Each year, the Office of the Vice President for Research awards Research Initiative for Summer Engagement, or RISE grants to faculty from UofSC’s comprehensive institutions and Palmetto College campuses to pursue meritorious research projects during the summer months. This year, 32 faculty members were selected by a committee of their peers across the university to receive 2020 RISE grants through a competitive process.
The Office of the Vice President for Research is proud to congratulate all of the 2020 RISE recipients. RISE funding is supported by the Office of the Vice President for Research with generous contributions from the chancellors at the four-year comprehensive institutions, USC Aiken, USC Beaufort and USC Upstate.
Read more about the RISE Grant Program.
2020 Comprehensive Institution RISE Recipients
| Recipient Name | Project Title | College |
| Brown, Alaina | Publication of a Research-Based Activity for use in a Physical Chemistry Active Learning Classroom | Upstate |
| Cheng, Jack | The Impact of Uncertainty on Business Dynamism Across the U.S. States | Upstate |
| Dinger, Michael | IT Role Embeddedness and the Professionalism of IT Workers | Upstate |
| Egbue, Ona | An Online Optimization Approach for Vehicle-to-Grid Systems | Upstate |
| Harris, Scott | Shrinking Solutions: How Concentrated Policies Exacerbate the Democratic Deficit | Upstate |
| Herzberg, Tina | Evaluation of the Effectiveness of Hands-on Training on the New STEM Braille Code for Teachers of Students with Visual Impairments | Upstate |
| James, Timothy | Corruption and Troop Strength in Mexico's Army, 1884-1904 | Beaufort |
| Liu, Shuang | "Just One More Rep": Using Fitness Apps and Competition to Motivate Performance and Evaluate Deception | Upstate |
| Marshall, Nicholas | Development of an initiator for the surface-initiated Kumada polymerization reaction (SI-KCTP) | Aiken |
| Miller, Kristi | Impact of Patient Safety Curriculum on Student Patient Safety Attitudes and NCLEX Pass Rates. | Upstate |
| Mueller, Rebecca | Beaumont Mill Village Teacher Workshop | Upstate |
| Nag, Anita | Proteomic Analyses of SARS Coronavirus Protein nsp1 to Investigate Its Host Shutoff Mechanism | Upstate |
| Omoike, Anselm | Enhancing Degradation of Bisphenol A (BPA) by Unactivated Peroxymonosulfate: Impact of Chloride Ions and Natural Organic Matter | Upstate |
| Pazda, Adam | Exploring how the chroma and lightness content of visual imagery relates to emotions | Aiken |
| Placek, Matthew | Social Media Use and Regime Support Among Opposition Partisans and Non-Partisans in Russia | Upstate |
| Ramsted, Kristina | Leveraging Bioinformatics for increased power in genomic analyses of American wood storks | Aiken |
| Rowe, Gerard | Computational Studies of the CO2 Reactivity of a Series of Copper(I) Pyridylamidate Complexes | Aiken |
| Stolz, Nolan | The Emergence of Heavy Metal and Progressive Rock in Black Sabbath's Music from 1969 to 1971 | Upstate |
| Tanner, Scott | Gene Expression Analysis of Multidrug Resistance Gene Deficient Intestinal Cells during Wound Healing | Upsate |
| Wade, Julie | State Affect and IT Usage | Upstate |
| Zhao, Liang | Developing a Secure Decentralized Data Analytics Framework for the Internet of Things | Upstate |
| Zhong, Wei | Using Multi-level Generative Adversarial Networks to Improve Security and Robustness of Deep Learning Frameworks for Malware Detection | Upstate |
2020 Palmetto College Campus RISE Recipients
| Recipient Name | Project Title | Campus |
| Berry, Marybeth | On the Spectrum | Lancaster |
| Cai, Li | Initial Investigation on the Effects of H2S-Releasing Wound Dressing on Acceleration of Burn Wound Healing | Lancaster |
| Dangerfield, David | Hard Pressed: Free People of Color in Rural Antebellum South Carolina | Salkehatchie |
| Grob, Kristina | Embodied Irony: An Emotional Genealogy of American Second-Wave Feminist Beauvoir Scholarship | Sumter |
| Miller, Sarah | Watching Over the Ruin: The people and their stories from the Pon Pon Chapel of Ease cemetery | Salkehatchie |
| Ngwane, Fidele | A novel time series model for drought prediction: South Carolina Case Study | Salkehatchie |
| Rack, Melissa | "'Which even of sweetness sweetest sweet'ner art?:' Paulus Melissus and Neo-Catullan basia in Sir Philip Sidney's Astrophel and Stella." | Salkehatchie |
| Sellhorst, Sarah | Perceptions of Undergraduate Research Participation: A Look at the Faculty Perspective | Lancaster |
| Sixta Rinehart, Christine | Confederate Brothers in Arms: The Quattlebaum Family of South Carolina | Union |
| Steward, Rodney | William Woods Holden and the Rise of Civil War Era Populism | Salkehatchie |
21 February 2020