In a second round of Big Idea seed grants, the largest internal funding program in LSU history, the Provost’s Fund for Innovation in Research is investing $1.2 million in 15 interdisciplinary research teams. Aligned with LSU’s Scholarship First Agenda, the teams and their projects aim to solve pressing problems in Louisiana and everywhere.

In total, the funded projects will engage 65 faculty across nine colleges and schools on LSU’s flagship campus in Baton Rouge, extending collaboration to LSU Athletics, LSU AgCenter, Pennington Biomedical Research Center and LSU Health New Orleans. Two projects support advances in agriculture; seven projects drive discovery in biomedicine; six projects elevate the coast and environment; six projects protect the state and nation through stronger defense and cybersecurity; and six projects help secure the future of energy.

With summer comes outdoor activities and the possibility of encountering ticks and the diseases they carry. To determine which species may be common to a particular location in Louisiana, an LSU AgCenter researcher and her team have developed an online tool to assist in locating the bloodsuckers.

AgCenter entomologist Kristen Healy has been working with the Louisiana Department of Health and Tulane University to better understand the risk for tickborne diseases in Louisiana. According to Healy, the state hasn't had a survey of ticks in decades, and much of the current knowledge predates that of the introduction of imported fire ants.

On a breezy sunny evening in May, before the heat of summer settles in, a dozen or so people gathered in what was once a vacant lot in Baton Rouge’s Zion City but is now a growing community garden.

Only minor work was being done in the garden that day — a little pruning, a couple of plantings. Mostly, the group sat in lawn chairs, while Clifford Payne tended hamburgers on a grill. This lot, which was filled with waist-high weeds just a few months earlier, has become a meeting spot for the community.