August 2026 Very excited to share - CBEL along with H. Spalding (College of Charleston) and Joanna Philippoff (University of Hawaii) received a NSF RAPID to study the impacts of the 1,000 year coastal flooding event on Hawaiian rocky intertidal zones! This research will help managers predict whether invasive ecosystem engineers increase or decrease the resilience of culturally important coastal ecosystems following extreme precipitation events.
July 2026 Congrats to College of Sciences at LSU New Orleans for Preparing Future Coastal Scientists!
NSF awards LSU New Orleans a $372,396 NSF Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) grant supporting NOLA–Next Gen, an interdisciplinary summer research program that will prepare undergraduate students to address some of Louisiana’s most pressing coastal and environmental challenges.The funding will support, an eight-week summer research program that will provide immersive research experiences for 30 undergraduate students from 2027 through 2029. The program will recruit approximately 10 students each summer, with a particular emphasis on first- and second-year students from community colleges and primarily undergraduate institutions who have little or no previous research experience. If interested please email!
NSF awards LSU New Orleans a $372,396 NSF Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) grant supporting NOLA–Next Gen, an interdisciplinary summer research program that will prepare undergraduate students to address some of Louisiana’s most pressing coastal and environmental challenges.The funding will support, an eight-week summer research program that will provide immersive research experiences for 30 undergraduate students from 2027 through 2029. The program will recruit approximately 10 students each summer, with a particular emphasis on first- and second-year students from community colleges and primarily undergraduate institutions who have little or no previous research experience. If interested please email!
July 2026 Big News around campus! University of New Orleans has joined the LSU system and is now LSU New Orleans. Stay tuned as cbeluno.org will be updated to reflect our new home.
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Congratulations to Blaine Savoie for succesfully defending his MS thesis (June 30th) and then presenting his research at the Joint Meeting of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists July 8-12, 2026 in New Orleans! Privateer Proud! |
May 4-7th 2026 Emily Leonard and Blaine Savoie presented their CBEL research at Gulf Alliance's GulfCon 2026!
May 4-7th 2026 Emily Leonard and Blaine Savoie presented their CBEL research at Gulf Alliance's GulfCon 2026!
January 2025 CBEL received funding through Mote Marine Lab from the Florida Seagrass Restoration Technology Development Initiative (Year 3) to study transcriptome-level of resilience to heat stress for Halodule wrightii.
Hillary Hernandez, Tolmas Scholar in CBEL, won third place for her student poster presentation at UNO Innovate Conference . Her research describes the development of fouling communities in two saline waters. Congrats Hillary (and Sable)!
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8/2024 CONGRATULATIONS to Anastasia Konefal for successfully defending her PhD dissertation! |
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5/2024 UNO's CBEL, Nicola Anthony as well as Just Cebrian received funding through Mote Marine Lab from the Florida Seagrass Restoration Technology Development Initiative to examine the role of seagrass genetic variation and genotypic identity in enhancing primary productivity and conferring resilience to common abiotic stressors of low-light and high-heat for Halodule wrightii, the seagrass species most used in restoration in the Gulf of Mexico. |
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3/2024 Anastasia Konefal was selected for the National Academy of Sciences' Gulf Research Program Science Policy Fellowship!!! For the fellowship she will get placed in one of 14 potential host offices all doing science-policy related work with the Gulf of Mexico region. It is a year-long fellowship starting in September. She is currently in the process of interviewing with the different offices for placement.
2/18/2024 CBEL@UNO is attending the Ocean Sciences Meeting in New Orleans. Anastasia Konefal is doing an e-lighting talk on seagrass genetics and its role in the maintenance of primary productivity. Amanda Kirkland is presenting a poster presentation on trophic structure at artificial reefs in the Gulf of Mexico and a presentation about ICONEC: International Carbon Ocean Network for Early Career. ** Note the logo artwork done by UNO student Emalee Swisshelm** She is amazing! |
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11/2023 Congratulations to Amanda Kirkland for receiving the Knauss Fellowship 2024! UNO made a nice video of Amanda to celebrate! Way to Go! First LA Sea Grant Knauss Fellow from UNO!
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9/16/2022 Congratulations to Amanda Kirkland for winning best presentation for her session at the High CO2 World in Lima, Peru
9/13-9/16/2022 Amanda Kirkland received a travel subsidy funded by US NOAA, NASA and NSF to support her travel to 5th International Symposium on the Ocean in High CO2 World in Lima, Peru where she will share her research on the sensitivity of reef invertebrate species in the northern Gulf of Mexico to ocean warming and ocean acidification.
9/13-9/16/2022 Amanda Kirkland received a travel subsidy funded by US NOAA, NASA and NSF to support her travel to 5th International Symposium on the Ocean in High CO2 World in Lima, Peru where she will share her research on the sensitivity of reef invertebrate species in the northern Gulf of Mexico to ocean warming and ocean acidification.
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8/7 - 8/12/2022 Anastasia Konefal presented her research at her first in-person, international conference as a PhD candidate. The title of her poster was “Changes in Halodule wrightii metabolism, photo-physiology, and gene expression after a major hurricane”.
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2021-2022-Congratulations to Anastasia for receiving a Sigma Xi Grants in Aid of Research!
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9/1/2021 Erin Cox and Anastasia Konefal and other collaborators are awarded a cooperative agreement (award # NA21NOS4510172) with the NOAA RESTORE Science Program to develop actionable science to build resiliency for seagrass beds. To learn more go here: https://restoreactscienceprogram.noaa.gov/projects/seagrass-restoration-resiliency
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8/3/2020 - Amanda Kirkland is one of the recipients of the LA Sea Grant -NOAA Graduate Research Fellowship in Ocean, Coastal and Estuarine Acidification.
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9/9/2019 - Esra presented at the University of New Orleans Biology Department Seminar discussing her work at Ege University which included pharmaceuticals, algal eyespots, and marine conservation.
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