LS-Lamp students attend conference at Arizona State

Southern University students who a part of the Louis Strokes Louisiana Alliance for Minority Participation (LS – LSAMP) headed to Arizona State University for the 2006 Student Research Conference.
The student research conference is an event geared toward giving students the opportunity to present research work to peers, students, faculty and industry.
It also gives students an opportunity to meet different role models in their particular field of study. Students get a chance to earn internships for the summer from companies like NASA, IBM and Intel or apply for graduate schools since there are representatives from different graduate schools.
“The SRC allows students to become a professional, show their research and network with researchers around the country,” said Diola Bagayoko, a Southern University professor of physics and project director for the LS- LSAMP.
The LS-Lamp is comprised of eleven different universities, including Southern, which is the lead institution of the program. The goal of the program is to help students having difficulties paying for college.
The aftermath of Hurricane Katrina led to the cancellation of the annual LS-Lamp conference where hundreds of students were scheduled to present their research through technical papers. Because of this, the LS- LSAMP felt it was necessary to help displaced students throughout the nation.
LS-Lamp’s sister program, the Louis Strokes Western Alliance to Expand Student Opportunities decided to invest approximately $195,000 for LS-LAMP students to partake in the conference at ASU which will include airfare, hotel lodging (faculty and students), meals and stipends.
“I am happy that ASU and other contributors made it possible for us to attend the SRC, ” Bagayoko said. ” It was like an Angle came and saved us.”