The Vice President for Research is pleased to announce the 2022-2023 recipients of the SPARC Graduate Research Grant. These 49 graduate students from nine 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.
2022-2023 SPARC Graduate Research Grant Recipients
| Recipient Name | Degree Program | Proposal Title |
|---|---|---|
| Atefe Aghaei | Health Promotion, Education, and Behavior | Impacts of COVID-19 and Taliban takeover on Afghan refugee women's mental health wellbeing |
| Saharnaz Babaei Balderlou | Economics | Money or Love: Student Loans and Post-Graduation Work Outcomes |
| Shanikque Blackwell | Health Services Policy and Management | Impact of Telehealth and Obstetrics Capacity on Maternal Health Outcomes & User Satisfaction: A Mixed Methods Approach |
| Tancia Bradshaw | Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology | The role of adipoctye insulin signaling in controlling adult ovarian stem cell populations |
| Marren Brooks | Communication Sciences and Disorders | Reading Prosody in Elementary-age Children who use Cochlear Implants |
| Brooke Bullard | Biomedical Sciences | Gut microbiota’s contribution to the beneficial effects of panaxynol on murine ulcerative colitis |
| Jennii Burrell | Chemistry | A thermodynamic study of iron oxide nanocrystal surface chemistry using isothermal titration calorimetry toward enhancement of an emerging magnetic biosensing platform |
| Hannah Catron | Linguistics | Harsh Voice Quality in Appalachia |
| Amanda Davis | Psychology-School | Developing a Behavior-Based Measure of Teacher-Student Relationship Quality |
| Katherine DeVivo | Exercise Science | Understanding the factors influencing movement behaviors and affect among dog owners |
| Shea Ferguson | Educational Psychology and Research | What motivates your students? Exploring teaching assistants’ beliefs about motivation |
| Kaylyn Garcia | Psychology-Clinical-Community | Phase 1 Development of a Community-Member Informed, Community Advisory Board (CAB) Alliance Measure |
| John Gilliam | Exercise Sciences | Simulated trunk proprioceptive impairment: a paradigm for sensorimotor dysfunction in low back pain |
| Erin Gorman | Biomedical Sciences | Mitochondrial function in the prefrontal cortex as a nexus for the consequences of gestational stress |
| Lídia Gual Gonzalez | Epidemiology | Unearthing Candidatus Rickettsia andeanae, a novel tick-borne pathogen, in PeeDee South Carolina |
| Carly Halcomb | Biomedical Sciences | An amygdala-cortical neural circuit for the control of generalized gear and anxiety |
| Christian Harrison | Chemistry and Biochemistry | Photophysical and Stability Investigation of Silicon Phthalocyanines through Axial Protection and an Extended Conjugated System |
| Jason (Bailey) Heath | Mathematics | On the Representation Dimension of Algebraic Tori |
| Marco Hernandez | Biological Sciences | Ing4 deficiency promotes stem cell quiescence and stress resistance in hematopoietic stem cells |
| Niti Jani | Biological Sciences | Developmental Windows of Susceptibility when Exposure to Antibiotics Increases Risk of Developing Early Onset Colorectal Cancer |
| Hui Jiang | Hospitality Management | Tourist digital wellbeing and prosocial behavior: The role of social media |
| Dakshu Jindal | Health Services Policy and Management | An analysis of the association between state direct access laws and physical therapy use, and the effect of change in physical therapy use on subsequent healthcare costs and opioid use |
| Samantha Kincaid | Biological Sciences | The Role of Sexual Conflict in Seminal Fluid Protein Evolution in Drosophila melanogaster |
| Chunyan Li | Applied Mathematics | Investigation of Dynamic Boundary Conditions and Surface Curvature Effects for Thermodynamically Consistent Phase Field Models in Arbitrarily Shaped Domains |
| Enhui Liu | Electrical Engineering | Lithium-ion Battery Health Management with LS-Based SFP Model |
| Morgan Lowder | Political Science | Business or Beneficiary: How Social Welfare Framing Shapes Policy Attitudes |
| Tianchu Lyu | Health Services Policy and Management | Predict the occurrence of postpartum cardiovascular disease and assess the impacts of structural disparities among a national cohort of pregnant women using electronic health records |
| Jennifer Marler | History | The Revolutionary Black Experience in Occupied New York City (1776-1783) |
| Mary Mitchell | Biological Sciences | Determining the Impact of Increased 2-AG Signaling in a Crohn’s Disease Model |
| Tannaz Mohammadi | Biological Sciences | Characterization of newly discovered broad host range ssDNA bacteriophages that infect Caulobacter strains. |
| Dyk Chung Nguyen | Physics | The use of graphene kinks in filters to remove toxic metals from water |
| Huan Ning | Geography | Neighborhood Mobility Assessment for Wheelchair Users using Street View Imagery and Artificial Intelligence |
| Md Nasim Saba (Nasim) Nishat | Biostatistics | Personalized treatment for glucose intolerance in VLBW infants via dynamic treatment regimes |
| Junlin Ou | Mechanical Engineering | Autonomous Multi-Robot Cooperation and Real-time Planning for Intelligent Manufacturing and Warehousing |
| Sowmya Raghu | Mechanical Engineering | Development of Gas Turbine Engine Design and Performance Monitoring Tool ( GTE-DMT ) |
| Ekaterina Rojas Kolomiets | Geological Sciences | Deciphering the compositional origin of Earth's crust with molybdenum isotopes |
| Sarah Sellers | Environmental Health Sciences | Atmospheric Dispersion of Antibiotic Resistant Genes from Wastewater Treatment Plant Generated Bioaerosols |
| Arash Shokrisaravi | Comparative Literature | John Duns Scotus |
| Savannah Simpson | Psychology-Clinical-Community | Cultural Responsivity in Youth Mentoring Relationships: Development of a Behavior-Based Measure |
| Jonathan Smith | Mathematics | Automorphisms of Del Pezzo Surfaces in Characteristic Zero |
| Gabriella Spatola | Biological Sciences | Dogs of Chernobyl: De novo mutation in free-breeding dogs inhabiting the radioactive exclusion zone |
| Nicholas Steichmann | Biological Sciences | Investigating the role of secondary eyes in dynamic color change |
| Julisa Tindall | Social Work | Judge Me Not- Exploring Black Mothers Perceptions of Maternal Health Services and Structural Racism in South Carolina |
| Chihchi Tsai | Comparative Literature | Globalization in the Eyes of the Locals: Imagining the United States in Taiwanese Nativist Literature, 1970s-1980s |
| James White III | Exercise Science - Health Aspects of Physical Activity | Utility and feasibility of activity type to augment consumer wearable-based physical activity energy expenditure prediction equations using heart rate and movement in children |
| Xuanke Wu | Civil Engineering | A Machine-learning Approach for Freight Fleet Electrification Planning Integrating Power System Constraints |
| Xiaomo Xiong | Clinical Pharmacy and Outcomes Sciences | Impact of anti-dementia medications on mortality and the associated disparities in medication use among patients with ADRD in the U.S. |
| Kangkang Zhang | Mechanical Engineering | Exploring Propane-to-Propylene Conversion via a CO2/O2 Co-transport Membrane Reactor |
| Xuanxuan Zhu | Epidemiology | Complementary Feeding Among US Infants: Measures, Infant Growth, and Maternal Mental Health |