Mentors and mentor teams will be selected from LUMCON faculty members, their post-docs and graduate students, and visiting scientists who have active research programs addressing basic and applied research questions in and around the Mississippi and Atchafalaya Rivers, their deltas, adjacent wetlands, and nearby shallow coastal or deep ocean waters.
In the summer 2026, REU opportunities are available in several research areas, including:
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- ecosystem ecology
- biogeochemistry
- habitat forming species
- dissolved organic matter cycling
- microbial ecology and diversity
- sea level rise
- phytoplankton ecology
- marsh and estuarine biodiversity
- wetland science
- disturbance ecology
- bioimaging and fluid mechanics
- behavioral ecology
- biodiversity information science
- Marine plant physiological ecology
The following mentors at LUMCON are accepting students for the 2026 LUMCON REU program (this list will change yearly).
Dr. Stephanie Archer is an ecologist with a research program focused on studying the ecology and conservation of marine habitats formed by a plant or an animal, such as seagrass beds and oyster reefs. We are particularly interested in the invertebrate communities that live in these ecosystems and understanding how they respond to disturbance.
- In 2026 the Archer Lab would be interested in hosting a student who would like to complete a project on either bioacoustics of coastal ecosystems or biodiversity of artificial reefs.
Dr. Brianne Du Clos is a biodiversity information scientist exploring the implementation and development of biodiversity occurrence data standards across marine and terrestrial taxa. Brianne operates the LUMCON Biodiversity Lab and manages LUMCON’s Natural History Collections, which currently entails digitizing records of historically-collected specimens and making them openly available. Work in the Biodiversity Lab incorporates biology, taxonomy, ecology, museum studies, information science, and computer science.
- Potential projects can involve connecting specimen records with ecological data (or exploring other use cases), comparative studies of marine taxa, database building, understanding motivations and practices for sharing openly available occurrence data, and assessing the applications of biodiversity data standards in marine occurrence data..
Dr. Kevin Du Clos is a biological oceanographer working at the intersection of biology and physics. Research in the Du Clos lab examines how marine organisms interact with their fluid environments though swimming, feeding, sinking, and other behaviors. We use advanced imaging techniques and mathematical modeling to study individual scale behaviors and interactions in the context of large scale ocean processes, such as carbon cycling. We work with a range of organisms, including phytoplankton, oysters, and jellyfish. Dr. Du Clos is particularly excited to mentor students with interests spanning some combination of marine biology, engineering, imaging, and fluid mechanics. REU projects will likely be based mainly in the lab with field collections.
- Potential projects include 3D laser scanning of gelatinous organisms, phytoplankton sinking behavior, and effects of oyster reef architecture on feeding on larval recruitment
Dr. Ken Krauss is a plant physiological ecologist who studies ecosystem water and carbon cycling in tidal wetlands and determines how different ecosystem stressors affect these cycles. Dr. Krauss uses a mix of sap flow techniques for measuring water use by swamp forest trees and infrared gas analyzers to measure carbon and water cycling in marsh plants. Dr. Krauss is particularly interested in recruiting an REU student interested in learning about carbon and water cycling in coastal marine environments, how processes are measured, and innovations in study methods. This project will expose the REU to field procedures, as well as techniques used to analyze data, apply basic statistical procedures, process comparisons between marshes and mangroves, and scale measurements.
Potential research title: Do salt marshes and mangroves affect coastal water conservation in Louisiana?
Dr. Guillaume Rieucau is a Marine and Coastal Behavioral Ecologist studying the role of behavior in structuring fish communities and trophic interactions in marine and estuarine ecosystems. He is interested in understanding the fundamental processes that mediate predator-prey interactions, habitat use and aggregative tendencies of marine organisms (from forage fish, elasmobranches and marine mammals) in a fluctuating environment. He explores how group-living organisms collectively react to external factors such as predators, environmental conditions, anthropogenic disturbances, fishery activities and habitat structure. He addresses most of these questions by conducting laboratory, mesocosm and in situ behavioral experimentations using advanced technology (high resolution imaging sonar, unmanned aerial vehicles) and multi-target computer tracking, video analysis to quantify fine-scale dynamic behavioral responses. He is also using his experience in animal behavior to provide information for conservation and management plans.
- Potential REU research this summer: Exploring social interactions of overwintering Floridian manatees (Trichechus manatus latirostris) using drone-based photogrammetry and social network
Dr. Brian Roberts is an ecosystem ecologist and biogeochemist. His research group studies how ecosystems along the freshwater-estuary-ocean continuum process and retain nutrients and energy and how this is altered as a result of human perturbations to the landscape. His research interests also include biogeochemical cycling, microbial ecology, plant ecology, and predator-prey interactions in wetlands and estuarine pelagic and benthic environments and involves field observations and controlled mechanistic experiments conducted both in field and laboratory settings. Dr. Roberts is interested in mentoring REU students with interests in working with a team of researchers to develop independent projects that fit within the context of our group’s diverse, larger efforts.
- Some potential research projects include: wetland biogeochemistry and plant ecology; controls on N cycling rates; microbial communities and CH4 fluxes / C-cycling rates in marsh and offshore sediments; marsh predator-prey interactions; disturbance impacts on sand shoal ecosystems.
Dr. Havalend Steinmuller is a coastal biogeochemist whose research focuses on how biogeochemical cycles and ecosystem function in coastal environments respond to disturbance, including sea-level rise and vegetation change. Her laboratory investigates the controls on carbon and nutrient dynamics in wetlands, including the effects of mangrove encroachment, saltwater intrusion, and extreme events. The lab integrates field observations and experimental manipulations to understand wetland vulnerability and resilience.
- Research projects include: effect of mangrove encroachment on nutrient cycling in coastal marshes, assessing outcomes of coastal marsh restoration techniques, evaluating soil shear strength in barrier island marshes, and quantifying carbon dioxide mineralization rates in coastal marshes and the continental shelf.
Dr. Zhengchen Zang is a marine ecologist and ocean modeler. His research focuses on the coupling between water quality and marine ecosystem across various spatiotemporal scales. He uses advanced numerical model and artificial intelligence methods to study planktonic food web, shellfish population dynamics, and sediment transport.
- Zang is looking for REU students interested in: 1) oxygen dynamics (hypoxia) in coastal environments; 2) oyster population dynamics; and 3) submarine landslide in coastal Louisiana.
