UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH CAROLINA

College of Arts and Sciences

Notable Awards for 2006

• $3.6 million from the Department of Defense for brain-imaging deception detection
• $2.9 million from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for an estuarine training center
• $1.5 million from the Centers for Disease Control to develop a population-based system for positive parenting
• $1.3 million from the National Science Foundation to study public understanding of emerging nanotechnology
• $800,000 from the W.M. Keck Foundation for a bionanoparticle technology and development open laboratory

Biological Sciences

South Carolina has received a $13.7 million grant from the IDeA Networks of Biomedical Research Excellence at the National Institutes of Health to develop bioengineering research programs and experiences for undergraduates.

Chemistry

South Carolina professor and researcher Brian Genge of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry has developed an injectable bone biomaterial that is generating licensing and royalty revenue for the University. The calcium phosphate-based biomaterial, a “bone cement,” can be used for human spines, as well as orthopedic procedures, including craniofacial reconstruction, hip replacement, and other skeletal, dental, and veterinary uses. The bone cement has been licensed for marketing and sale following government regulatory approval.

Child and Family Studies

The Center for Child and Family Studies has received $297,000 in funding from the National Institute of Justice to examine links between victimization and crime among girls in the juvenile justice system. Details

Civil and Environmental Engineering

South Carolina researchers in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, building on one of 18 grants the University funded for post-Hurricane Katrina research, have received a $100,000 National Science Foundation grant to continue their study of levee failures in New Orleans. The researchers say they have found a cost-effective and efficient way to halt flooding caused by breached levees using a technique for damming rivers. Details

Criminology and Criminal Justice

Researchers at the South Carolina's Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice have been awarded a grant of nearly $650,000 from the U.S. Department of Criminal Justice to study police use of force and tasers.

Culture & Folklife

McKissick Museum, one of the leading university museums in the Southeast, houses 12,000 artifacts that document the social, economic, and political history of the Southeast. A particular strength of the material culture collections is the folk life objects that include Jugtown pottery, as well as seagrass and split oak baskets.

Earth Sciences

South Carolina's Earth Sciences and Resources Institute has been awarded a three-year, $720,000 grant to work with the U.S. Department of Energy to improve predictions about the movement of groundwater contaminants near the former reactor at the Savannah River Site. Details

Education

Notable Awards for 2006

• $1.9 million from the National Science Foundation to evaluate graduate teaching fellows in K-12 education programs

Engineering and Computing

Notable Awards for 2006

• $1.8 million from the Department of Defense to develop high-frequency/ high-power electronics for missile defense
• $1.8 million for electric ship research and development from the Department of Defense

• South Carolina's College of Engineering and Computing is a national leader in fuel cell research and is the site of the nation's only Industry/University Cooperative Research Center for Fuel Cells. It also is a leader in microelectronics research, with more than $10 million in research grants.
• U.S. Aid has funded a $600,00 project to allow the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering to collaborate with a Pakistani university on water resources management in Pakistan and exchange faculty and graduate students. The proposal was one of only 11 approved among 112 submitted. Details
• Major airplane manufacturers, aerospace materials suppliers, and NASA are collaborating with Department of Mechanical Engineering faculty at USC and three partner universities in a cooperative research center focused on friction stir welding—an innovative technique to join metal components. The NSF-sponsored research shows that friction stir welding can eliminate the need for riveted joints on airplane fuselage skins, providing stronger, lighter airframes.
• South Carolina has received a $3 million share of three-year, $9 million NSF grant through a federal-state university partnership known as the Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research, or EPSCoR. The money will help fund salary and laboratory start-up costs for new faculty members in the biomedical engineering program that was approved in spring 2006. Details

English Language and Literature

The Department of English's Writing Center has helped thousands of people with writing questions. Its Writers Hotline averages nine calls a day from citizens, government employees, teachers, lawyers, and libraries.

Geography

• Department of Geography professor Cary Mock, America's leading authority on hurricane history in the Southeast, has been awarded a grant of nearly $300,000 from the National Science Foundation to reconstruct U.S. hurricane history. Using plantation diaries, ship logs, newspapers and diaries, Mock went back hundreds of years to reconstruct the hurricane history of American South.
• The Department of Geography's Hazards Research Laboratory, launched in 1995, is one of the few centers nationally that uses geographic information processing techniques in analysis and management of natural, man-made, and environmental hazards.

Innovista

The University has recently unveiled its new research innovation district, called Innovista. With a mix of University and private research buildings, retail, restaurants, recreational areas, and residences, Innovista will create a new community in which to live, learn, and work. USC's key research initiatives are in future fuels, health sciences, the environment, and nanoscience and technology. Details

Libraries

• Through its South Carolina Political Collections, South Carolina is collecting the papers and memorabilia of some of the state's legendary political leaders. Sen. Ernest F. “Fritz” Hollings helped launch the political collections when he donated his political records to USC in 1989. Along with material from Hollings, USC has papers from former Gov. Carroll Campbell; Sen. Olin D. Johnston; U.S. Secretary of Education Dick Riley; U.S. Reps. Robert Ashmore, Butler Derrick, Bryan Dorn, Robert Hemphill, John McMillan, Elizabeth Patterson, and Robin Tallon; Gov. John West; leaders in the General Assembly, such as Sol Blatt, Rembert Dennis, Marion Gressette, Harriet Keyserling, Bruce Littlejohn, and Isadore Lourie; and other state leaders and activists.
• The University Libraries house many comprehensive, valuable collections, including the papers and letters of Ernest Hemingway and related materials; Gen. William C. Westmoreland's papers; the world's most comprehensive collection of F. Scott Fitzgerald research materials; the literary archive of writer Joseph Heller; the archive of James Ellroy; and a collection of books, stamps, letters, and material associated with the Italian patriot Giuseppe Garibaldi.
• The Thomas Cooper Library has acquired 2,000 pages of Fitzgerald manuscripts, drafts and typescripts of plays that he wrote in Hollywood in the 1930s. The acquisition was featured on the front page of The New York Times on April 22, 2004.
• The The University's Newsfilm Library has been awarded a 2005 National Endowment for the Humantiies (NEH) Grant for Stabilization of Collections. The $182,270 matching grant will provide the resources needed to re-house every individual film elment in the Fox Movietone News Collection. The grant also recognizes USC's initiative as a “We the People Project” for the collection's contribution to the understanding for American culture and history.

Library and Information Science

Led by the School of Library and Information Science South Carolina has launched a $6 million campaign to eliminate illiteracy across the state through a three-pronged initiative that targets young children, adults and teachers. The initiative is designed to enhance existing literacy programs, provide literacy research specific to South Carolina and train teachers and daycare workers, parents and others. Details

Marine and Coastal Studies

A $2.9 million grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency will be used to build a 9,500-square-foot education and training center at the University's North Inlet Estuarine Reserve, the field location for the Baruch Institute for Marine and Coastal Studies. Details

Medicine

Notable Awards for 2006

• $1.8 million from the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control - U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration for the Ryan White CARE act
• $1.1 million from the Duke Endowment to integrate health information technology and primary care education and training, help establish the S.C. Institute for Childhood Obesity and Related Disorders, and create the communication technology required to integrate S.C. medical education

• South Carolina's School of Medicine is recognized as a national leader in primary care education as well as in percentage of graduates going into pediatrics.
• The majority of School of Medicine graduates remain in South Carolina to practice medicine, often in small- and medium-sized towns where they are needed most.
• The School of Medicine's Division of Geriatrics is recognized nationally for the quality of its geriatrics education program for medical school students. The medical school's innovative Senior Mentor program pairs senior citizens with medical students and has been featured on CBS-TV's “Evening News” and in Parade magazine.
• Researchers at the School of Medicine and the University of California at San Diego will work together in a bioengineering study of heart disease under a $1 million grant from the National Science Foundation. The three-year study will develop computer models showing how many factors, including drug interactions, affect the heart. Details
• The School of Medicine has received a $200,000 grant from the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations to help medical schools throughout the United States enhance geriatric education for medical students. The grant will go toward the study of senior mentor programs and could lead to recommendations on how medical schools can incorporate the best practices of these programs into their own curricula.
• The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences has awarded faculty from the School of Medicine and the Arnold School of Public Health more than $1.3 million to identify suspect organic and inorganic chemicals during critical periods of intrauterine exposure that are associated with child developmental disabilities and mental retardation. Details
• South Carolina is among seven state universities to share a $17.3 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to support biomedical research and increase educational opportunities for undergraduates. The award is among the largest grants ever awarded in South Carolina. The School of Medicine and College of Engineering and Information Technology are engaged in bioengineering research on tissue engineering for repair and rejuvenation of the cardiovascular system. Details
• Researchers from the School of Medicine and the Arnold School of Public Health have received $1.4 million from the National Institutes of Health to research possible links between chemical exposure during pregnancy and mental retardation.

Music

• The School of Music's Center for Southern African-American Music (CSAM) is the first center of its kind in the nation. From gospel to blues, jazz to spirituals, shout to ragtime and protest songs, CSAM was created to preserve this musical heritage by compiling and archiving audio recordings, videos, sheet music, oral histories, and other materials that can be used by students, scholars, and the general public.
• The School of Music annually reaches 28,000 people statewide through concerts, lessons, and music programs.
• South Carolina has one of the most comprehensive string music education programs in the nation. The program's nationally lauded String Project, an effort for string music education majors to teach area school children to play stringed instruments, and was been featured in The New York Times on Dec. 21, 2003. Read the story (PDF).

Nanotechnology

• The W.M. Keck Foundation has funded an $800,000 grant for South Carolina to create a laboratory to develop new biomedical technologies. The W.M. Keck Open Laboratory for Bionanoparticle Technology Discovery and Development will operate from South Carolina's NanoCenter in a partnership with the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, Calif. Research topics include tissue engineering, sensing, drug delivery, and vaccine manufacturing. Details
• South Carolina has received a grant of $1.35 million from the National Science Foundation for a study on the growing role of nanotechnology in society. The grant is the second to Dr. Davis Baird, the study's lead researcher, who received a $1.3 million NSF grant in 2003 to study the ethical and societal implications of nanotechnology. The new grant will support two specific research studies and an educational outreach initiative. Details

Nursing

• South Carolina's College of Nursing is one of seven national research centers designated by the National Institutes of Health. As part of that designation, the college has received a $1.4 million grant from NIH to conduct research that will improve the lives of South Carolinians.
• Through the College of Nursing, the Division of Health Science has received a $195,363 grant from The Duke Endowment to increase the number of bachelor's degree-prepared nurses in South Carolina, particularly in rural areas. The award will enable the College of Nursing to expand its BSN. program by 16 nursing students.

Nutrition

A research team at the University of South Carolina has been awarded a $2.7 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to improve the general health of residents in three under-served communities in South Carolina. Led by psychology professor Dr. Dawn Wilson, the project is part of the S.C. Nutrition Research Consortium (SCNRC). The program will get under way in late fall in low-income, largely African-American communities. The researchers will work with 130 adults, ages 18 and older, in each of the three communities.

Pharmacy

The Palmetto Poison Center at the College of Pharmacy answers more than 35,000 calls annually from South Carolinians. In fall 2006, the center was one of 58 nationwide to receive national certification from the American Association of Poison Control Centers.

Public Health

Notable Awards for 2006

• $7.7 million from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to aid in the treatment of cancer and HIV/AIDS among S.C. minorities
• $3.4 million from the NIH to develop the Partnership to Promote Physical Activity
• $3.2 million from the Center for Disease Control for diabetes research and another $2 million for an HIV Prevention Leadership Institute
• $2 million from the National Science Foundation to investigate bacterial chemical communication

• With a $2.75 million gift from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, South Carolina's Arnold School of Public Health has teamed up with the state's Historically Black Colleges and Universities to establish a research and education collaboration to reduce health disparities among African Americans and other groups.
• A $1.2 million grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation will fund a national effort to protect minorities against the transmission of animal-to-human diseases. The collaborative includes USC's Institute for Partnerships to Eliminate Health Disparities and the American Public Health Association and the Michigan State University College of Veterinary Medicine. Details
• The Arnold School of Public Health was the first in the United States to have a department of exercise science. Today, exercise science faculty are recognized nationally and internationally for their research on the link between physical activity and health.

Public Service and Policy Research

The Institute for Public Service and Policy Research seeks to improve the quality of social, political, environmental, and economic life, with a primary focus in South Carolina. Its principal purpose is to address current and emerging issues relating to matters of public policy, governance, and leadership through research, educational activities, publications, and direct assistance programs. The South Carolina Indicators Project compares rankings for South Carolina against other states in the Southeast in the categories of education, economy, environment, public safety, health, social, culture and recreation, and government administration.

Research and Health Sciences

The Office of the Vice President of Research and Health Sciences has awarded nearly $400,000 in grants to fund 18 University research projects on the societal and environmental impact of Hurricane Katrina. Details

Social Work

Notable Awards for 2006

• $2.5 million from the S. C. Department of Social Services and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services for programs aiding Medicaid recipients

The Center for Child and Family Studies in the College of Social Work has received $83,308 from the South Carolina Department of Mental Health. The center will use the money to evaluate the federal program OASIS (Offering Assistance, Stability, and Intensive Support for Families). Details

S.C. Research Centers of Economic Excellence

In 2005-06, the state Research Centers of Economic Excellence Review Board approved the following awards to the University of South Carolina: research in oxide fuels ($3 million), collaborative research with the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) in proteomics ($5 million) and childhood neurotherapeutics ($6 million), and collaborative research with MUSC and Clemson University in molecular nutrition ($2 million).

Tourism

South Carolina is the site for a prestigious national institute for tourism research. The designation is by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, which is establishing its 23rd Center for Industry Studies at South Carolina with $400,000 in seed money. The University will join schools such as M.I.T, Harvard, Wharton, and Carnegie Mellon as Sloan Foundation industry center sites.