Celebrating 44 Years of Service: Vice President & Boyd Professor Isiah M. Warner's Retirement Events

Boyd Professor & Vice President Isiah Warner's Retirement Events  

Join us as we honor LSU's first and only African American Boyd Professor, Isiah M. Warner, Vice President for the Office of Strategic Initiatives.  Professor Warner has dedicated 44 years to academia (nearly 3 decades at LSU) and stellar mentorship. This native of Bunkie, LA, received his BS degree from Southern University and PhD from the University of Washington. He has more than 380 refereed publications in a variety of journals relevant to the general areas of analytical and materials chemistry. His expertise is in fluorescence spectroscopy, his primary research scope for more than 40 years. Over the past 20 years, he has also maintained a strong research effort in the areas of organized media, separation science, and more recently, ionic liquid chemistry, particularly as applied to solid phase materials for applications in materials science and nanomaterials. Professor Warner has produced 68 PhD and 8 MS graduates out of his research group; more than half of whom are women and more than a third are underrepresented minorities.
While Professor Warner has greatly contributed to field of chemistry, he has also conducted extensive educational research that focuses on mechanisms for maintaining and enhancing student education in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), with a particular emphasis on encouraging under-represented students (women and minorities) to pursue terminal degrees in STEM. Through his leadership and mentorship, the LSU Department of Chemistry has become the leading producer of doctoral degrees in chemistry for African Americans in the U.S. and also lead in the percentage of women who receive PhDs. Prior to Professor Warner’s arrival at LSU, there were only six African American chemistry PhD graduates in its 150-year history. Currently, there are nearly 100.

Under his direction, the LSU Office of Strategic Initiatives (OSI) generated nearly $50 M in grants in support of LSU students and faculty. OSI has provided mentorship and holistic development to countless numbers of students across ten programs from the high school to doctoral levels. Dr. Warner has received a plethora of awards and recognition, more recently, the 2016 SEC Professor of the Year, member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2016), Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors (2017), Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (2017), Nature Mentor of the Year (2019), and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Professor (2002 to present) to name a few. More notably, he has also received the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring presented by President Clinton (1997), the American Chemical Society Award for Encouraging Disadvantaged Students in the Chemical Sciences (2003), and the Lifelong Dedication to Science, Education and Mentoring Proclamation by Governor John Bel Edwards (2016).  

In true Professor Warner fashion, his retirement celebration will consist of a three-day event to be held January 14-16, 2022.

NOTE:  Masks will be required for all events.

Retirement Event Summary 

 

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VIRTUAL RETIREMENT SYMPOSIUM

virtual farewell address