Office of
Academic Affairs
Interim Executive Vice President & Provost Troy Blanchard
Troy Blanchard currently serves as the Interim Executive Vice President & Provost of Louisiana State University. Blanchard, the Chief Operating and Chief Academic Officer of LSU’s flagship campus in Baton Rouge, maintains executive oversight over instruction, student support, and research while simultaneously serving as the chief academic officer for all LSU campuses across the state and chief academic advisor to the President.
Blanchard joined the faculty of the LSU Department of Sociology in 2007 and has since held multiple leadership positions, most notably serving as dean of the LSU College of Humanities & Social Sciences (HSS)—one of LSU’s largest colleges— from 2019 through 2025.
Academic Enterprise
The Office of Academic Affairs supports the Executive Vice President & Provost in ensuring university excellence in learning, discovery, and engagement. The office works closely with the faculty senate and the president to advance LSU using a shared governance model. We also make communication and transparency a hallmark of the office. Lastly, the essence of our academic core--our faculty and staff--are preeminent in everything we do.
LSU ELEMENTS & DISCOVERY
LSU's faculty information system, Elements, allows for robust faculty activity data collection, maintenance and reporting on the teaching, research and service activities while the Discovery Module provides an interface for faculty collaboration and integration which allows collaborators to connect with faculty.
While many people focus on such risk factors for dementia as family history, they may not focus as much on resilience factors, the steps they can take to protect brain health. Dr. Nicolás Bazan, Boyd Professor of Neuroscience at LSU Health New Orleans, explains.
To meet growing energy needs, the United States plans to triple its nuclear capacity by 2050. Meanwhile, Google, Amazon, and Microsoft are investing in small nuclear reactor technology to help meet the enormous energy needs of AI data centers. More than 30 companies have announced plans for advanced reactors, which are evolutions of those that have been powering nuclear submarines for 70 years.
Modern malware hides deep within systems, making detection like finding a needle in a haystack. At LSU, researchers Aisha Ali-Gombe and James Ghawaly created MalParse, an AI model that rapidly detects and interprets hidden malicious code.
The LSU Energy Institute has named Tyler Gray as its inaugural director of energy innovation, a key leadership role within LSU’s expanding energy research and policy enterprise. Gray’s appointment marks an important step in LSU’s continued move to align energy-focused units under a single institute to serve Louisiana’s evolving energy economy.
It's a common belief that food insecurity “isn’t a workplace concern,” but LSU researchers weren’t convinced. In a study published in Personnel Psychology, they put this understanding to the test and learned that food insecurity has real costs to businesses.
A team led by Joyoni Dey, associate professor in LSU’s Department of Physics & Astronomy, has been working to improve the measurement of breast density using physics-based methods that produce precise measurements, helping doctors better assess cancer risk.