The Office of the Vice President for Research is pleased to award 52 2021-2022 SPARC Graduate Research Grants to support graduate student researchers across eight University of South Carolina academic units. These SPARC recipients, listed below, will use their funding to engage in research, scholarly and creative projects over a 15-month period beginning this May.

Through SPARC, or Support to Promote Advancement of Research and Creativity, graduate students compete for internal funding of up to $5,000 to support their meritorious research, creative and scholarly projects. This process offers the possibility of funding along with valuable experience in the process of applying for sponsored awards. SPARC applicants complete many of the same steps involved in developing extramural research funding proposals, like planning a budget, documenting current and pending support, and drafting and refining the proposal narrative. By practicing these skills, SPARC applicants prepare themselves for a future in research, which often involves applying for funding through similar processes.

Please join the Office of the Vice President for Research in congratulating these promising graduate student scholars.

 

2021-2022 SPARC Graduate Research Grant Recipients

Recipient Name	Degree Program	Proposal Title
Andrea Acosta	Anthropology	Behind the Roman gens: A Bioarchaeological Study of Family Structure and Social Change in Iron AgeItaly (900 - 700 BCE)
Mohammed Al-Fahdi	Mechanical Engineering	Design Novel Thermoelectric Materials by Generative Adversarial Networks and Density Functional Theory
Gabriel Benavidez	Epidemiology	Examining Disparities in Cancer Stage and Mortality Among Medicaid Enrollees
McKenzie Black	Mathematics	Collective dynamics with nonlinear velocity alignment
Samantha Bouknight	Biomedical Sciences	Effects of Oxytocin in the Locus Coeruleus on Addiction-Related Behavior
Kexun Chen	Chemistry	Pathway Selection of Catalytic Transfer Hydrogenation on Metal Nanoparticle Surfaces
Shuying Chen	Comparative Literature	O'Neill Beyond the Horizon: Eugene O'Neill Adapted in 1980s China
Candice Cheung	Biomedical Engineering	Elucidating sexually dimorphic responses of primary satellite cells to ATRA-PLG particles for muscle recovery.
Ellen Cooper	Communication Sciences and Disorders	Impact of Training and Experience on Hearing Loss Health Literacy in Speech-Language Pathologists
David Eap	Chemistry	Do Metallothioneins Have a Role in Regulating Fungal Iron Homeostasis?
Alexis Federico	Clinical-Community Psychology	Assessing Familial Risk of ASD and ADHD
Claire Fisher	Chemistry	Elucidating the Function of the Monothiol Glutaredoxin, GrxD, in Escherichia coli
Karen Flynn	Social Work	Shaped by capital, constrained by context: Exploring processes of professional inclusion for High Skilled Venezuelan Migrants in Argentina
Kenneth Frederick	Biological Sciences	Drug-induced dystonia: investigating underlying molecular mechanisms and novel therapies.
Kyle George	Chemical Engineering	Bioinspired Chiral Photonic Nanostructures Based on Hydroxypropyl Cellulose
Farivash Gholamirad	Chemical Engineering	The Performance of Ti3C2 MXene/Polyelectrolyte Assemblies for Electromagnetic Interference (EMI) Shielding
Nicolas Harder	Sociology	Heuristics and Cultural Competition: How the Status of Cultural Objects are Formed and Status Influences Survival
Julia Hohn	Biomedical Sciences	Effects of emodin on doxorubicin-induced cardiac fibroblast dysfunction
Erin Hunt	Clinical-Community Psychology	Inhibitory Control in Children with Fragile X Syndrome: Biological Underpinnings, Familial Predictors, and Functional Outcomes
Sarah Jackson	Geography	The Role of Geographic Context in Tornado Risk Perception and Response
Madison Janakis	Biological Sciences	Visual Ecology in the Porcelain crab, Petrolisthes armatus
Sadia Jehan	Social Work	Understanding the role of Despair in Prescription Opioid Misuse Among Adults in United States
Julia Johnston	Clinical-Community Psychology	Role of Sensory Processing and Neuropathic Pain in Pain Experiences in Adolescents with Sickle Cell Disease
Devin Kellis	Biomedical Sciences	Cholinergic determinants of rodent individual differences in fear extinction
Eric King	Social Work	Examining the perceptions of choice and military enlistment: an exploratory study
Jody Lanza-Gregory	School Psychology	Exploring Educator Readiness for a School Neuropsychological Approach to SLD Identification
Jennifer Linscott	Biological Sciences	Ephemeral Water and Shorebird Migration in the Northern Great Plains
Mary Lynn	Epidemiology	Infectious causes of perinatal and congenital morbidity in pregnant women from rural El Salvador
Xiao Ma	Hospitality Management	‘I want YOU!’: Exploring post-pandemic recruitment and retention strategies in the U.S. restaurant industry
Zachary Mack	Pharmaceutical Sciences	Preventing adaptive therapeutic resistance to CDK4/6 inhibition with CDK8/19 inhibitors
Helen Marodin	History	Confectionery Arts of Pelotas, Brazil: Intersectional Foodways in the Nineteenth Century
Sean McQueeney	Exercise Science	Influence of Maximal Grip Contraction on Medial Elbow Joint Space Displacement in College Baseball Pitchers
Kristiaan Merritt	Biological Sciences	The Colorful World of Cryptophyte Microalgae
Chandani Mitchell	Biomedical Sciences	Role of AhR in IL-22 secretion by Rorc-expressing cells during indole-3-carbinol treatment of colitis
Carly Moser	Communication Sciences and Disorders	The Role of Physiological Coordination Among Parents and Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder
Chelsea Norregaard	Health Services Policy and Management	The role of structural racism on the association between maternal obesity and severe maternal morbidity in South Carolina
Nkechi Okpara	Health Promotion, Education, and Behavior	Body Image blended with Nutrition, and add a dash of Self-compassion: A randomized controlled trial for African American high school teenage girls
Sarah Pace	Social Work	The Use of Technology in Reducing Isolation and Loneliness Among Low-Income Older Adults
Hannah Parker	Exercise Science	The Feasibility of a Community-Based Resistance Training Program of Youth with Overweight and Obesity
Victoria Pinkston	Linguistics Program	Tracing Discourses of Racism from National to Local Spaces
Megan Routh	Sociology	What We Say in the Shadows: Whisper Networks Among Women and Gender Minority Individuals in STEM
Nina Schreiner	Anthropology	Settler-Colonial Artifact Collection at Woodville Plantation, ca. 1850-1925
Mary Elizabeth Sewell	Educational Psychology and Research	The HERO Within: Developing the Psychological Capital of First-Generation Students
Fanghui Shi	Health Promotion, Education, and Behavior	The impact of structural racism on poor engagement along the HIV care continuum in South Carolina
Rebecca Smith-Hill	Special Education	Agency and College Students with Intellectual Disabilities: A Photovoice Project
Carlie Todd	History	Breaking the ‘Old Boy’s Club’: A History of Women in the US Intelligence Community, 1945-2001
Lancen Tully	Geological Sciences	From the Mountains to the Sea: Advancing our Knowledge of Earth History and Sediment Dynamics Through Detrital Zircon Geochronology in the South Carolina Coastal Plain
Janay Vacharasin	Biological Sciences	Defining the Role of mTOR Signaling in ASH1L-related Autism Spectrum Disorder
Mihyun Waugh	Biomedical Engineering	Peptoids As Potential Inhibitors of RAGE in Alzheimer's Disease
Alexandra Weaver	Educational Psychology and Research	Self-Efficacy Rates of Bereaved Students and Implications for Retention
Cheng Xiao	Linguistics Program	Bridging Meaning and Sound: The Effects of Emotional Prosody on Semantic Processing in Mandarin Chinese Words and Sentences
Gene Yang	Mechanical Engineering	Design of Vertically Strained Interfaces in Oxide Heterostructures for Fast Oxygen Reduction

 

14 January 2022