September 12, 2024 — LSU astrophysicist Manos Chatzopoulos just wanted a place to park.
A decade ago, as a postdoctoral fellow in Chicago, he would circle his neighborhood trying to find a spot, only to have to walk several blocks home in the bitter cold.
The problem sparked an idea. In 2020, while working as an LSU professor, Chatzopoulos joined forces with an LSU computer science student and the school to create ParkZen, an app that uses crowdsourced data to help drivers find available parking spaces.