Sponsored by the Office of the Vice President for Research, the SPARC Graduate Research Grant is a merit-based award designed to ignite research and creative excellence across all disciplines at UofSC. The overall objective of the SPARC Graduate Research Grant is to provide support and to encourage outstanding students to pursue exciting research directions during their graduate career at the University of South Carolina.

Alexander Barth (Stone lab) was awarded a SPARC grant for his project focused on "Establishing community-based science monitoring of zooplankton communities’ response to harmful algae". Jake Swanson (Dudycha lab) was awarded a SPARC grant for his project entitled "How do changes in lake color affect phytoplankton community composition?". Finally, Mani Raja Keerthi (Chen lab) was awarded a SPARC grant for working on "Understanding Interleukin-1alpha Mediated Immune Suppression in HER2-positive Breast Cancer". Congrats to all of them!