On Par with the President

In this episode of “On Par,” LSU President William F. Tate IV speaks with all-star student, Steven Seiden. Steven is a senior in the Ogden Honors College. He’s majoring in computer science with a concentration in cybersecurity. He’s an LSU Research Ambassador and member of the Society of Peer Mentors. The peer mentor, researcher, and future professor shares more about his goals and his hope to ins...

In this episode of "On Par," meet the LSU student who's in a league of her own: scholar student and undergraduate researcher, Kenedi Lynch. Kenedi is a senior in the Ogden Honors College. She is a 2023 Goldwater Scholar and Astronaut Scholar, as well as a Stamps Scholar. She's the president of LSU's Research Ambassadors and the President of Alpha Epsilon Delta, the pre-medica...

In this episode of “On Par,” hear from Dr. Jeffrey Carter, professor of surgery for LSU Health New Orleans and the Medical Director of the Burn Center for the University Medical Center New Orleans. He and his team developed a spray-on skin called ReCell, which has helped reduce the length of hospital stays and the mortality rate from burns by more than half. He’s a biomedical innovator and researc...

On this episode of "On Par," go inside the brain with two-time LSU graduate Dr. Jason Cormier. Cormier is a nationally renowned neurosurgeon who also played LSU basketball under head coach Dale Brown. A Lafayette native, Cormier chose to practice medicine in Louisiana, and as a physician, he is an international expert in brain injury and concussion who said he thrives on stress. He has w...

On this episode of “On Par with the President,” LSU alumna and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Amy Brittain joins President William F. Tate IV. Brittain, a Shreveport native, knew she was going to be a journalist since she was 11 years old. She started honing her craft in middle school then majored in mass communication while a student at LSU, where she wrote for the student newspaper, The Revei...

In this episode of “On Par,” LSU graduating senior Madeline Fryer speaks with President William F. Tate IV about saving the environment from single-use plastics. Fryer, a Louisiana native, became interested in her home state’s environment with her family and spending time outdoors with them. Her interest grew into her passion while a student at LSU, studying coastal environmental science. Fryer is...

In this episode, President William F. Tate IV speaks with the Director of the LSU Center for River Studies and LSU Professor of Civil & Environmental Engineering, Clint Willson. Willson shares the reason why the Mississippi River’s coastal land loss is not just a Louisiana issue, and how he educates LSU students to be coastal land loss fighters.

In this episode of the “On Par” podcast, President Tate sits down with LSU star student, Antavion “Tay” Moore. Tay is Louisiana’s first John Robert Lewis Scholar. The LSU Ogden Honors College student and Louisiana Service and Leadership Scholar is studying political science, classical and jazz piano in Dr. Willis Delony's studio. Moore also plays in Dr. Molly Redfield's ensemble. In 2020, he was n...

In this episode of the "On Par with the President" podcast, President William F. Tate IV speaks with Alejandra Ham, an LSU graduate student who is focused on learning more about breast cancer. The daughter of a physician and computer engineer, Alejandra said she has always been fascinated by the human body. While an undergraduate student at LSU, the COVID pandemic forced her to pivot on her resear...

In this episode, President William F. Tate IV speaks to LSU alumna Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield, who has dedicated more than three decades of her life to public and foreign service. Currently the United States Ambassador to the United Nations, she discusses her journey from Baker, Louisiana to a global stage and how she manages the heavy stress that’s part of her job. Ambassador Linda Thomas...

In this episode, President William F. Tate IV speaks to LSU assistant professor in experimental statistics, Thanos Gentimis. He discusses his field of expertise, which is data analytics with a special interest in machine learning and neural networks. Thanos created the first digital agriculture class at LSU and discusses how AI will soon shape the world of agriculture and farming. Thanos is marrie...

On this episode of the "On Par with the President" podcast, President William F. Tate IV sits down with the executive director of the Louisiana Sea Grant College Program, Julie Lively. Her research has centered around commercial fisheries in the Gulf of Mexico with a focus on blue crab including soft shell crab production, which generates about $293 million in Louisiana each year. Her work also in...

Is student-athlete recruitment an art or a science? How do you find the next Ja Morant? What are three things LSU Men’s Basketball Matt McMahon asks his players to control? McMahon answers these questions and more on this episode of “On Par.”     Matt McMahon is the head coach of the LSU men’s basketball team. He was the 2021-22 Ohio Valley Conference Coach of the Year, and a Naismi...

For more than 30 years, David Dismukes has worked in consulting, academia, and government service. He’s currently the executive director, director of policy analysis, and professor of LSU’s Center for Energy Studies. He is also a professor in the Department of Environmental Sciences in the LSU College of the Coast & Environment. In this episode of the "On Par with the President" podcast, the e...

In this episode, President William F. Tate IV speaks to LSU golfer and junior Ingrid Lindblad, who is the winner of a school record eight collegiate titles. Ingrid recently won LSU’s first individual SEC golf championship in 31 years. Currently, she is the World Amateur Golf Rankings No. 2 golfer, and she just finished tied for third place at the NCAA Championships. Ingrid talks about how school i...

Fatima Rivas believes she was born to be a chemist. The LSU chemistry assistant professor is fulfilling her passion and conducting breakthrough cancer research. Rivas and her team are studying a promising new treatment for an aggressive type of breast cancer: triple-negative breast cancer, or TNBC. Their work looks at a compound derived from mushrooms. In this episode, Rivas shares her path from o...

Growing up, Dr. Golden Richard III’s fanatical devotion to computers led him to clean parking lots for a year, simply to buy a single $600 floppy drive. After 40 years, Golden is still driven by the constantly shifting world of computer science — a world of stolen encryption passwords, ransomware negotiators, high-tech chess, and sophisticated attacks. Here at LSU, Golden is educating the next gen...

In this episode, President William F. Tate IV speaks to  LSU physics and astronomy doctoral student Michelle Lollie. She discusses her area of expertise, quantum communication, and how it may help protect our most sensitive information — from your credit card number to health records — from being hacked in the future as well as preventing cybersecurity attacks. Lollie also discusses her advoc...

LSU PhD candidate James Stampley has taken his passion for health and fitness and turned it into a research focus. In this episode, Stampley shares his journey from collegiate athletics and his touchdown against Ole Miss, to the lab where he is exercise training fruit flies for research into aging and metabolic diseases.   James Stampley IV is a former LSU Football player with two bachelor’s...

What is ichthyology? It's the study of fish, and Dr. Prosanta Chakrabarty is a master of it. He joins President William F. Tate IV to discuss his journey around the world to study some of the planet's most unusual creatures. He also shares his experience as a curator for the LSU Museum of Natural Science, the importance of translating scientific work for the public, and his efforts to train and in...

In this episode, President William F. Tate IV speaks to LSU Women’s Basketball Coach Kim Mulkey. Mulkey, a Louisiana native, has won six national championships, is a nine-time Hall of Famer, and an Olympian. She shares her own experiences playing youth sports, the mentors who guided her, and her focus on her team's success on the basketball court and in the classroom. LSU Women’s Basketball Coach...

President William F. Tate IV speaks with a top LSU student scholar, Bri Robertson. Bri is a senior in the Roger Hadfield Ogden Honors College studying physics in the College of Science and computer engineering in the College of Engineering. In this episode she shares how she is focused on artificial intelligence in medical settings and outer space, and how her scholarship opportunities have allowe...

President William F. Tate IV sits down with Dr. Jose Aviles to discuss his journey from growing up in a low-income housing development in New Jersey to the vice president for Enrollment Management at LSU. They discuss Dr. Aviles’ passion for serving students, what keeps him motivated, and his ability to consistently build the largest, most talented and diverse classes in the university’s history....

What is the “Dead Zone?” And why is it growing in the Gulf of Mexico? Dr. Nancy Rabalais joins President William F. Tate IV to answer these questions; give a behind-the-scenes look at an oceanographer's life both on deck and below; and describe her journey to being elected to the most prestigious scientific society in the U.S., the National Academy of Sciences. For more than three decades, Dr. Rab...

What does it take to become an Olympian? President William F. Tate IV sits down with LSU track and field star JuVaughn Harrison to discuss his journey to the Tokyo Olympics, his time at LSU, and plans for his professional career. While at LSU Harrison won a team national title, six NCAA individual titles, and owns four LSU school records. Most recently, he swept the long jump and high jump competi...