Meet new faculty: Nabil Natafgi
December 16, 2019
Nabil Natafgi, a new professor in the Arnold School of Public Health, studies the quality of care in small, rural hospitals and whether telemedicine can improve that care.
2019 Archive
Social media insights lab taps into national conversation
December 12, 2019, Megan Sexton
The College of Information and Communications' Social Media Insights Lab is able to analyze sentiment and identify emerging trends that are occurring in real time on sources from Twitter to YouTube to blogs.
Meet new faculty: Julie Sease
December 09, 2019, Page Ivey
Julie Sease has rejoined the College of Pharmacy as senior associate dean and clinical professor. A graduate of the college in 2003, Sease also previously was a faculty member for five years.
UofSC sees increase in federal funding for health sciences
November 18, 2019, Tenell Felder
Researchers from the University of South Carolina are unlocking how botanicals could defeat chronic inflammation, how to prevent literary failure in students with hearing loss and how childhood obesity can be eliminated.
Meet new faculty: John Doering-White
November 04, 2019, Craig Brandhorst
John Doering-White became interested in immigration issues as an undergraduate and followed his research interests to Mexico as a graduate student. Now an associate professor at the University of South Carolina with a joint appointment in social work and anthropology, he hopes his research will contribute to the development of a more humane immigration system in the both the United States and Mexico.
Meet new faculty: Chelsea Stinnett
October 24, 2019, Megan Sexton
Chelsea Stinnett is an assistant research professor in the department of educational studies and is the new director of CarolinaLIFE, an inclusive certificate college program for students with diverse learning needs, such as intellectual disability.
Meet new faculty: Nicole Cooke
October 24, 2019, Megan Sexton
Nicole Cooke is the School of Library and Information Science’s new Augusta Baker Chair in Childhood Literacy, a position named for the pioneering African American librarian who served as the university’s storyteller-in-residence.
UofSC archaeologist finds evidence of extinction theory
October 22, 2019, Carol J.G. Ward
Based on research at White Pond near Elgin, South Carolina, UofSC archaeologist Christopher Moore and 16 colleagues present new evidence of a controversial theory that suggests an extraterrestrial body crashing to Earth almost 13,000 years ago caused the extinction of many large animals and a probable population decline in early humans.
Plotting a pothole-free future
October 21, 2019, Chris Horn
South Carolina's nearly 91,000 lane miles of pavement are deteriorating faster than ever, thanks to record numbers of cars and trucks on the road. Nathan Huynh doesn’t have a magic formula to fix the wear and tear, but he hopes to use his modeling skills to help the S.C. Department of Transportation develop a better statistical formula for predicting the long-term health of the Palmetto State’s pavement.
Researchers use virtual reality videos to help medical students cultivate compassion
October 07, 2019, Chris Horn
Gaining insight into a patient’s concerns and feelings is essential for positive clinical interactions between patients and physicians and better health outcomes. To help foster empathy in medical students, researchers at the School of Medicine Greenville are testing virtual reality videos.
Year of the fish
October 03, 2019, Chris Horn
Add this to the growing list of side effects wrought by climate change — fish in parts of the warming Atlantic Ocean are growing faster. That might seem like a good thing, but two fish biologists at the University of South Carolina say the phenomenon of younger, bigger fish could muddy the waters of vital fisheries management.
UofSC research partnerships generating over $790 million for the Palmetto State
October 02, 2019, Jeff Stensland
The Office of Economic Engagement, with its corporate and government partners, has created over $790 million in indirect economic impact since its founding in 2013. The figure includes ongoing industry partner investments along with grant generation, software gifts, and new job creation.
Telling the American story -- through comics
September 30, 2019, Carol J.G. Ward and Joshua Burrack
With a massive donation of comics from Gary Lee Watson in the spring of 2019, the University of South Carolina is becoming an intellectual center for the study of 20th century popular culture. “The acquisition has made the Irvin department one of the nation's top public repositories of comic books, positioning the University of South Carolina as a premier institution for comics studies,” says Elizabeth Sudduth, associate dean for special collections in University Libraries.
Meet new faculty: Myisha Eatmon
September 13, 2019, Page Ivey
Myisha Eatmon has joined the university as a research fellow in the history department and will begin as an assistant professor of African American history in fall 2020. The North Carolina native's research focuses on black legal culture in the face of white-on-black violence under Jim Crow and black civil litigation’s impact on civil law.
The career changer
September 12, 2019, Chris Horn
If you’re a junior faculty member, landing that first external research grant is a game changer, a jump-start for your research agenda. Getting a National Science Foundation CAREER award is a career changer, but the only catch — and it’s a big one — is that CAREER awards are hard to come by.
Students capture drag racing's seismic activity
August 30, 2019, Craig Brandhorst
This past spring, four students measured the ground acceleration of super-charged dragsters at a Charlotte, N.C. drag strip as part of a special topics course. What they found nearly knocked their socks off.
Engineering professor believes in the power of nuclear energy
August 26, 2019, Abe Danaher
Travis Knight sees many benefits to nuclear energy, including a well-paying field for the graduates of his University of South Carolina nuclear energy program and an economic driver for the state.
Nephron, UofSC researchers improving medication safety through automation
August 23, 2019, Jeff Stensland
Nephron Pharmaceuticals Corporation has joined forces with the University of South Carolina College of Engineering and Computing to design and implement an automation process that significantly boosts production of pre-filled medication, reducing the physical burden on workers and increasing patient safety.
4 programs funded to improve health in SC
August 22, 2019, Page Ivey
Four University of South Carolina projects to improve the health and well-being of South Carolinians are getting a boost from $2.4 million in grants from the Duke Endowment.
UofSC startup breaks ground in nano-optical manufacturing
August 20, 2019, Chris Horn
The successful sale of physics professor Thomas Crawford’s startup company is a testament to the university’s SmartState Center for Experimental Nanoscale Physics, one of more than two dozen centers established to foster research that leads to commercialization, economic development and job creation.
New partnership aims to enrich student growth, opportunity
August 08, 2019, Kathryn McPhail
The Accelerator for Learning and Leadership for South Carolina (ALL4SC) is an outreach project that will bring together researchers and professionals from 12 academic and professional units at the university to create a strategy to close achievement and opportunity gaps for all students
UofSC researchers work to develop more resilient power grid
August 06, 2019, Megan Sexton
Andrea Benigni and his college in the College of Engineering and Computing's Integrated Grids Lab are working to develop a system that would change the traditional power grid, creating a resilient system of micro-grids that locally manage energy storage and resources.
Changing triage procedures
August 05, 2019, Megan Sexton
University of South Carolina researchers are working to study and improve the way patients are examined and treated in the aftermath of a chemical mass casualty event, such as the 2005 train collision in Graniteville, South Carolina.
Disaster research
July 29, 2019, Megan Sexton
From a thousand-year flood to deadly hurricanes, South Carolina is no stranger to disasters. That’s why University of South Carolina researchers are working to better understand why dams fail, how to quickly map disaster areas and ways to improve how people with disabilities navigate natural disasters.
Eyes of the scallop
July 26, 2019, Megan Sexton
When Daniel Speiser tells people that he studies the structure, function and evolution of eyes, they typically envision two eyes on one head. But Speiser, an assistant professor of biological sciences in the College of Arts and Sciences, specializes in marine invertebrates with many eyes — sometimes hundreds of eyes distributed across their bodies.
Ground control to major grants
July 25, 2019, Craig Brandhorst
Ten successful doctoral candidates supervised since 2012, 18 funded research projects, 109 refereed conference papers, more than 70 journal articles — by almost any metric, David Matolak is a leader in his field.
UofSC graduate donates lunar maps created for Apollo missions
July 18, 2019, Carol J.G. Ward
Charles Shull, a 1957 University of South Carolina graduate, led a team in the 1960s and 70s that created maps of the moon’s surface to ensure that human crews could safely land and depart.
Breakthrough Leader: Tim Mousseau
July 12, 2019, Page Ivey
One way or another, most life on Earth is affected when one of humanity’s most volatile inventions — the nuclear power plant — catastrophically fails. Biology professor Tim Mousseau leads a team of researchers studying the impact of radiation released from those disasters on animal life, including insects, birds, dogs and humans who live near the failed power plants.
Breakthrough Star: Paula Vasquez
July 05, 2019, Julie Smith Turner
You don’t have to understand Paula Vasquez’s mathematical experimentalism to appreciate what it can do. Her mathematical models bring theoretical and computational reasoning to ultra-complex biological functions such as mucus flow in the lungs and cellular dynamics in yeast cells.
Breakthrough Star: Joshua Ruppel
June 28, 2019, Craig Brandhorst
Teaching at a primarily undergraduate institution doesn’t mean you can’t do important research. And attending one as a student shouldn’t preclude the formative experience of immersing oneself in a lab. Just ask Joshua Ruppel, associate professor of chemistry at the University of South Carolina Upstate.
UofSC faculty experts: 2020 S.C. Senate, congressional races and presidential election
June 27, 2019, Carol J.G. Ward
The University of South Carolina’s Office of Communications and Public Affairs has compiled a list of faculty experts who can discuss topics relevant to the 2020 South Carolina primaries and the presidential election.
Breakthrough Leader: Virginia Scotchie
June 21, 2019, Chris Horn
You never know where you might find Virginia Scotchie’s art. Head of ceramics in the School of Visual Art and Design since 1992, Scotchie’s iconic spheres and intricately glazed sculptural forms are in public and private collections across the country and around the world.
Fulbright Grant allows recipients to continue study, research
June 20, 2019, Josh German
For the 18th consecutive year, the University of South Carolina will be represented abroad by Fulbright U.S. student grantees conducting research, studying and serving as English teaching assistants.
Social workers play key role in immigrant students' success
June 18, 2019, Chris Horn
About one-quarter of children in the U.S. under the age of 18 are immigrants or the children of immigrants, a status that often translates into educational disadvantages. A College of Social Work faculty member is involved in surveying school social workers nationwide to learn what they are doing to help those children navigate successfully through their public school experiences.
Breakthrough Star: Sourav Banerjee
June 15, 2019, Chris Horn
You’ve heard of dog whisperers and horse whisperers. Meet Sourav Banerjee, the material whisperer.
Colon cancer researcher finds new treatment for deadly disease
June 11, 2019, John Brunelli
When colon cancer spreads, it often ends up in the liver, where surgery can be complicated, even impossible. That’s why research in the University of South Carolina’s College of Pharmacy proving the efficacy of a new class of cancer drugs is so significant.
Breakthrough Star: Andrew Greytak
June 08, 2019, Page Ivey
Andrew Greytak works with very small objects that emit brilliant light. These objects —nanocrystal quantum dots — can be altered for different uses ranging from color-saturated television and screen displays to improved cancer detection and solar cells.
Retailing professor wins Fulbright for work in Uzbekistan
June 04, 2019, Allen Wallace
The Fulbright program is one of the most famous and prestigious scholarship programs in the world, with 59 alumni who also have Nobel Prizes and 82 Pulitzer Prize winners. Many people in academia try throughout their career and never win a Fulbright Scholarship. Professor Mark Rosenbaum, chair of the University of South Carolina Department of Retailing, now has three.
Breakthrough Star: Mythreye Karthikeyan
June 01, 2019, Chris Horn
It isn’t a common disease, but ovarian cancer is usually fatal, accounting for more deaths than all other female reproductive cancers. That makes Mythreye Karthikeyan’s research all the more relevant as she zeroes in on the cancer’s Achilles' heel.
Pat on the back
May 29, 2019, Chris Horn
Do reward and recognition programs actually increase employee engagement? Haemoon Oh and his research team plan to conduct research to test the reliability of a growing body of research on employee engagement.
Turning big data into smart data
May 29, 2019, Chris Horn
A new Artificial Intelligence Institute at the University of South Carolina will launch this summer, building on and harnessing the collective efforts of dozens of faculty members who already are advancing AI research initiatives in diverse academic disciplines.
Breakthrough Star: Ali Brian
May 24, 2019, Megan Sexton
Ali Brian’s physical education research thus far makes two things clear — most children, with and without disabilities, are delayed in developing their gross motor skills, and those skills can dramatically improve with just a small dose of intervention.
Brain Power
May 23, 2019, Alyssa Yancey
Second-year Ph.D. candidate Katy Pilarzyk was one of three University of South Carolina students awarded a prestigious NSF Graduate Research Fellowship this year. She will use her funding to continue her work in Michy Kelly’s lab at the School of Medicine Columbia. The lab studies the inner workings of the brain to better understand the molecular mechanisms underlying social and cognitive deficits.
Dealing with dementia
May 22, 2019, Page Ivey
Social work and public health researchers Sue Levkoff and Daniela Friedman are teaming up to open a new front line in the battle against Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia, particularly among the African American population, which has a greater incidence of the disease and related dementias.
What's got your attention?
May 21, 2019, Chris Horn
A professor in the Darla Moore School of Business, Paul Bliese is part of an international research team conducting a five-year study of 600 soldiers to determine if they exhibit signs of threat-related attention bias that might point to risk factors for developing post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other behavioral health problems.
Breakthrough Star: Samuel Amadon
May 18, 2019, Julie Smith Turner
When Samuel Amadon’s self-described “mediocre high school football career” fizzled, he caught a new passion: writing.
Culturally relevant teaching changes the game for students
May 13, 2019, Kathryn McPhail
Jackson Creek Elementary School, in Columbia, is committed to improving the way its teachers are educating students — both academically and socially. The school is collaborating with College of Education professors to offer all teachers and support staff ongoing professional development in culturally relevant teaching.
Graduating senior leaves legacy of HOPE for people with disabilities
May 06, 2019, Allen Wallace
Andrew Super will graduate from the University of South Carolina May 11, but earning his diploma might be the second most impressive thing he has accomplished during his college career. In the past two and a half years, he has helped provide numerous free prosthetic devices for children and veterans in need, through a company he co-founded.
Solid gold
May 02, 2019, Amanda Hernandez
Three juniors in the College of Arts and Sciences join the prestigious list of South Carolina Goldwater Scholars. A total of 56 Goldwater Scholarships have been awarded to UofSC students since 1990. Jeremy LaPointe, Jana Liese and Sarah Beth Pye are this year's recipients.
Blockbuster comics collection comes to UofSC
May 01, 2019, Nicole Carrico
The 1963 comic book that started it all, Marvel’s Avengers #1, is one item in a massive collection recently donated to UofSC by lifelong collector Gary Lee Watson of Columbus, Ohio.
Following fragile Xers' transition
April 15, 2019, Chris Horn
A four-year study tracking high-school seniors with fragile X syndrome could yield new insights into how well these students transition into adulthood, says an Arnold School of Public Health researcher heading a portion of the study.
There's a bot for that
April 10, 2019, Chris Horn
If you’ve spent much time on social media, you’ve probably encountered social bots, the software programs that automatically produce content and emulate human behavior. But why was there so much social bot activity following last year’s mass shooting at a high school in Parkland, Florida?
Breakthrough Star: Breanne Grace
April 05, 2019, Megan Sexton
Breanne Grace got her first glimpse of a refugee community as an undergraduate, studying abroad in Tanzania. A political science major interested in law school and a career in politics at the time, the immersive experience opened her eyes to war and conflict issues she had studied in the classroom, seeing them in a much more human way.
UofSC's Excellence Initiative launches eight new high-impact projects
April 02, 2019, Jeff Stensland
Eight new research and outreach projects have been selected for funding as a part of the Excellence Initiative, a competitive grant program launched by the Board of Trustees last year to identify and fund proposals with the potential to be transformative and have a lasting impact on the university.
Need for speed
April 02, 2019, Chris Horn
They don’t look like a NASCAR pit crew, but South Carolina's Research Computing team is speeding up the data-crunching capabilities of UofSC scientists, bringing faster analytical results and more efficient computing to those who work with very large and complex data sets.
Go with the flow
March 29, 2019, Page Ivey
For most of us, learning to solve math problems was an end unto itself. But University of South Carolina mathematics professor Zhu Wang uses math to solve real-world problems.
Unlocking a mystery
March 28, 2019, Annika Dahlgren
For the past eight years, people from around the world have gathered at the University of South Carolina’s Hollings Library to experience the wonder of medieval manuscripts, and this year is no different. The ninth annual Medieval Manuscripts Symposium will take place April 1-2. “Understanding the Medieval Book,” is a two-day seminar dedicated to learning about the care, keeping, and understanding of medieval manuscripts.
Breakthrough Star: Tisha Felder
March 22, 2019, Page Ivey
In the fight against breast cancer, there are two distinct lines of research: treatment and prevention. Breakthrough Star Tisha Felder, an assistant professor and researcher in the College of Nursing and Cancer Prevention and Control Program in the Arnold School of Public Health, finds herself at the crossroads of those two lines.
Seeking answers at Lost City
March 05, 2019, Julie S. Turner
Assistant professor of aqueous geochemistry Susan Lang will travel to the ends of the earth for her research — or at least to the middle of the ocean. In 2018, Lang was co-lead researcher on a major research expedition to one of the most remote parts of the Atlantic — an unusual hydrothermal field dubbed Lost City.
Global footprint
March 04, 2019, Craig Brandhorst
The University of South Carolina has been a global player for a long time. But since 2011, when the Focus Carolina strategic plan was announced, the university has significantly increased its internationalization efforts, transforming a healthy overseas presence into a clearly defined global footprint.
March Madness in Columbia
March 01, 2019, Allen Wallace
This month, for the first time in almost 50 years, March Madness returns to Columbia, South Carolina, with the city chosen as a host site for the first and second rounds of the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Tournament. As fan excitement builds, faculty in the University of South Carolina’s sport and entertainment management department share their expertise on what the event will mean for the city and the campus community.
Studying the link between mind and body
February 28, 2019, John Brunelli
The Behavioral-Biomedical Interface Program, funded by a prestigious National Institutes of Health research training grant, has been such a success that the NIH renewed it for a third five-year cycle.
Precision Baseball
February 26, 2019, Madeleine Vath
Last February, Gamecock Baseball sought help from three management science professors at the Darla Moore School of Business to make sense of the raw data from their new data collection system, TrackMan, which captures pitching and hitting statistics for the team. The collaboration between academics and athletics was a success.
Empowered by hip-hop
February 18, 2019, Carol Ward
Noella “Binda” Niati has always been fascinated by the collision of hip-hop/rap, engagement and social change. As a doctoral candidate in the Educational Foundations and Inquiry program of the USC College of Education, she’s turned her attention to harnessing the power of hip hop in transforming education and citizen engagement.
Empowered by hip-hop
February 18, 2019, Julie Turner
Noella “Binda” Niati has always been fascinated by the collision of hip-hop/rap, engagement and social change. As a doctoral candidate in the Educational Foundations and Inquiry program of the College of Education, she’s turned her attention to harnessing the power of hip-hop in transforming education and citizen engagement.
The ties that unbind
February 15, 2019, Craig Brandhorst
A new study by sociology assistant professor Caroline Hartnett and a pair of co-investigators from the University of Michigan and the University of Texas at Austin looks at young adults with no parental figures in their lives.
All the news that isn't
February 13, 2019, Craig Brandhorst
In the age of social media, it can be hard to tell truth from fiction. And when it comes to news — particularly if it’s related to a hot button political issue — fake news increasingly gets peddled as real news while real news gets maligned as fake. Enter Mo Jang, an assistant professor in the School of Journalism and Mass Communications, and mass communication Ph.D. student Jo-Yun “Queenie” Li. Jang and Li were part of a research team that looked at the origins and spread of fake news on Twitter.
The growing resistance
February 12, 2019, Chris Horn
Antibiotic resistance, a public health threat that already endangers millions worldwide, is on track to become a much deadlier problem in the years ahead. Part of the challenge, says a University of South Carolina public health scientist, is that bacterial resistance to antibiotic medications is fostered not only in clinical settings but also in the environment.
Committed to service
February 08, 2019, Laura Kammerer
At the height of the Ebola epidemic in 2014, Cheedy Jaja traded the relative comforts of American health care practice for Tyvek bodysuits and chlorine baths. Now the Sierra Leonean native is committed to a new mission: to bolster the early diagnosis and treatment of sickle cell disease in children.
3 faculty members selected as Carolina Distinguished Professors
January 29, 2019, Amanda Hernandez
Provost Joan Gabel has named Claudia Benitez-Nelson and Hans-Conrad zur Loye from the College of Arts and Sciences, and Gloria Boutte from the College of Education, as this year’s recipients of the Carolina Distinguished Professorship.
The ultimate recycle
January 24, 2019, Chris Horn
Most of us look at a pile of mulch and see ground-up tree bark and wood fibers. Andreas Heyden sees a potential energy source. The chemical engineering professor’s research is focused on developing specialized catalysts capable of breaking down biomass such as mulch and animal waste into renewable fuels.
Let's get analytical
January 24, 2019, Chris Horn
Imagine how many threads of social media a professional sports team might generate in a single day. Now imagine tracking each one — every tweet, every Facebook comment, every Instagram post — every day for every team in Major League Baseball. If you can get your mind wrapped around that, welcome to Nick Watanabe’s world.
Living history
January 22, 2019, Megan Sexton
Cleveland Sellers, an icon of the civil rights movement, returns to the University of South Carolina this semester to bring the message of justice, equality and peace to a new generation of college students.
Law and order
January 22, 2019, Megan Sexton
Criminal justice research spans multiple programs and colleges at the University of South Carolina. And the work is taking place a few miles from campus and a world away in Uganda.
Touching the past
January 15, 2019, Chris Horn
As curator of collections at McKissick Museum, Christian Cicimurri is accustomed to handling old documents and artifacts. But thanks to an ASPIRE II grant and subsequent funding from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, Cicimurri has got her hands on new touch screen technology, which is being incorporated into McKissick’s exhibits.
Fishing for information
January 11, 2019, Chris Horn
When Virginia Shervette hangs a ‘GONE FISHING’ sign on her door, it’s more than an afternoon jaunt. The USC Aiken fisheries biologist investigates the health of commercial and recreational fish populations in the Caribbean basin in hopes that fisheries managers will use the information when developing accurate assessments of which species are being overfished.
A major draw
December 31, 2018, Megan Sexton
South Caroliniana Library is home to one of the country’s greatest collections of Southern history and manuscripts, a treasure trove for researchers that includes everything from Civil War diaries to textile-mill business records to historic South Carolina books and newspapers, photographs and architectural drawings.
The next big thing(s)
December 31, 2018, Page Ivey
The university has entered two new partnerships — the Industrial Internet of Things Research Lab, which is a partnership with IBM, and the 15,000-square-foot Digital Transformation Lab, which will serve as a research showplace for projects with an array of real-world industrial and consumer applications. USC Times asked Bill Kirkland, director of the Office of Economic Engagement, to help us understand both ventures.