LSUS students shine in largest-ever Regional Student Scholars Forum

LSUS students shine in largest-ever Regional Student Scholars Forum

SHREVEPORT - Three LSU Shreveport students took home four top prizes Friday in the largest participant field ever at LSUS's 11^th annual Regional Student Scholars Forum.

Computer science graduate student Devesh Sarda captured the three-minute thesis competition title and paired up with fellow computer science graduate student Udaysinh Rathod to win the graduate student oral presentation category.

Biological sciences major Sadie Lyons won the undergraduate poster competition.

Sarda trained an artificial intelligence model to be able to detect and diagnose spinal stenosis with 93 percent accuracy by learning from MRI images.

"More than 100 million people worldwide have chronic back pain caused by spinal stenosis in the lumbar region," Sarda said. "Traditional treatments include physical therapy, chiropractic care, and steroid shots -- which aren't effective in 60 percent of these cases.

"But this AI model could help people get diagnosed faster, get treated faster, and get the surgery they need without unnecessary steps."

Artificial intelligence plays a key role in Sarda's and Rathrod's research into identifying and preventing patient falls in hospitals.

As nurse-to-patient ratios are worsening around the country, Rathod argues that AI combined with radio frequencies can alert staff to patients trying to get out of bed without physically seeing them in person or through cameras.

"The idea is using radio signals to detect human pose (standing, sitting, on the ground), training AI models to recognize the human pose through these radio frequencies," said Rathrod, who was voted runner-up in the three-minute thesis competition. "Nearly one million patients fall in hospitals annually, and many of those occur with patients who are coming out of anesthesia.

"Radio frequencies can penetrate walls and see through barriers."

Early results indicate that AI is capable of learning human pose positions through radio frequency readings.

Lyons snatched the undergraduate poster award for her research into using salvinia biomass as a natural sponge to trap toxins - malachite green in the case of Lyons' research.

"Salvinia is the No. 1 aquatic pest in the entire world," said Lyons, explaining that the invasive plant crowds out native plants by taking up large quantities of oxygen. "There's currently no commercial use for salvinia, but this could certainly be a perfect commercial use.

"This is my first time during my own research. I attended (Biomedical Research and Industry Day) last year and thought, 'Wow, how do they do that.'"

More than 200 research posters and presentations from students representing 34 different universities from four regional states shared their findings at LSUS.

The topics touched on ideas in medicine, biology, chemistry, and physiology all the way to research in literature, business, education and history.

In an example that didn't involve artificial intelligence, graduate clinical mental health counseling student Kessyn Alan sought to measure firefighters' attitudes toward mental health in North Louisiana.

In a city like Shreveport that has a police officer shortage, Alan said firefighters' scope of duties range far beyond just fighting fires.

"It doesn't get any more masculine than firefighters, so I wanted to see what firefighters thought about mental health and seeking help," said Alan, who is interested in pursuing men's mental health issues and research. "I found that younger firefighters tended to know more about mental health and didn't think there was a stigma surrounding seeking help.

"Older firefighters tended to more resistant and were concerned about being judged, losing hours or losing their jobs. But senior leaders in fire departments didn't have that same perceived stigma attached to mental healthcare and are aware of its benefits to take care of their teams."

Alan, who is interested in pursuing a doctoral degree in clinical psychology, said this research and presentation experience is a great launching pad into more intense research.

Additional contest winners include Southeastern Louisiana's Aidan Hildago, who won the undergraduate oral presentation with his research of comparative genomic characterization of Arthrobacter Phage BenchScraper.

UT Tyler's Jesda Duong took runner-up with his research into topical delivery of invitro drugs.

UT Dallas undergraduate Grant Vavro won runner-up in the poster category with his synthesis of novel lead-bromide perovskite and its relationship to structure.

In the graduate poster category, UT Tyler's Tanvir Ahmed garnered first place with his look into modified sugarcane fibers.

Louisiana Tech's Francisca Walden and Austin Peters took graduate poster runner-up honors with their dive into the bioinformatic analysis of shared gene dysregulation.

In the graduate oral presentations, runner-up UT Tyler's James Campbell explored coral disease dynamics in estuaries and reefs.

Stephen F. Austin's Sheilla Amponsah won the people's choice award in the three-minute thesis with her analysis of predicting GPA using their login habits to their learning management systems.

While the event showcased student research, LSUS biological sciences professor Dr. Stephen Banks delivered the keynote address on the 1918 Influenza Pandemic, which infected one third of the world's population and killed between 50-100 million people while being aided by troop movements at the end of World War I.

Banks, who is a founding member of the forum, received a recognition plaque as he will retire from his Emeritus Professor role in May. Banks served the university for 34 years, including his time as the George and Regina Khoury Professor, an associate dean and department chair.