Research Spotlight: Faculty

The University of Southern Mississippi College of Science and Technology faculty are in the forefront of relevant and timely research.

School of Polymers and High Performance Materials

Polymer Professors Create New Oil Dispersant

Following the Deep Horizon Oil Spill in 2010, Southern Miss School of Polymers and High Performance Materials professor Dr. Robert Lochhead and his colleagues Dr. Sarah Morgan and Dr. Daniel Savin developed a dispersant that could make future oil spills a lot less catastrophic.

“I just felt like there had to be something we could do to mitigate the effects of oil on the environment should a spill of that magnitude happen again,” said Lochhead.

The researchers collaborated in their Southern Miss lab where they came up with this newly-created dispersant.  Different in so many ways from what is currently available, it became even more appealing by the fact that the ingredients are biodegradable. In fact, this new solution is also edible. 

Click to read more about this ground-breaking research.    

Department of Biological Sciences

Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Recipient Professor Alford Researches in Serbia

Assistant professor of biological sciences Dr. Mac Alford received the highly competitive Fulbright Foreign Scholarship. 

Alford, whose areas of expertise include tropical plants and plant diversity, is also curator of the university’s herbarium. 

The Fulbright Foreign Scholarship allows Alford to teach and conduct research at the University of Novi Sad in Serbia.

 “Southern Miss has allowed me a unique research experience through my work with the herbarium and lots of opportunities to teach classes I wanted to teach in botany,” said Alford.

Alford has participated in international academic research in the past.  His teaching in while at Novi Sad includes tropical biology and theoretical aspects of botany.  “Novi Sad has a strong program in wetlands biology, and I want to complement that program and serve as a resource for that area,” he said.

Alford is leveraging his research expertise and work as herbarium curator, in which he uses the latest technology for establishing databases and specimen imaging for its more than 25,000 plants.

He hopes his Fulbright-sponsored work will increase opportunities for mutually beneficial international research for Novi Sad and Serbia.

Click to read more about Alford's Fulbright Foreign Scholarship.