Research@ChE-LSU

Research in the department focuses on a number of key areas as shown in the diagram below, with strong commitment to collaboration between these areas towards a truly multidisciplinary research effort.

Research in the department is funded from external grants and contracts from several federal agencies, including the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy, the Environmental Protection Agency, various agencies within the Department of Defense, from state sources such as the Educational Quality Support Fund and the Information Technology initiative, and from private sources such as the Gordon Cain endowment and various companies. In kind services have also been provided by a number of companies. The LSU Department of Chemical Engineering has consistently been among the top departments in the nation in this measure of research activity.

Chemical Engineering is a part of an interdisciplinary NSF IGERT (Integrative Graduate Education, Research and Training) program in Polymer Science, called "Teaching Craft for Macromolecular Creativity." This is a 5 year, $3.2 million program to provide a unique university/ industrial educational experience for qualified (U.S. citizens or permanent residents) Ph.D. students in all areas of polymer science. For further details, see: http://macro.lsu.edu/igert/. For general information on LSU's interdisciplinary polymer science program, see: http://macro.lsu.edu/.

The Environmental Protection Agency recently awarded LSU $5 million to continue to host the Hazardous Substance Research Center-South/Southwest for the next five years. One of five such centers in the country, the South/Southwest facility focuses its research efforts on contaminated sediments found in aquatic environments. The HSRC was first established in 1992 as a consortium that includes LSU, Rice University, and Georgia Tech; Texas A&M recently joined this group.