AAAS Honors Four LSU Faculty Members

December 12, 2024

In 2024, four LSU faculty members were recognized by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, or AAAS, for their significant contributions to science and humankind. AAAS is the world’s largest scientific society. Becoming a member is a lifetime honor, a tradition dating back to 1874.
 
AAAS fellows

In the LSU College of the Coast and Environment:

Ed Laws, professor in the Department of Environmental Sciences, authored the seminal textbook Aquatic Pollution and works to advance the science on phytoplankton ecology and environmental chemistry, and how to use algae to fight water pollution. “From the outset, Laws’ career has been defined by a desire to do relevant, helpful things.”

In the LSU College of Science:

Sophie Warny, professor in the Department of Geology and Geophysics and curator and director of education at the LSU Museum of Natural Science, is an expert on forensic palynology. She studies pollen to prove or disprove relationships between objects, people, and places, which can be critical in criminal investigations.

Joseph Giaime, professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy and head of LIGO, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory in Livingston, Louisiana, helped enable its Nobel Prize-winning detection of gravitational waves in 2015, which took “20 years and bordering-on-romantic scientific hope that it one day would be possible and overall worth the wait.”

At LSU Health Shreveport:

Christopher Kevil, researcher and faculty member in the Department of Pathology and Translational Pathobiology, established an internationally recognized cardiovascular research program at LSU Health Shreveport and leads its Center of Biomedical Research Excellence, or COBRE, for redox biology and cardiovascular disease. The center was recently awarded a five-year $10 million Phase 2 grant from the National Institutes of Health.

As AAAS fellows, these four LSU faculty members join the ranks of the nation’s most illustrious scientists, engineers, and innovators. Their research continues to improve lives for people in Louisiana and across the world.

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