The Vice President for Research is pleased to announce the 2021-2022 recipients of the SPARC Graduate Research Grant. These 52 graduate students from eight academic units worked with faculty advisors to prepare and submit competitive proposals, earning valuable grant-writing experience, as well as funds to support their research and scholarly projects.
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 |