
Stamps of Approval
July 27, 2022, Craig Brandhorst
Michael Amiridis is a proven leader with the resume to match. But if you want to know what makes the university’s 30th president so successful, ask the people who have worked alongside him.
July 27, 2022, Craig Brandhorst
Michael Amiridis is a proven leader with the resume to match. But if you want to know what makes the university’s 30th president so successful, ask the people who have worked alongside him.
July 18, 2022, Chris Horn
It’s one thing to be late for a haircut because of a crossing train. But when Yu Qian spotted an ambulance with lights flashing and siren blaring — but blocked by a train — he put his civil engineering expertise to work.
July 12, 2022
Since establishing an Artificial Intelligence Institute in 2019, the university has seen growing interest in the subject across campus. There are now dozens of researchers throughout the university exploring how artificial intelligence and machine learning can be used to advance fields from health care to manufacturing.
June 20, 2022, Abe Danaher
This is Michael Sutton’s lifetime achievement award. His Major League Baseball Hall of Fame induction. His Heisman Trophy; maybe even his Nobel Prize. When Sutton receives the 2022 Timoshenko Medal on Nov. 2, he will officially be recognized as one of the greatest scientists the field of applied mechanics has ever seen.
June 16, 2022, Craig Brandhorst
Associate professor of integrated information technology Jorge Chrichigno builds a virtual “playground” for IT education.
June 14, 2022, Page Ivey
Brenden Chavis, an informatics Ph.D. student in the College of Engineering and Computing, is able to pay for his own education thanks to programs funded by Fluor Corp.
June 06, 2022, Megan Sexton
Pooyan Jamshidi first became interested in robotics when he was about 10 years old, his imagination captured by the single book about the topic available in the small library in his elementary school in Iran. He now is an assistant professor of computer science and engineering at UofSC and a visiting researcher at Google.
June 01, 2022, Chris Horn
For the past 10 years, Fabio Matta, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering, has been engineering earthen building blocks made from local soil. Up close, the blocks don’t look like anything special, but their simplicity is the appeal — the blocks don’t require firing in energy-intensive kiln furnaces and can stand up to the worst Mother Nature can throw at them.
May 03, 2022, Craig Brandhorst
When computer engineering major Dimitri Amiridis crosses the stage at commencement this spring, the South Carolina Honors College graduate will become the third member of his family with a degree from the University of South Carolina. The only member of his immediate family not to hold a degree from his new alma mater? Dimitri’s father, university President-elect Michael Amiridis.
May 02, 2022, Craig Brandhorst
Incoming University of South Carolina President Michael Amiridis is going to miss the University of Illinois Chicago, but he has zero misgivings about the new job. In fact, the former UofSC faculty member-turned-administrator is thrilled to return to the campus where he cut his academic teeth.
April 21, 2022, Communications and Marketing
Mechanical engineering major Gabriel Nossar Carrilho is using what he’s learned at the University of South Carolina to serve the campus community, the Latinx community and even people in his native South America in need of clean water. For his efforts, Carrilho has been awarded the university’s top leadership award — the 2022 Algernon Sydney Sullivan Award.
April 12, 2022, Allen Wallace
On April 9, nearly 2,000 University of South Carolina students spent the day dancing together, closing more than a year of work with a huge success as they raised $931,016 to support the Child Life program at Prisma Health Children's Hospital.
March 07, 2022, Savannah Bennett
With only a few short months until summer, it’s time for parents to find summer activities for their children. UofSC offers a wide variety of summer camps for all interests from music to soccer and dance to engineering.
February 28, 2022, Chris Horn
A new water sampling aerial drone developed by University of South Carolina professors has six motors, four pumps, two batteries, one six-foot-long collection hose and a zero-carbon footprint. But this proof-of-concept machine could become even more impressive if the team is able to secure NSF funding for a new level of capability.
November 19, 2021, Craig Brandhorst
Adel Nasiri joined the University of South Carolina as a distinguished professor of electrical engineering in August, following a 16-year career at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. His research on energy conversion, microgrids and batteries has taken on added import as sustainability, efficiency and resilience efforts ramp up during the age of climate change.
November 17, 2021, Michael Ettlemyer
The COVID-19 pandemic created challenges to the quality of care not only by increasing the number of patients needing mental health treatment, but also by moving many appointments and communications from in-person to telehealth.
September 15, 2021, Page Ivey
Mandy Elmore realized early in her career as an engineer that part of her responsibility to the profession was to share her love of engineering, math and science with the next generation. The three-time UofSC graduate is now dean for the Engineering and Industrial Technology Division at Tri-County Technical College.
September 13, 2021, Megan Sexton
The University of South Carolina has the top first-year student experience of any public college in the country, according to U.S. News and World Report’s annual undergraduate rankings. UofSC also retained its No. 1 ranking in international business for the 23rd straight year.
August 31, 2021, Chris Horn
Lizzie Gandy one day will regale her grandchildren with stories about the years she strapped on a hard hat and rode a helicopter to her job on the biggest moored oil platform in the world, anchored deep in the Gulf of Mexico. In her latest position, Gandy doesn’t have to endure the same grind as before when she was supervising hundreds of oil platform workers in the open water. But she continues to find satisfaction in the work that a mechanical engineering degree from South Carolina in 1992 made possible.
June 18, 2021, Chris Horn
Pooyan Jamshidi, an assistant professor of computer science and engineering, is a principal investigator on a three-year $500,000 NSF collaborative grant to develop the intelligence and computing capabilities for a smart device dubbed SmartSight. The platform will enable on-device artificial intelligence to improve real-time perception for blind and visually-impaired users.
June 16, 2021, Megan Sexton
As a professor of chemical and biomedical engineering, Melissa Moss combines both engineering theory and hands-on learning in the classroom. She was chosen as a Mungo undergraduate teaching award winner.
June 15, 2021, Chris Horn
Simulation and computing is a mainstay in engineering design, a mathematical modeling process that allows engineers to predict the behavior of a machine or system in real-world conditions. But if the datasets are huge and complex, modeling can take days or even weeks to sort out. That’s why Yi Wang is using a method called reduced-order models to speed things up.
April 30, 2021, Audrey Hill
The Office of Sustainability along with mechanical engineering students worked together to create a sustainable solution for providing power to events at UofSC. The solar trailer is a converted, movable trailer that is able to store energy from the sun and power electrical equipment.
April 21, 2021, Chris Woodley
South Carolina College of Social Work professor Sue Levkoff and College of Arts and Sciences professor Alan White established the South Carolina - Advancing Diversity in Aging Research (SC-ADAR) program to address the lack of diversity among scientific experts.
April 15, 2021, Chris Horn
Sydney Womack’s calendar has been booked nearly solid during her four years at South Carolina and little wonder — she majored in biomedical engineering, minored in mathematics, earned a performance certificate in the School of Music, conducted undergraduate research and co-authored a scholarly article and three poster presentations. She also attended football, basketball and baseball games whenever she could, held leadership positions in two engineering student societies and regularly volunteered to pitch STEM career opportunities to high school students.
April 07, 2021, Madyn G. Coakley
With only a few short months until summer, it’s time for parents to find summer activities to enhance the lives and bolster the minds of their children. Fortunately, UofSC offers a wide variety of summer camps for all interests from computer science and engineering to music and dance.
March 31, 2021, Carol J.G.Ward
Research opportunities, passionate faculty mentors and the chance to explore diverse interests drew the University of South Carolina’s 2021 Goldwater Scholarship recipients to the Columbia campus. The prestigious scholarships are awarded annually to undergraduate STEM majors across the country who are interested in pursuing research careers in mathematics, natural sciences and engineering.
March 29, 2021, Megan Sexton
The School of Medicine Columbia is the top medical program in the country for graduates who are practicing in areas where there is a shortage of health care professionals, according to the latest U.S. News & World Report’s Best Graduate School rankings. The rankings also show that UofSC is now home to more than 60 nationally ranked programs.
March 05, 2021, Elizabeth A. Regan
Health information and technology expert Elizabeth A. Regan writes for The Conversation about the flaws that COVID-19 has revealed about the U.S. health care system. Regan is chair of integrated information technology and an associate professor in the College of Engineering and Computing.
February 19, 2021, Abe Danaher
Adjusting on the fly to perform impactful work has become a skill for University of South Carolina alumna Kate Mingle, and has put her on a path to supporting a vaccine process with worldwide implications.
February 10, 2021
The University of South Carolina and the Battelle Savannah River Alliance are partnering to conduct critical research at one of the country’s premier national laboratories – the Savannah River National Laboratory. The partnership will contribute to workforce development and provide cutting-edge advancements in national security, energy and environmental research.
February 04, 2021, Jeff Stensland
Researchers and students from the UofSC College of Engineering and Computing and the College of Pharmacy are collaborating with industry partners to develop an innovative system that will greatly improve pharmaceutical manufacturing.
February 01, 2021, Jeff Stensland
A new data science course, offered as part of the IBM Skills Academy, will teach students advanced data science methods that can be used to solve challenging problems across all industries.
January 26, 2021, Tenell Felder
The University of South Carolina’s College of Nursing ranks No. 1 among all U.S. universities for its online graduate nursing program, according to U.S. News and World Report’s annual online rankings.
January 20, 2021, Forest Agostinelli
The field of artificial intelligence (AI) has created computers that can drive cars, synthesize chemical compounds, fold proteins and detect high-energy particles at a superhuman level. Forest Agostinelli explains to The Conversation how artificial intelligence can help humans innovate.
January 13, 2021, MVS Chandrashekhar
In this interview with The Conversation, MVS Chandrashekhar explains how smoke detectors work and why they sometimes sound an alarm for what seems like no reason.
December 18, 2020
It’s been a year — but that doesn’t mean there wasn’t plenty to celebrate, recognize and honor at the University of South Carolina in 2020. UofSC rose to each and every challenge this year and raised the bar for the year to come.
December 17, 2020, Abe Danaher
Antonia Roman fulfilled a family dream by becoming the third person in her extended family with a college degree, earning a bachelor’s in civil and environmental engineering from the College of Engineering and Computing.
December 15, 2020, Page Ivey
Teaching graduate students involves more than passing along technical knowledge. Professors are mentoring, modeling behavior and helping create tomorrow’s thought leaders in their fields. For chemical engineering professor Michael Matthews, it is about creating what he calls “the well-dressed Ph.D.”
November 27, 2020, Caleigh McDaniel
Students have have faced many challenges due to COVID-19, and their stories of resilience have become prominent topics in our weekly "Campus Conversations." Check out these students who have adapted to and overcome obstacles brought on by the pandemic.
November 13, 2020, Biplav Srivastava
Professor of computer science Biplav Srivastava and his team have developed a data-driven tool that helps demonstrate the effect of wearing masks on COVID-19 cases and deaths. In this interview with The Conversation, he explains how the model works, its limitations and what conclusions we can draw from it.
November 12, 2020, Laura Kammerer
Yaw Addei-Boadu sees chances to innovate, well, everywhere — from event rentals to biogas stoves to fashionable emergency alert devices. Now he's one of a growing number of University of South Carolina students and alumni entrepreneurs who are shaking up the startup scene.
October 28, 2020, Megan Sexton
Military-affiliated students play an important role at the University of South Carolina. Veterans and active duty Gamecocks excel in the classroom and beyond, including alumni like Candace Terry who earned her Master of Social Work degree in May and now is the director of governmental affairs for the S.C. Department of Veterans’ Affairs.
October 15, 2020, Chris Horn
In this age of COVID-19 concerns, what’s the safest indoor environment? One without humans, of course. In a practical world the answer lies partly in understanding how the virus moves and where it lands in indoor spaces because air ow and surfaces are important routes for transmission of COVID-19.
October 13, 2020, Thom Harman
The University of South Carolina will host its first ever virtual TEDxUofSC event Wednesday, Oct. 21. Guided by TED’s goal of sharing “ideas worth spreading,” TEDxUofSC 2020 will be broadcast from the Columbia campus via Facebook Live from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.
July 13, 2020, Megan Sexton
Mechanical engineering associate professor Lingyu “Lucy” Yu describes her work in nondestructive evaluation and structural health monitoring as being something like a medical doctor.
July 08, 2020, Communications and Public Affairs
For the eighth-consecutive year, the University of South Carolina stands among the top 100 universities in the world, based on the number of U.S. utility patents faculty members received in 2019. South Carolina ranks 90th worldwide, named as the lead on 31 patents last year.
July 07, 2020, Annika Dahlgren
A love of tackling problems inspired UofSC senior and Honors College student Christopher Carter's current research and led him to NASA’s National Space Grant College and Fellowship Project.
June 16, 2020, Chris Horn
Very few high school valedictorians can tackle a 200-pound running back. Not many Division 1 college football players can tackle the rigor of a mechanical engineering degree. But this University of South Carolina Class of 2020 graduate did both.
June 01, 2020, Abe Danaher
Ramy Harik, associate professor of mechanical engineering, has been recognized as one of the 20 most influential professors in the field of smart manufacturing.
May 21, 2020, Chris Horn
Imagine Santa Claus carrying a big bag — not full of toys but bagels. That’s sort of what Jacob Miller looked like when he volunteered at Student Food Recovery, a student organization that collects unused food from eateries around campus and donates them to homeless shelters in Columbia.
May 13, 2020, Carol J.G. Ward
The Atlantic hurricane season officially begins June 1. Top researchers at the University of South Carolina are available to discuss multiple aspects of the 2020 hurricane season, including forecasting, disaster planning and historical perspectives. To coordinate an interview, contact the staff member listed with each expert entry.
May 12, 2020, Craig Brandhorst
Loris, South Carolina, native Dalton Stalvey loves his home state, but when it came time for college, he looked forward to exploring new horizons. He got his wish through the South Carolina Honors College, which he attended on a Palmetto Fellows scholarship.
May 12, 2020, Craig Brandhorst
Elizabeth Thompson wanted to be at the head of the class — and she made sure she got there. No, we’re not talking about the computer engineering major’s classroom success, which landed her a job in her field straight out of college. We’re talking about Thompson’s other driving passion: group fitness instruction.
April 28, 2020, Diane Parham
UofSC senior Brandon Fryson is one of more than 300 students who have found a much-needed helping hand through the new COVID-19 Emergency Relief Fund.
April 27, 2020, Amit Sheth
Social media posts and news reports are rich sources of data about people’s attitudes and behaviors. Performing this analysis during the COVID-19 pandemic is revealing the damage the pandemic is doing to the social and psychological well-being of the U.S. Amit Sheth, Founding Director, Artificial Intelligence Institute and Computer Science & Engineering professor writes for The Conversation on examining online conversation about COVID-19.
April 09, 2020, Caleigh McDaniel
We caught up with three students who have demonstrated resilience and resourcefulness when it comes to navigating their responsibilities during a pandemic.
March 27, 2020, Chris Horn
Faculty members from the School of Medicine Greenville and the College of Engineering and Computing worked quickly to get FDA approval for a device that could help address the potential shortage of ventilators at COVID-19 hotspots.
March 26, 2020, David Lee
A group of University of South Carolina students supported by faculty is coming together to help produce a vital piece of equipment that hospitals are calling for during the COVID-19 pandemic.
March 25, 2020, David Lee
A collaborative effort involving Prisma Health and the University of South Carolina has resulted in emergency use authorization for a ventilator expansion device to support multiple patients during times of acute equipment shortages such as the current COVID-19 pandemic.
March 16, 2020, Page Ivey
The University of South Carolina continues to shine with 54 unique nationally ranked graduate programs — nine in the top 25 — in U.S. News & World Report’s Best Graduate Schools list released Tuesday (March 17).
March 05, 2020, Megan Sexton
While artificial intelligence research and programs are growing around the country, the University of South Carolina’s AI Institute is among the first in the Southeast to include diverse colleges and departments.
March 03, 2020
For nearly 40 years, Michael Sutton has been developing and refining his creation of digital image correlation technology to find deformations in a wide variety of materials, from face cream to tanks. The mechanical engineering professor has been recognized for his body of research — all done at UofSC — by electing him to the National Academy of Engineering.
February 18, 2020
With only a few short months until summer, it’s time for parents to find summer activities to enhance the lives and bolster the minds of their children. Fortunately, UofSC offers a wide variety of summer camps for all interests from music to journalism and softball to science.
February 18, 2020, Carol J.G. Ward
The University of South Carolina’s Moving Image Research Collections in a partnership with the History Division of the Marine Corps is digitizing films shot by more than 50 Marine combat cameramen during the Battle of Iwo Jima, which began Feb. 19, 1945. The goal is to provide public access to the video and expand historical understanding.
February 17, 2020, Communications and Public Affairs staff
UofSC's research office offers internal grant funding up to $100,000 for proposals that include faculty members from three or more disciplines. Heather Heckman, Beth Bilderback, Fabio Matta and Paul Ziehl are working to preserve the university's extensive collection of old films.
February 17, 2020, Chris Horn
UofSC's research office offers internal grant funding up to $100,000 for proposals that include faculty members from three or more disciplines. Colin Wilder, Matthew Brashears and John Rose are using one of these grants to comb through millions of digital library records to explore three centuries of European book publishing.
January 27, 2020, Aida Rogers
Meet Blakeley Hoffman Payne. Her mission is to educate everyone to be ‘conscientious consumers’ of artificial intelligence; or if you’re an AI designer, to make it ethical.
December 02, 2019, Communications and Public Affairs staff
There was plenty to be proud of at the University of South Carolina in 2019, with accomplishments from the classroom to the research lab to the athletic field.
November 18, 2019, Abe Danaher
Three civil engineering student-athletes have used determination to succeed despite the rigors of a challenging schedule.
November 12, 2019, Caleigh McDaniel
On Nov. 25, students will gather around a carefully engineered and constructed 20-foot wood-and-paper tiger — and set it aflame. The tradition known as Tiger Burn happens every year during Rivalry Week in advance of the football game between the South Carolina Gamecocks and the Clemson Tigers.
October 30, 2019, Craig Brandhorst
English Programs for Internationals celebrates its 40th anniversary this year and has come a long way since 1979, when it was created in response to a growing international presence on campus.
October 25, 2019, Chris Horn
Since he’s a chemical engineering professor, it’s probably no surprise that Ed Gatzke has worked on engineering a method for improving the drop-fail-withdraw rate in a key course for freshman engineering majors. He’s also jury-rigged a free alternative to clicker-type response systems, but more on that later.
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.
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.
September 25, 2019, Annika Dahlgren
Family Weekend is part of the university’s wide-ranging commitment to delivering a superior student experience in a welcoming, inclusive environment. It helps to connect a student’s personal support network to the university experience, so that family members can feel engaged in a student’s journey — and a student can feel a deep level of support both on- and off-campus.
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.
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.
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.
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.
August 01, 2019, Page Ivey
They arrived in the 1970s, some after serving in Vietnam, some fresh out of high school or college. More than 40 years later, they still come to work at the University of South Carolina — some after officially “retiring.” TIMES spoke with a few of these long-term employees to see what keeps them coming back to work on campus, long after they could have settled into that place in the mountains or that home by the sea.
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.
July 01, 2019, Craig Brandhorst
After one great big flop, Jim Wiseman, ’79, flipped his property development career around and is now doing everything but "wasting away" in Margaritaville.
June 15, 2019, Chris Horn
You’ve heard of dog whisperers and horse whisperers. Meet Sourav Banerjee, the material whisperer.
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.
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.
April 04, 2019, Mia Grimm
Stuck on what to do with your class schedule for next semester? We've compiled a list of cool, unconventional classes in every college.
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.
March 22, 2019, Ross Stevens
Students and alumni will compete for $51,000 in startup prize money in The Proving Ground, the university's annual business plan competition March 28 at the Darla Moore School of Business.
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.
February 28, 2019, Allen Wallace
A year ago, University of South Carolina Dance Marathon made history, raising more than a million dollars for the kids at Prisma Health Children’s Hospital (then known as Palmetto Health). Just days after that success, they began working to do it again. That yearlong effort concludes Saturday with the student organization’s annual Main Event.
February 12, 2019, Lee Goble
With only a few short months until summer, it’s time for parents to find summer activities to enhance the lives and bolster the minds of their children. Fortunately, UofSC offers a wide variety of summer camps for all interests from music to journalism and softball to science.
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.
January 10, 2019, Amanda Hernandez
For electrical engineering senior and first-generation college student Sam Wilson, a solid support system has been integral to his college success. As he enters his final semester at UofSC, Wilson is "paying it forward" to help shape the future of students following in his footsteps.
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.
December 11, 2018, Chris Horn
Eddie, a 40-foot-tall statue in Columbia's EdVenture children's museum, has been hard to keep clean. But a team of mechanical engineering students at the University of South Carolina have designed, built and tested a robotic drone that can whisk away the dust bunnies from Eddie's massive body.
December 03, 2018, Megan Sexton
The university has established several new degree programs that illustrate creative curricula by adding innovation, an entrepreneurial approach or other types of value to traditional degrees.
September 19, 2018, Chris Horn
In the past year, the university’s McNAIR Center for Aerospace Innovation and Research has nearly doubled in size, taking under its wing new laboratories for drone design, combustion research and a data analytics program focused on Army helicopter maintenance.
July 31, 2018, Megan Sexton
The lineup of speakers is set for the inaugural TEDxUofSC conference Oct. 9 at the University of South Carolina Alumni Center.
July 26, 2018, Ross Stevens
Each summer, middle and high school students from around the world have the opportunity to get a hands-on college experience through multiple summer camps operated by the University of South Carolina.