Author: Author Listing Page

after the flood

After the Flood: Weathering the storm

October 02, 2016, Steven Powell

Immediately following the October 2015 flood in South Carolina, USC researchers began looking at issues related to the once-in-a-lifetime catastrophe. In Part 5 of our "after the flood" series, we look at the flood's impact on the state's coastal estuaries. The SC Floods Conference, initially scheduled for Friday (Oct. 7), has been postponed due to Hurricane Matthew.

Andrew Pingitore and Julia Pribyl

Losing green up the stack

September 01, 2016, Steven Powell

With as much as $175,000 in potential annual savings for just one building on campus, a group of graduate students kicked off an energy conservation initiative in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry last week. It draws attention to how much energy is literally blown out of ventilation stacks every year by a common laboratory fixture: the fume hood.

Andrew Greytak

Nanotechnology you can see

August 22, 2016, Steven Powell

Consumers are getting a dose of something new with quantum dots, a nanomaterial that is rendering particularly rich colors on some recently released TVs, computer displays and e-readers. The department of chemistry and biochemistry’s Andrew Greytak, an innovator in the field, is working to push the nanotechnology’s reach even further.

Igor Roninson

Breakthrough Leadership in Research

July 21, 2016, Steven Powell

Igor Roninson brought 10 scientists and Senex Biotechnology, a cancer drug discovery company, to USC in 2011 when he was named the new SmartState Endowed Chair in Translational Cancer Therapeutics. But the South Carolina College of Pharmacy professor, who was named a Breakthrough Leadership in Research awardee by the Office of the Vice President for Research, was just getting started in building infrastructure that would enhance cancer research throughout the state.

Greg Gomez

The human factor in allergy research

July 15, 2016, Steven Powell

When starting his career as an independent scientist studying allergies and asthma, Greg Gomez shifted his laboratory focus from animal models to human tissue. The transition helped the School of Medicine researcher uncover a surprising effect that a common heart medication has on mast cells, which are key components of the allergic response.

Maksymilian Chruszcz

2016 Breakthrough Star Maksymilian Chruszcz

June 30, 2016, Steven Powell

As a structural biologist, Maksymilian Chruszcz is uniquely positioned to collaborate widely across the academy, and he’s made the most of that potential at Carolina. Since his arrival in 2012, the associate professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry has used his expertise in protein crystallography to develop collaborations with colleagues in chemistry and biochemistry, medicine, public health, biology and chemical engineering.

Allison Manuel

Targeting diabetes

June 17, 2016, Steven Powell

Working in Norma Frizzell’s laboratory in the School of Medicine, doctoral student Allison Manuel is getting down to brass tacks with a chronic disease that afflicts some 30 million Americans. Her research is resolving details of a detrimental cellular consequence of diabetes that was discovered here at the University of South Carolina: an indiscriminate modification of proteins that can overwhelm a cell’s ability to function properly.

Sharon DeWitte (right) and Samantha Yaussy

A skeletal marker of physiological stress might indicate good, rather than poor, health

May 02, 2016, Steven Powell

Biological anthropologist Sharon DeWitte (right) studies ancient skeletons that can open a window onto the human history she hopes to illuminate. But as she and graduate student Samantha Yaussy show in a recently published study, some of the markers on the skeletons that scientists use to decipher the past might need to be looked at in a new light.

Riley Brady

Senior marine science major earns four-year graduate fellowship from DOE

April 05, 2016, Steven Powell

Senior marine science major Riley Brady earned a DOE fellowship in computational studies that will cover all tuition and fees plus provide a $36,000 stipend for four years in graduate school. He says UofSC provided conditions for a perfect storm that is giving him a head start as an independent researcher in his field of climate science.

Ronit Elk

Cultural health diplomacy

March 04, 2016, Steven Powell

Growing up the daughter of an itinerant Israeli ambassador, Ronit Elk can count India, Turkey and Uganda, among other countries, as childhood homes. The College of Nursing professor is applying what she has learned from years of observing how cultures collide to address long-standing ethnic differences in end-of-life care in rural South Carolina.

Vernon Pryor

Gateway to opportunity

January 31, 2016, Steven Powell

Vernon Pryor came to Carolina through the Gamecock Gateway program, and the sophomore electrical engineering major has since earned a scholarship that covers all of his educational costs until graduation. The Science, Mathematics and Research for Transformation (SMART) scholarship also guarantees him a job as a civilian employee in the Department of Defense for three years after graduation.

Rajeev Bais

A healthy new start

December 10, 2015, Steven Powell

International refugees are one of the most vulnerable populations in the world. New faculty member Rajeev Bais is helping the School of Medicine lead in the effort to ensure that victims of the worst that humanity has to offer can find access to health and wellness programs that will help them rebuild their lives.

Lauren Dennis and Souvik Sen

Good smile, healthy brain and heart?

December 04, 2015, Steven Powell

Over the past 20 years, medical scientists have developed evidence showing a strong link between gum disease and cardiovascular problems. The School of Medicine’s Souvik Sen is leading a new clinical study, called PREMIERS, that is now enrolling patients throughout the Carolinas to better define just how many strokes, heart attacks, and other devastating cardiovascular events might be prevented with better oral care.

Subra Bulusu

Eluding pirates with NASCar

November 18, 2015, Steven Powell

Associate professor Subrahmanyam Bulusu is part of an international team collecting hydrographic data in pirate-infested waters to better understand the northern Arabian Sea circulation. Key to the effort, and an essential element of the team’s variant of a widely recognized acronym, NASC-ar, is autonomous research.

Alicia Leeke

Under the microscope

November 03, 2015, Steven Powell

Microscopic creatures come to artistic life in alumna Alicia Leeke’s colorful traveling exhibition. The Columbia-based artist collected and photographed phytoplankton from local waters with the help of professor Tammi Richardson, then created abstract renderings of the micrographs.

reel to reel tapes

Born to run off the reels

October 14, 2015, Steven Powell

Many of the more than 46 million sound recordings archived throughout the U.S. carry the risk of being destroyed during an attempt to digitize them, because magnetic audiotape can deteriorate over time. Chemistry professor Steve Morgan leads a team of researchers developing a means to readily assess the structural condition of magnetic tape, using non-destructive infrared spectroscopy to identify tapes that suffer from ‘sticky-shed syndrome’ and will fall apart on playback.

CCCR undergraduate research

Opening doors

September 25, 2015, Steven Powell

The words ‘summer’ and ‘vacation’ go together like peanut butter and jelly for a lot of college students, but in the famously hot months the University of South Carolina offers meatier sandwiches than that on its academic menu. This summer the university’s Center for Colon Cancer Research brought undergraduates from around the country into a brand-new biomedical research experience.

Xuemei Sui

Holding back time

September 18, 2015, Steven Powell

Exercise has a reputation for doing a body good, and some Carolina research recently showed just how far even a little bit goes. Xuemei Sui of the Arnold School of Public Health led a research team that showed that staying in shape can keep the heart and circulation young, slowing — by some 15 to 20 years — the natural process that causes cholesterol levels to rise with age.

Hollings scholars

Tops in the nation, again

September 04, 2015, Steven Powell

Watching their teams climb in the rankings is a cherished pastime of many Gamecocks, but competitive talent at Carolina is hardly restricted to the sporting life. Over the past several years, the University of South Carolina has been a fixture near or atop the leaderboard in producing Hollings scholars, fielding a group of academic talent that, once again this year, is second to none in the country.

Howie Scher

Debut of the global mix-master

August 25, 2015, Steven Powell

Howie Scher led a scientific team that has dated the onset of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current at 30 million years ago. The world’s largest ocean current, the “global mix-master” transports nutrients, heat and salt around the world.

John Eberth

Bypassing failure with a good workout

August 11, 2015, Steven Powell

Competing in a marathon calls for the right training regimen. John Eberth of the School of Medicine and his colleagues are coming up with a vascular conditioning program they hope will help surgeons train bypass grafts for success in the long run.

Jill Turner

Addicted to finding solutions

July 21, 2015, Steven Powell

Growing up in West Virginia, Jill Turner saw a lot of friends with promising futures derailed by drug problems. That’s one reason the assistant professor in the South Carolina College of Pharmacy went into addiction research.

Jeff Twiss and Ashley Kalinski

New approach to spinal cord, brain injury research

July 14, 2015, Steven Powell

Many an injury will heal, but the damaged spinal cord is notoriously recalcitrant. There’s new hope on the horizon, though. A team of researchers led by the University of South Carolina’s Jeff Twiss just reported an innate repair mechanism in central nervous system axons that might be harnessed to regenerate nerves after brain or spinal cord injuries.

Evan Phelps

Setting a new trajectory

July 01, 2015, Steven Powell

After years of study in graduate school, Evan Phelps recently joined the workforce in an area far afield from the particle physics research that defined his daily routine at the University of South Carolina. Although working toward a Ph.D. in physics might be a road less traveled on the way to a position in the health sciences, from his point of view the effort had a lot of merit.

Linda Shimizu

Giving atoms their marching orders

June 23, 2015, Steven Powell

Chemistry professor Linda Shimizu oversees a series of crowd-pleasing chemistry demonstrations in middle and high schools throughout central South Carolina every year. They are spirited affairs, and her research in the laboratory is just as dynamic — but with a sense of order that really keeps atoms in line.

Joni Jordan

'My soul is home'

June 17, 2015, Steven Powell

Alumna Joni Jordan cleared a lot of roadblocks to make a career as a high school chemistry teacher. Now Dr. Jordan at Orangeburg’s Edisto High School, she’s a master teaching fellow in a new UofSC program designed to strengthen science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education in high-needs and rural districts throughout the state.

Karina Liles

Bringing technology to life

June 09, 2015, Steven Powell

Karina Liles started helping bridge the gap between people and technology when she was just a kid. Now, as a graduate student studying human-robot interaction in the College of Engineering and Computing, she’s making a career of it.

Caroline Roberts 3

Embracing challenge

June 02, 2015, Steven Powell

Caroline Roberts has identified two things that are central to her development as a leader: her faith, and challenges that put that faith to the test. In the University of South Carolina, she has found a home where the latter is strengthening the former.

Eastern diamondback rattlesnake

Snake-charmed

May 19, 2015, Steven Powell

Biologist Jennifer Fill’s doctoral research may help identify surrogate habitats for the eastern diamondback rattlesnake’s dwindling numbers. A famous emblem of revolutionary-era America featured on the “Don’t Tread on Me” flag, the eastern diamondback’s current population is estimated to be just three percent of what it was when Europeans first arrived.

Shamia Hoque

Fresh air in a crowded world

May 12, 2015, Steven Powell

Whether it’s the flu, truck emissions or an anthrax attack, Shamia Hoque is on a mission to keep people safe when the air they breathe in this highly interconnected world is a hazard.

Kara Jones

Washington semester; DC bound

May 05, 2015, Steven Powell

Senior Kara Jones is graduating this May, and the light at the end of her academic tunnel is shining bright from the nation’s capital. A few weeks after commencement, the public health major will start work as an analyst for The Galen Institute, a nonprofit health policy research organization located in the D.C. suburb of Alexandria, Va.

Avery Lee

Down and back

April 28, 2015, Steven Powell

While on a month-long cruise doing research on the East Pacific Rise, senior Avery Lee had the opportunity to dive more than a mile below the ocean’s surface in the deep sea submersible Alvin.

Scott White research

Where no one has gone before

April 28, 2015, Steven Powell

More than a mile below the surface of the ocean, associate professor of marine science Scott White and undergraduate researcher Avery Lee explored a seafloor never before seen by humans, looking for signs of deep-sea volcanism.

Heading in the right direction

Heading in the right direction

April 21, 2015, Steven Powell

Many sports involve intended or unintended contact, and with that comes the inevitable risk of an injury that is getting well-deserved attention at the moment: concussion. In the medical and scientific faceoff against this form of traumatic brain injury, the University of South Carolina has developed an extensive playbook to achieve success.

Tim Mousseau

Dwindling bird populations in Fukushima

April 14, 2015, Steven Powell

Several recent papers from biologist Tim Mousseau and colleagues show that the avian situation in areas contaminated by radioactive materials released during Japan’s Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear disaster is just getting worse.

Leadership and Service Center

Toward a more perfect student union

April 07, 2015, Steven Powell

After nine months waiting for a new home, the Leadership and Service Center recently returned to the Russell House — and the return after a displacement by construction work wasn’t just a move back, it was a move up.

ACE lab

ACE of Coker basement

March 31, 2015, Steven Powell

The high-tech teaching facility in the basement of the Coker Life Sciences building — the ACE lab — doesn’t involve novice cardsharps learning the latest in sleight-of-hand. There’s a much more serious kind of training going on in the South Carolina College of Pharmacy’s Aseptic Compounding Experience laboratory.

Kate Flory and Kari Benson

Running risks

March 10, 2015, Steven Powell

A team of researchers led by senior Kari Benson and associate professor Kate Flory just published a meta-analysis showing that one in six college students misuse the stimulant drugs prescribed for ADHD, such as Ritalin and Adderall, considerably more than reported in several of the earlier studies.

Erin Steiner and baby elephant

Just say 'Yes'

March 03, 2015, Steven Powell

For senior Erin Steiner, saying ‘Yes’ to Carolina has led to research and study across the globe.

Emily Brown at Columbia High School

Teaching our children well

February 24, 2015, Steven Powell

The first step toward becoming a great teacher is to know your subject, and after earning her credentials at the University of South Carolina, alumna Emily Brown has the material down cold.

Female fiddler crab

Canary in a coalmine, crab on a coastline

February 17, 2015, Steven Powell

Steve Borgianini looks millions of years into the past with his research, but what he learns about days long gone has plenty of relevance to the here and now — particularly when it comes to South Carolina’s coast.

What makes the feather soar

What makes the feather soar

February 10, 2015, Steven Powell

Dinosaurs went the way of the dodo a long time ago, but their modern-day descendants, birds, are spectacularly adaptable. The secret of their global success is largely the result of a single protein: variations on an initial theme that evolved more than a hundred million years ago resulted in an array of building blocks that helped the dinosaur’s progeny really take off.

Willard Moore

Under the surface

February 02, 2015, Steven Powell

All the rivers worldwide might constitute a relative trickle compared with an unseen back-and-forth torrent below the surface. Emeritus professor Willard Moore is part of a team that just showed that rivers might represent as little as 20 percent of the water flowing every day into the Atlantic and Indo-Pacific Oceans from the continents — the remainder is the outflow from what Moore has termed the “subterranean estuary.”

Ed Donovan model rocketry and STEM teaching

Up, up and away

January 26, 2015, Steven Powell

After finishing a final exam, more than a few students might want to send it hurtling away at a few hundred miles an hour. In master teacher Ed Donovan’s classes, they get to do just that, but by no means out of frustration. Donovan has found that a final exam assignment to build and launch a model rocket is a sure-fire way to get students excited about everything from hands-on craftwork to trigonometry to Newton’s Three Laws of Motion.

Shannon Bowen research

Doing the right thing

January 19, 2015, Steven Powell

Toyota’s public response during its numerous recalls beginning in 2008 is a textbook case of how to thoroughly botch a crisis in consumer confidence, according to University of South Carolina researchers Shannon Bowen and Yue Zheng. Bowen’s quantitative study of print media underscores the importance of ethical conduct and an ethical response from any company when questions arise about the safety of its products.

Roman Vishniac

Pioneer behind the lens

January 13, 2015, Steven Powell

What Edison was to the light bulb, Roman Vishniac was to the art and science of making films and photos with a microscope. Emeritus professor of biology John Herr Jr. had the good fortune to convince Vishniac’s daughter, Mara, to donate a historic collection of her father’s work to the Moving Image Research Collection in 1994 rather than to a similarly acronymed university in southern California.

Kelly Johnson

Focus on outcomes

January 06, 2015, Steven Powell

A doctorate in epidemiology often opens doors to academia or government agencies, but for Kelly Johnson it started him on a promising career in the private sector. Now a fellow at a major pharmaceutical company, Johnson is putting his Carolina degree to work to help bring cost-effective vaccines to countries across the globe.

Carole Oskeritzian

Evicting an inflammatory guest

December 09, 2014, Steven Powell

As a child growing up in Paris, Carole Oskeritzian nearly died from asthma attacks. Now she’s leading an immunology research team that is teasing out the complexities of human inflammation in hopes of finding a way to prevent asthma’s occurrence.

Jessica Leet

On the academic track

December 02, 2014, Steven Powell

Gopher tortoises, snakes and a variety of other critters in her backyard helped Jessica Leet develop a fascination for environmental science as a child, but it may have been a Barbie doll that sparked her interest as much as anything else.

Stachys caroliniana

Hello, world

November 18, 2014, Steven Powell

Herbarium curator John Nelson knows you don’t have to travel to a remote Amazon rainforest to discover a new species of plant. He and alumnus Douglas Rayner uncovered a rare hedge-nettle just 50 miles from Charleston, and they named it Stachys caroliniana, after the only state where it has been found.

stock car race

Off to the races

November 11, 2014, Steven Powell

Alumna Pam Brown has been to every Sprint Cup race on the NASCAR schedule over the past four years. She didn’t know it at the time, but her degree in athletic training at Carolina was the first step in a journey that led to a full-time career in the world of stock car racing.

Yohance Omar Whiteside

Pathway to the CDC

November 04, 2014, Steven Powell

Alumnus Yohance Omar Whiteside is exactly where he wants to be now, tracking HIV infections and identifying high-risk populations for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But when he graduated with an English degree, he needed some time to find himself before he could find his way there.

Student digitizing herbarium data

Shining a light on dark data

October 28, 2014, Steven Powell

Millions of plant specimens collected in America over the past several hundred years are making their way to a global stage. The University of South Carolina is playing a leadership role in making botanical data contained in herbarium cabinets scattered across the United States accessible across the world.

Edison Lecture Series

Lighting the way

October 21, 2014, Steven Powell

Nearly a thousand middle and high school students will come to the College of Engineering and Computing on Thursday for the Edison Lecture Series. Presentations and interactive demonstrations will focus on human-robot interactions and how gaming and virtual reality can be used to make lives better.