture students placed in the top 40 in the Earth Architecture Competition to design a rural arts center for Senegal. The competition recognizes sustainable designs with real-world applications.

An LSU engineering graduate student has invented a glass that keeps drinks colder, longer. A portion of his proceeds will help bring clean drinking water to others.

Ben Aguiñaga, a 2015 graduate of the LSU Law Center, has been selected to serve as a law clerk to United States Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito for the 2018-19 term of the Court.

Six current students or recent LSU graduates are recipients of the 2018 National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program, or GRFP, and three others received honorable mention. This fellowship from the National Science Foundation helps ensure the vitality of the human resource base of science and engineering in the U.S. and reinforces its diversity.

Five current students or recent LSU graduates were recognized by the National Science Foundation, or NSF, as 2017 Graduate Research Fellows, and six others received honorable mention.

Public Relations Student Society of America at LSU received first place in the National Organ Donor Awareness Competition at the PRSSA National Conference, which took place from Oct. 21 to Oct. 25 in Indianapolis, Indiana. Student-run public relations firm 225 Communications partnered with Louisiana Organ Procurement Agency to design and execute a semester-long educational campaign for Public Relations Campaigns, a Manship School of Mass Communication capstone course.

LSU junior and Houma native, Megan Manno, was awarded the TD Ameritrade Scholarship for the 2016-2017 academic year.

Lauren West, a Manship School master’s student, has been awarded a Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship for the 2016-2017 academic year through the Fulbright U.S. Student Program. West, a native of Tulsa, OK, will teach English to Russian college students at Murom Institute, Vladimir State University in Murom, Vladimir Oblast, Russia.

LSU doctoral student and native Brazilian Glaucia Del-Rio is the first in the College of Science to receive the American Association of University Women, or AAUW, doctoral fellowship. The AAUW has been awarding the fellowship since 1888 making it the oldest non-institutional source of graduate funding for women in the United States.

Thirty-two students were selected to participate in the LSU School of Veterinary Medicine (LSU SVM) Summer Scholars Program, an introduction to biomedical research through research-driven activities. The 2016 Summer Scholars Program is funded by the National Institutes of Health, the Merial Veterinary Scholar Program, the Morris Animal Foundation, the Kenneth F. Burns Trust, the American Veterinary Medical Foundation, Zoetis and the LSU SVM.

Congratulations to Louisiana State University’s “Geaux FlexSim” team, winners of the 2015 SHS/FlexSim student competition.  The LSU team left Houston with the victory, $2,500, and a free trip to the conference.

A team of five third-year LSU School of Architecture students, led by Professional in Residence William Doran, recently won best in show at a design charette hosted by the Hattiesburg Arts Council.

Representatives of the Hattiesburg Arts Council invited three student teams from regional universities—Louisiana State University, the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, and the University of Southern Mississippi—to propose designs for a new Community Arts Center in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. The project focused on the rehabilitation of the former Hattiesburg American newspaper building recently donated to the Arts Council.

Manship and Ogden Honors College senior Valencia Richardson has been awarded a Fulbright Binational Internship in Mexico. Richardson’s internship will take place in Mexico City for 10 months where she’ll be placed in an internship and take graduate classes.

Julia Terese, of Shreveport, Louisiana, an LSU College of Agriculture senior studying nutrition and food sciences, received the Irene Toliver Pyburn Merit Award from the Louisiana Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. The award is given to an outstanding Louisiana college senior focused on dietetics.

The LSU poultry judging team took numerous awards at this year’s U.S. Poultry Foundation Ted Cameron National Poultry Judging Contest held April 6-8. The team placed second overall in the contest and won a number of the other awards including:

• Third high team in production judging
• First high team in breed selection judging
• Third high team in market products grading

Individual winners from LSU were Trent Dugas, who was the overall high individual in the contest, and Emily LeBlanc, the fourth high individual overall.

Manship student JoLena Broussard was awarded a 2016 Daniel J. Edelman and Ruth Edelman Public Relations Student Society of America Award. JoLena received a $1,500 scholarship and a three-month paid internship at one of Edelman’s U.S. offices of her choice.

The LSU Women’s Powerlifting Club took home its fourth national championship at the USA Powerlifting Collegiate Nationals on April 20 in Killen, Texas. The team has previously won championships in 2008, 2009 and 2011.

In addition to bringing back another team title to Baton Rouge, several Tiger lifters were crowned individual national champions. Allegra Hudson in the 103-pound weight class, Kayli Alphonso in the 114-pound weight class and Ariel Parker in the 184-pound class all earned first-place honors. Additionally, Team Captain Jackie Victoriano also picked up a third-place medal in the 138-pound class.

Students enrolled in LSU’s marketing independent study course recently competed in the fifth annual Bayou Sales Challenge and captured the top two spots in the event. Nicholls State University’s College of Business Administration sponsored the challenge, which was held in April. Jessica Stryk, a native of Richmond, Texas, and Kaitlin Jarnagin, a native of Richland, Wash., placed first and second, respectively, in the individual competition.

LSU juniors Catherine Fontenot of Basile, La., and Matthew Landrieu of New Orleans were among 62 students nationwide to receive the prestigious Truman Scholarship from the Harry S. Truman Scholarship Foundation.

LSU students Bruno Beltran of Sulphur, La., and Corey Landry of Denham Springs, La., were awarded the prestigious, nationally competitive Goldwater Scholarship by the Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Program, and Zachary Fitzpatrick of Holden, La., and Paxton Turner of Baton Rouge received Honorable Mention. All four students are members of the LSU Honors College; and Beltran, Landry and Fitzpatrick are also LA-STEM Research Scholars.

LSU junior Jonathan Lambert of Madisonville, La., was named an Udall Scholar by the Morris K. Udall and Stewart L. Udall Foundation. Lambert became LSU’s third Udall Scholar, joining 2007 recipient Nita Clark, a native of Baker, La., and 2010 recipient Anna Normand, a native of Opelousas, La. In addition to Lambert, junior Erin Percevault, a native of Verona, N.J., was named an Udall Honorable Mention.

LSU junior Logan de La Barre-Hays, a native of Jackson, Miss., was awarded a U.S. Department of State Critical Language Scholarship, or CLS, to study a critical language during the summer of 2013. De La Barre-Hays is an Honors College and College of Humanities & Social Sciences student who is double majoring in both international studies and political science with minors in Arabic, history and religious studies. She will graduate from LSU in May 2014.

Five current or recent LSU students were recognized by the National Science Foundation with Graduate Research Fellowships. These fellowships provide a three-year annual stipend of $30,000 along with a $10,500 cost of education allowance for tuition and fees, opportunities for international research and professional development, and the freedom to conduct their own research at any accredited U.S. institution of graduate education they choose.

The first Barnidge Fellowships have been awarded to three Ph.D. students from the E. J. Ourso College of Business – Grace Arnold, Dung “Yom” Bui and Erik Taylor. Alumnus John Barnidge established the fellowship to enhance Ph.D. stipends by $5,000 for incoming Ph.D. students and to attract top students to the college’s programs.

Andrew Kimbrough, assistant professor of theatre at the University of Kentucky and a graduate of the Ph.D program at LSU, has written a theatre and performance studies book, “Dramatic Theories of Voice in the Twentieth Century.” 

Published by Cambria Press, the book examines vocal expression as a vital medium of communication in the theatre.  “Dramatic Theories of Voice in the Twentieth Century” is the premiere book-length study to address the sounds of the human voice and to identify and examine theories of voice as conveyed in the philosophies and human sciences. 

The LSU student architecture journal Contexture: Freshly Cut, led by student editors Kristen Kelsch and Jonathan LeJune, recently won the 2011 Douglas Haskell Award for student architecture journals. The $1,000 award was given by the Center for Architecture Foundation, which is a New York based nonprofit organization.

In the Ph.D. category of the student paper competition, 20 finalists were selected from all around the world. Pre-selection of the finalists was based on written paper content and counted for 70 percent of the total score. The remaining 30 percent of the score was based on presentation effectiveness by the student author. Jones Nji was the only finalist from the United States.

For the second consecutive year, the Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi recently recognized the campus chapter at LSU as a Chapter of Excellence.

The award is given to chapters that excel in recognizing and promoting academic excellence in all fields of higher education and engaging the community of scholars in service to others.

LSU ranks eighth among the 70 bowl teams in Graduation Success Rate and tied for 12th among all bowl teams in the Academic Progress Rate.