The Vice President for Research is pleased to announce the 2023-2024 recipients of the SPARC Graduate Research Grant. These 25 graduate students from 17 academic departments 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.
2023-2024 SPARC Graduate Research Grant Recipients
| Recipient Name | Degree Program | Project Title |
|---|---|---|
| Maxwell Akonde | Epidemiology | Evaluating a multi-biomarker panel for the early detection of ovarian cancer |
| Fahmida Akter | Health Promotion, Education, and Behavior | Impact of prenatal cash transfers and nutrition intervention on maternal-infant attachment-substudy to a randomized trial |
| Taylor Berrier | Communication Sciences and Disorders | Emotion Regulation in Children with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) |
| Morgan Boncyk | Health Promotion, Education, and Behavior | Human Heat Exposure in Food Markets -- Can Thermal Remote Sensing Be Used to Predict Changes in Food Availability and Cost? |
| Larissa Daniels-Hill | Anthropology | The Intersections of Racialized Stress -- 20th-century “Black” Americans in the Hamann-Todd Osteological Collection |
| Yuwei Geng | Mathematics | Operator Learning for Phase Field Models and Simulations |
| David Horovitz | Biomedical Sciences | The Role of GluN2D in Learning, Cognitive Decline, and Cell Specific Activity |
| Shan Hu | Chemistry | An effective way to immobilize cytochrome P450 monooxygenase using a redox mediator as an electrical wiring to enhance electron transfer efficiency |
| Kaitlen Hubbard | Criminology and Criminal Justice | An examination of the escalation of domestic violence incidents in South Carolina |
| Freda (Ally) Hucek | Health Promotion, Education, and Behavior | Screening for social isolation among older adults -- An in-depth study of healthcare providers' experiences and practices |
| Nikita Kirkise | Biological Sciences | Regulation of local protein synthesis by a laminin-integrin-RACK1 signaling pathway in growth cones |
| Graham McLaughlin | Ecology and Evolutionary Biology | Bridging the Gap Between the Genome and the Environment Using Landscape Genomics |
| Shawn McNally | Social Work | College maladjustment and basic psychological need satisfaction-an exploratory study |
| Ritwik Nag | Electrical Engineering | High-resolution brain imaging system based on multi-pixel CdZnTeSe detector arrays |
| Emily Owens Pickle | Epidemiology | Unearthing the ecological-epidemiological profile of emerging tick-borne arboviruses in South Carolina |
| Daniel Perez | Electrical Engineering | 48 V to 12 V 1 kW LLC Resonant Converter with Planar Transformer |
| Dawson Petersen | Linguistics | The Effects of Linguistic Framing on Anthropomorphism of AI |
| Katelyn Rygel | Biological Sciences | Dysregulation of point contacts and local translation in Down syndrome hiPSC-derived neurons |
| Pradeep Sahu | Exercise Science | Physiological Anxiety to Movement in Chronic Low Back Pain Patients- Testing a Novel Movement Simulation Paradigm |
| Volodymyr Shablenko | Physics | Spin-transfer torque in half metals |
| Zachary Stryker | Pharmaceutical Sciences | Design and Synthesis of Novel Aminated Cannabidiol Derivatives as Dual Serotonin-Cannabinoid Ligands for the Treatment of Depressive Disorders |
| Julia van de Sandt | Business Administration | Impact of Sustainable Product Attributes on Pro-Environmental Consumer Behavior |
| Sarah Wilson | Linguistics | Partner-specific Alignment Across Multiple Linguistic Levels in Interactive Dialogue |
| Courtney Wright | Biomedical Sciences | Studying the role of kynurenic acid and sleep from neurodevelopment to adolescence |
| Xuan Yang | Psychology | Neural representation of hedonic valence across adulthood in naturalistic context |