GoM research project & startup

The Water Institute of the Gulf researchers will join in a project funded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) RESTORE Science Program to examine how to maximize benefits of restoring and managing the Chandeleur Islands in the northern Gulf of Mexico, particularly as it relates to the unique seagrass ecosystems along the islands. The $127,065 project is being led by Kelly Darnell, a USM assistant research professor. The project is a collaboration between natural resource managers and researchers, that will develop a plan to answer questions about seagrasses and their associated communities and provide useable data used for restoration and long-term management of the islands. 

*New Orleans-based Levelset, a homegrown software business startup founded nearly 10 years ago, was sold for $500M to California software firm Procore Technologies, which is worth $12.5B. Procore is a construction software firm in Carpinteria, Calif. It’s a deal that helps smaller cities to lure investments from tech hubs from the Sam Francisco to the Boston-New York-Washington D.C. Levelset founder/CEO Scott Wolfe is a native of New Orleans who earned a law degree from Loyola University. Tulane business professor Rob Lalka, who heads the Albert Lepage Center for Entrepreneurship, said the key to Levelset's success was its embrace of an business sector crying for software made easier. “Construction liens weren’t as flashy as being the next … dating app," Lalka said. But they built a product that created value for an “overlooked customer, and that should be a wake-up call for other New Orleans entrepreneurs."

*Kristin Thomas-Martin has been named ExxonMobil Baton Rouge (La.) Plastics' plant manager. Thomas-Martin replaces Angela Zeringue, who was named senior operations planning advisor for ExxonMobil Chemical Company's Global Operations. Thomas-Martin began her career in 2006 with ExxonMobil at the BR chemical plant after graduating from the University of Tennessee with a degree in chemical engineering. In 2019, she began working as operations manager at the Baton Rouge Polyolefins Plant. 

*Clare Falcon is the new state geologist and director of the Louisiana Geological Survey. She brings more than 25 years of geoscience experience, mostly from industry, to the state position. Most recently, Falcon worked in Houston for BHP, a global resources company HQ'd in Australia. Since 2017, she served as a leadership coach, a geoscience manager and a geologist on Gulf of Mexico exploration and appraisal projects in the U.S. and Mexico. She has led the Gulf of Mexico exploration team as an exploration sedimentologist for the Italian multi-national O&G company Eni. She earned a degree in geology from Liverpool University and her doctorate from the University of Leeds in the U.K. (Source: NOLA.com 09/26/21)