The Vice President for Research is pleased to announce the 2019-2020 recipients of the SPARC Graduate Research Grant. These 57 graduate students from 10 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.
2019-2020 SPARC Graduate Research Grant Recipients
| Recipient Name | Department or Program | Proposal Title |
| Kathleen Arrasmith | Music | An Investigation of Portuguese Children’s Music Experiences and Music Responses during Music Learning Theory-based, Early Childhood Music Development Sessions |
| Louis Berrios | Biological Sciences | Investigating the genetic factors required for Caulobacter-mediated plant growth enhancement |
| Conner Black | School Psychology | Biological Mechanisms Related to Social Anxiety in Young Children with Fragile X Syndrome |
| Mia Brantley | Sociology | "Before the world gets them": The impact of children's experiences of racism on black maternal health |
| Joshua Bratsch-Prince | Biomedical Sciences | Cholinergic gating of theta oscillations and plasticity in the prelimbic cortex-basolateral amygdala fear circuit |
| Emily Brennan | Anthropology | Histories of Stress: A Life Course Approach to Population Health in Medieval Germany |
| Archie Crowley | Linguistics Program | Language Ideologies and Linguistic Activism in the Transgender Community |
| Allison Culver | Biological Sciences | Elucidating the role Fgf8 and Fgf10 in the development of human pituitary progenitors |
| Brittany Davis | Social Work | Community Land Trusts: Inclusion and Maintaining a Sense of Community |
| Eleanor Davis | Geography | Small Businesses and Community Resilience: Adaptation, Mitigation, and Planning in the Face of Flooding |
| Jennifer Erichsen | Biomedical Sciences | Intranasal Insulin as a Treatment Strategy for Age-Related Cognitive Decline |
| Kayla Everhart | Nursing | A national survey to examine blood transfusion practices in early preterm infants |
| Roberto Flores de Apodacao | History | Praying Soldiers: How Continental Soldiers Experienced Religion during the Revolutionary War 1775-1783 |
| Calvin Green | Music | 2020 University of South Carolina SPARC Viola Commissions Commemorating the 1919 Berkshire Music Festival Pieces for Viola |
| Wenyu Guo | Teaching and Learning | Asian American Children (Re)negotiate Bicultural Identities through the Analytic Window of Children’s Literature |
| Allison Ham | Anthropology | Sex Differentials in Frailty in Medieval Ireland |
| Reed Handlery | Exercise Science | Increasing Cardiovascular Fitness and Physical Activity in Survivors of Stroke and Their Care Partners: Cycling for Stroke |
| Xiaofei He | Pharmaceutical Sciences | The Effect of GPR68 on Leukemia Initiation |
| Julia Hodge | Educational Psychology and Research | First-Generation Students and the Imposter Phenomenon |
| Michael Huggins | Mathematics | Groups of Essential Dimension 2 Over Arithmetic Fields |
| Ruthanne Hughes | Linguistics Program | Eye hear you: Race, gender, and class ideologies in EFL pronunciation perception |
| Ishwor Karki | Chemistry | Smart Solid Phase Extraction Materials based on programmable molecularly imprinted polymers |
| Lynsey Keator | Communication Sciences and Disorders | Effects of transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) on language and cortical network coherence in post-stroke aphasia |
| Colby Kipp | Clinical-Community Psychology | A Parent-Focused, Stress Reduction Intervention to Decrease Adolescent BMI, Reduce Parent Stress, and Increase Well-Being among African American Families |
| Jing Li | Pharmaceutical Sciences | Dissecting CDK8/19-dependent Tumoral and Stromal Signaling Pathways in Castration-Refractory Prostate Cancer |
| Yizeng Li | Statistics | Regression-Supervised Multiple-Infection Group Testing |
| Kai Luo | Mechanical Engineering | Development of Phase-Change Thermal-Switches Based on Electro-Wetting Droplet Actuation |
| Olivia Manley | Chemistry | Identification of oxygenated intermediate species in dinuclear iron enzymes |
| Nicholas Maxwell | Biomedical Sciences | Leptin and serotonin’s interactions to control appetite |
| Paul McElhinny | Comparative Literature | French Intellectuals’ Imaginings of and Experiences in Modern and Contemporary China |
| Amir Mehrabi | Health Services Policy and Management | Perceived Disease Risk, Vaccine Confidence, and Parent Decision-Making Regarding Influenza Immunization: Examining Changes in Vaccination Rates Following the H1N1 Pandemic and the Withdrawal of LAIV. |
| Mariah Moran | Social Work | Where the Home Fires Burn: The Heart of Geographic Mobility in Rural Southern America |
| Alicia Oostdyk | Health Services Policy and Management | Using Pictures to Provide Patients Power Over Pain: A Novel Application of Photovoice |
| Krystal Rampalli | Health Promotion, Education and Behavior | Adolescent food choices amidst the nutrition transition in Ghana: the role of cultural values, Westernized food marketing, and body image perceptions |
| Lauren Reid | Epidemiology | Household Food Security, Lifestyle Factors, and Glycemic control among Youth and Young Adults with Diabetes |
| Chelsea Richard | Epidemiology | Effect of Maternal Disability Status and Prescription Opioid Use Before and During Pregnancy on Small-for-Gestational Age Infants |
| Stephanie Riley | History | “Literature is Artillery”: Ben Hanford’s and Carl Sandburg’s Rhetorical Contributions to 20th Century American Socialism |
| Aimee Rovane | School Psychology | An Ecologically Valid Assessment of Family Patterns in Autism Spectrum Disorders |
| Mohsin Sajjad | Electrical Engineering | Wearable High-Resolution Positron Emission Tomography (PET) for Brain Imaging Using Multi-Pixel CZT Detector Arrays |
| Stacey Sangtian | Communication Sciences and Disorders | Speech Error Detection and Sensorimotor Processing of Auditory Feedback in Aphasia |
| Percy Schuck | Biological Sciences | Elucidating the Binding Affinities Between CST and RPA on G-quadruplexes |
| Yi-Wen Shih | Health Services Policy and Management | Acupuncturist visits and changes in opioid use among adults with chronic non-cancer pain |
| Chad Simmons | Biological Sciences | Developmental Adipokines and their Role in Adipocyte Morphology and Stem Cell Signaling Pathways in Adult Drosophila melanogaster |
| Steven Sloope | Chemistry | A New Approach to Synthesize Fully Conjugated Single-Crystal Covalent Organic Frameworks with Semiconductor Potential |
| Allison Smith | Exercise Science | Examination of Low Energy Availability and Bone Health in Physically Active Adolescent Females |
| Charles Smith | Exercise Science | Effect of Attentional Focus Instructions on Learning a Whole-Arm Three-Dimensional Motor Sequence Task |
| Matthew Spencer | Criminology and Criminal Justice | Public Transportation and Crime |
| Yuhsien Sung | Political Science | How Do Voters Evaluate Elected Prosecutors? Evidence from a Conjoint Experiment |
| Malik Tahiyat | Mechanical Engineering | A novel approach to Non-Catalytic Reforming of Siloxane in landfill gas with Dielectric Barrier Discharge |
| Asia Thomas | School Psychology | Screening Utility of Classroom Performance Survey |
| Brittany Watson | Biomedical Engineering | Characterizing an Endothelial Cellular Response to Amyloid Proteins |
| Valerie Yelverton | Health Services Policy and Management | Understanding Perspectives on Characteristics of Shared Decision-Making of People Living with HIV in South Carolina |
| Hyo Jin Yoon | Business Administration | Policy-Induced Economic Uncertainty, Corporate Governance and Corporate Outcomes |
| Li Zhang | Pharmaceutical Sciences | Development of CDK8/19 Inhibitor Based PROTAC for Leukemia Treatment |
| Youwen Zhang | Pharmaceutical Sciences | Analyses of Transcriptomes Associated with Protein Quality Control in Endoplasmic Reticulum |
| Liang Zhao | Computer Science | Scene Text Detection in Historical Marine Corp Videos |
| Xiangcheng Zheng | Mathematics | Analysis and applications of variable distributed-order fractional differential equations |