Content about Research

Denis Wiesenburg serves as the Vice President for Research at The University of Southern Mississippi. A Pascagoula, Miss., native, Wiesenburg spent seven years teaching in Alaska before returning to his home state. Recently, Wiesenburg took a few moments to reflect on his current responsibilities and outside interests in a question-and-answer format.

Q: What is your hometown and educational background?

Long hours in the laboratory have paid off significantly for University of Southern Mississippi student Souvik Banerjee, who has been selected to present a paper as part of the prestigious American Chemical Society, Division of Organic Chemistry Graduate Research Symposium on July 26-29 in Boulder, Colo.

For University of Southern Mississippi nursing student Kara Scott, simulation exercises provide the next-best-thing to actual patient care.

“As students we don’t get to do things like call physicians or administer IV push medications,” said Scott, a junior from Slidell, La. “But with the simulation training, we get to experience those kinds of scenarios. It allows us to be involved in decision making and delegating different procedures.”

The Bay St. Louis chapter of the Coastal Conservation Association (CCA) will present a check for $2,500 to The University of Southern Mississippi’s Gulf Coast Research Laboratory (GCRL) on Saturday, May 5 at the Garfield Ladner Memorial Pier in Waveland.

Representatives from both GCRL and the Mississippi Department of Marine Resources (DMR) will be in attendance to receive the donation. The money will be used for general equipment and supplies that support the rearing, tagging, releasing and post-release monitoring of spotted Sea trout.

Two years after the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill, The University of Southern Mississippi Center for Oral History continues its work capturing the stories of those whose livelihood depends on the Gulf Coast’s seafood industry, which was threatened by the ecological disaster.

The Butler, Snow, O’Mara, Stevens & Cannada (Butler Snow) Foundation has awarded a $25,751 grant to The University of Southern Mississippi Children’s Center for Communication and Development for its project focusing on Early Intervention, Literacy and School Readiness for Young Children with Significant Disabilities.

The School of Nursing at The University of Southern Mississippi will soon take a giant leap in healthcare education and training by offering the state’s first degree-granting nurse anesthesia program.

The new program will include 36 consecutive months of study and award a Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) degree. School of Nursing officials hope to receive final approval from the Council on Accreditation of Nurse Anesthesia Educational Programs in October with classes set to begin in January 2013.

The University of Southern Mississippi’s Southern Area Health Education Center (AHEC) is one of only 16 priority sites selected to initiate a national pilot program targeting the behavioral/mental health needs of returning veterans.

The project is supported by a grant from the Federal Health Resources and Service Administration in partnership with the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Service Administration.

The University of Southern Mississippi Office of the Provost recently announced members of its faculty as recipients of various prestigious grants and honors. Excellence in instruction, research, leadership, mentorship, librarianship and service to the university were among the key criteria used in selection of the recipients.

The National Center for Spectator Sports Safety and Security (NCS⁴) at The University of Southern Mississippi will conduct a Sport Event Evacuation Training and Exercise Course Jan. 31-Feb. 1 at the Trent Lott Center on the Hattiesburg campus.

Dr. Geoffrey Hudson, assistant professor of exercise science at The University of Southern Mississippi, has partnered with four undergraduate students on an important research project involving weight loss supplements.

The students – Bethany Boleware, Emily Buras, Lisa Knecht and Cody Tullos – are assisting Hudson on research for a private company that includes the testing of a weight loss nutritional supplement. The double-blind, four-month study relies on two sets of volunteers: a group receiving the dietary supplement and a group receiving a placebo.