SpaRTAN Lab Collaborators

GEOCENT

Geocent  exists at the intersection of technology and engineering to craft innovative, future-focused solutions that fundamentally change how industries evolve. Geocent works toward world-changing missions that enable deep space exploration, protect the homeland, enable the warfighters and veterans 

Serena Aunon-Chancellor, M.D., MPH

Dr. Aunon-Chancellor is an Astronaut and Assistant Professor of Internal Medicine at the LSU School of Medicine. She is board certified in Internal and Aerospace Medicine, she recently served as Flight Engineer on the International Space Station for Expeditions 56 and 57. 

Wayne Newhauser, Ph.D.

Dr. holds the Dr. Charles M. Smith Chair in Medical Physics in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the Louisiana State University. He serves as director of the Medical Physics Program. He is a board certified and licensed medical physicist

Igor Koturbush, M.D., Ph.D.

Dr. Koturbush is the Chair of Department of Environmental and Occupational Health and Co-Director, Center for Dietary Supplements Research at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences 

Marjan Boerma, Ph.D. is Associate Professor Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. Her research focuses on cancer survivorship issues, particularly radiation-induced heart disease, risks of cardiovascular disease from exposure to radiation during space travel, and development of medical countermeasures against nuclear accidents or terrorism,

Do Sperm Squirm the Same in Space? The Micro-11 flight experiment will help determine the effect of space flight on sperm capacitation and signal transduction changes compared to parallel samples on the ground. SpaRTAN lab is collaborating with PI Joseph Tash, Ph.D., the University of Kansas Medical Center by providing dosimetry analyses of the samples flown on ISS during Expedition 56.

Dr. Paul South, Ph.D. is an expert in plan biology and synthetic biology at Louisiana State Univeristy. Dr. South and the director of the SpaRTAN lab are collaborating on efforts to model and understand the effects the space radiation environment has on crop growth and the nutritional efficacy of multiple generations of plant seedlings.