2017 Breakthrough Awards University of South Carolina / Office of Research
Contents LEADERSHIP IN RESEARCH HONOREES | pg.4
BREAKTHROUGH STARS | pg.18
GRADUATE SCHOLARS | pg.48
USC relies on many important building blocks to develop and support our Carnegie tier-one research ranking. At the foundation are senior faculty members devoted to both pushing their research forward and to sharing their wealth of experience with the next generation of researchers and scholars, and the broader community. We also need regular infusions of the fresh perspectives and new ideas brought by early-career faculty, to keep the research and education structure sound into the future. Students also contribute to the strength of our research enterprise, particularly eager graduate students who bring a special vibrancy to every lab and classroom where they work. In this booklet, we proudly honor with Breakthrough awards some of the best and brightest senior faculty, early-career faculty and graduate students working on our campuses. We look forward to seeing how the work of 2017 Breakthrough award recipients further enhances and shapes our research powerhouse in the years to come.
PRAKASH NAGARKATTI, PH.D. VICE PRESIDENT FOR RESEARCH UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH CAROLINA WWW.SC.EDU/VPRESEARCH
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Leadership in Research Honorees Seasoned faculty who have succeeded at every level in their professions are a priceless asset, especially those who lead by example. At the University of South Carolina, the Office of Research recognizes that leaders in research make all the difference in mentoring new generations of faculty and make the institution a better place for everyone.
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ROGER DOUGAL PROFESSOR AND CHAIR, DEPARTMENT OF ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING College of Engineering and Computing
High-profile research, big grants, successful students, past and present — Roger Dougal, chair of the electrical engineering department in the College of Engineering and Computing, has pretty much nailed it over the past 34 years. An expert in power electronics, Dougal has focused primarily on modeling the dynamic behavior of large, complex electrically-driven systems. In 1996, he established the Virtual Test Bed, a computational environment for modeling, dynamic simulation and virtual-prototyping of interdisciplinary systems sponsored by the Office of Naval Research. He currently leads the university’s Power and Energy Systems research group. Dougal is also site director of the new NSF-sponsored Industry/University Cooperative Research Center for Grid-connected Advanced Power Electronic Systems, a joint project between USC and the University of Arkansas that seeks to accelerate deployment of advanced power electronics into the utility power grid. As a principal investigator, Dougal has pulled in grants totaling more than $28 million over the last 12 years. “Roger is an all-around star,” says Paul Huray, professor of electrical engineering. “(He is) a leading researcher, team player, team leader and active in many aspects of university life.” 4
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JULIUS FRIDRIKSSON PROFESSOR, DEPARTMENT OF COMMUNICATION SCIENCES AND DISORDERS Arnold School of Public Health
Since 2001, Julius Fridriksson has helped garner more than $20 million in federal grants and is the principal investigator on grants exceeding $16 million. He has also coauthored peer-reviewed publications with 16 different USC faculty members and with researchers at other institutions. Housed in the Arnold School of Public Health, Fridriksson’s aphasia lab serves as a hub for a range of large-scale studies on the devastating communication disorder, which results from damage to the left side of the brain due to stroke. According to the National Institute on Neurological Disorders and Stroke, it affects approximately one million people in the United States. “Stroke is a major public health problem in South Carolina and access to free care among stroke survivors is almost non-existent,” says Fridriksson, the SmartState Endowed Chair of Memory and Brain Function. “As such, our groups have benefited a population of South Carolinians who have nowhere else to turn.” The new Center for the Study of Aphasia Recovery, spearheaded by Fridriksson’s lab, has opened up even further opportunities for stroke survivors to receive treatment, free of charge. 7
VICTOR GIURGIUTIU PROFESSOR, DEPARTMENT OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERING College of Engineering and Computing
Victor Giurgiutiu has spent the past 20 years creating processes to better monitor the health of roads, bridges and tunnels, as well as planes, trains and automobiles. “We monitor our health through medical tests and even in some cases continuous monitoring,” he says. “We should think the same way about our transportation infrastructure: the ones we ride on and the ones we ride in.” His Laboratory for Active Materials and Smart Structures works with government agencies and industry to develop nondestructive evaluation techniques, including innovative sensors, to monitor a structure’s health. He also created a new mechanical engineering course, Adaptive Materials and Smart Structures, to promote the subject area to graduate and undergraduate students. In his 20 years at Carolina, he has mentored more than 20 Ph.D. students — 12 of whom have gone on to academia and research. Giurgiutiu’s mentoring extends to undergraduate students and even high school students. “Victor has been very active in promoting research to K-12 students,” says Jamil Khan, chair of mechanical engineering. “He has also been very active in promoting research to underrepresented minorities.” 8
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SUE LEVKOFF PROFESSOR, COLLEGE OF SOCIAL WORK
When Sue Levkoff came home to South Carolina seven years ago, she was tasked with helping establish interdisciplinary research to address health disparities. She drew from her 30 years of interdisciplinary work as a social sciences researcher at Harvard Medical School. “Being a nonphysician in the medical school there, it was natural for me to work with interdisciplinary teams of researchers,” the Charleston native says. “What is especially rewarding for me here at USC is to be in the position where I can give back and contribute to the development of the next generation of scholars.” “Dr. Levkoff has been stunning in her generosity as a mentor, and in the impact she has had on junior faculty across USC,” says Tayloe Harding, interim dean of the College of Social Work. “It goes above and beyond, particularly when working with junior faculty on grant development.” Much of Levkoff’s work focuses on health disparities in South Carolina Her Advancing Diversity in Aging Research undergraduate program partners with five historically black institutions to increase the number of qualified underrepresented minority students who pursue scientific graduate studies in programs focusing on STEM and aging. 11
JOHN WEIDNER PROFESSOR AND CHAIR, DEPARTMENT OF CHEMICAL ENGINEERING College of Engineering and Computing
John Weidner can see the future of energy research. Incrementally, he’s also changing it. Since becoming department chair of chemical engineering in 2011, he has hired five faculty members, the department has achieved record research productivity, and the number of undergraduates in both chemical and biomedical engineering has more than doubled. Recently, Weidner established numerous internship opportunities at places such as General Motors and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. He also signed memoranda of understanding with universities in Korea and Thailand to provide students with international renewable energy research opportunities. A 25-year veteran in the college, Weidner directs the Center for Hydrogen and Fuel Cells and uses electrochemistry to focus on producing hydrogen in a renewable way. He is a recipient of USC’s Golden Key Award for Excellence in Integrating Undergraduate Teaching and Research and, as graduate director of his department, helped increase minority Ph.D. enrollment. Weidner has been elected a fellow of both the American Institute of Chemical Engineers and the Electrochemical Society, the most prominent professional society in his discipline. 12
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HANNO ZUR LOYE DEPARTMENT OF CHEMISTRY AND BIOCHEMISTRY College of Arts and Sciences
How do we secure material that will be dangerous for more than 1,000 years? Hanno zur Loye has been trying to answer that for more than 20 years. His work has culminated in creation of the Center for Hierarchical Waste Form Materials, which will develop highly stable storage materials that can contain nuclear waste for thousands of years. Through the center, which includes the Savannah River National Laboratory, zur Loye and his team will develop and test novel storage materials such as specialized ceramics, metal-organic framework materials and nanoparticles to safely contain long-lasting forms of nuclear waste. As associate dean for research in the College of Arts and Sciences, zur Loye has a keen interest in mentoring younger faculty members. “I try to suggest things that would be beneficial for a young faculty member’s career,” he says. “It’s not ‘You should do this in research’; it’s more about time management, where to apply for funding, how to deal with your research group. I like to think of it as commonsense advice, for academia.” 15
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Breakthrough Stars Every cohort of junior faculty has them — the rising stars whose research, teaching and scholarly efforts rise to the top. The University of South Carolina’s 2017 Breakthrough Stars represent the very best among the ranks of the university’s assistant and associate professors. Their success will help propel USC forward for years to come.
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Addiction Policies
CHRISTINA ANDREWS ASSISTANT PROFESSOR College of Social Work Ph.D. University of Chicago, 2012
Christina Andrews’ research on how the Affordable Care Act has affected substance abuse treatment could provide the first national scale data on the ACA’s impact on this oft-neglected aspect of health care. “You see society trying to reconcile this underlying question of what is addiction — is it deviance or is it disease?” Andrews says. “If it’s disease, then medicine is the solution.” The ACA put addiction treatment on par with other medical services, and Andrews’ research seeks to find the impact of that change. It’s one of several of Andrews’ projects that look at disparities in health care, including racial disparities in access to health care. The change in presidential administrations and legislative emphasis on eliminating the ACA could have a significant impact on the work. “Regardless of what happens with the ACA, there is value in understanding how coordinating care influences outcomes for people with addiction issues,” Andrews says. “We will see how different strategies influence how many people actually access treatment [and] does it help keep them out of the emergency room.” 19
Food Security
JESSICA BARNES ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, DEPARTMENT OF GEOGRAPHY College of Arts and Sciences Ph.D., Columbia University, 2010
Complex cultural questions boil down to a simple constant for Jessica Barnes: bread. “Throughout history, not having water or food has been a flashpoint of protest. I’m interested in those moments, but I’m also interested in how people’s lives are being shaped by whether or not they can access these key resources on a day-to-day basis,” says Barnes, whose first book, “Cultivating the Nile: The Everyday Politics of Water in Egypt,” centered on agriculture and irrigation. “You have a lot of scholars who’ve looked at food issues and a lot of scholars who’ve looked at agricultural issues,” she says. “What I’m doing in my current book project is connecting the two. “What I hope to do is to provide more understanding about the political and cultural dynamics that influence how Egypt’s bread and wheat supply is secured, from a household through to a national level.” Barnes received the Junior Scholar Award from the Anthropology and Environment Society of the American Anthropological Association in 2013. Two years later she received an American Council of Learned Societies Fellowship. 20
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Sweet Experiments
LI CAI ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, CHEMISTRY USC Salkehatchie Ph.D., The Ohio State University, 2011
In a normal equation, teaching five college classes plus five labs would equal not much time for anything else. But don’t tell Li Cai that. He’s nearly always teaching and conducting experiments — his expertise is in synthesizing rare sugars. When he’s not busy with those activities, he’s reviewing manuscripts for 31 scholarly journals (he’s also the academic editor for the International Research Journal of Pure and Applied Chemistry). Since 2011, Cai has written 22 peer-reviewed journal articles, partnered with faculty at USC Columbia and in China to conduct cancer-related research and picked up several internal and external research grants. Cai has focused on low-cost experiments, feeding bacteria inexpensive materials to produce rare sugars. His expertise with those sugars, which have potential as antibiotics and even artificial sweeteners, has led to invited speaker opportunities at academic conferences and undergraduate research. Cai’s mentoring of undergraduate research produced the first Magellan Scholar Award in chemistry for USC Salkehatchie as well as two internship awards from the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics Talent Expansion Program. 23
Cancer Prevention
JAN EBERTH ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, DEPARTMENT OF EPIDEMIOLOGY AND BIOSTATISTICS Arnold School of Public Health Ph.D., University of Texas Health Science Center, 2011
One of every two men and one of every three women are at risk of developing cancer in their lifetime. The wide-reaching impact of the disease solidified Eberth’s decision to become a cancer epidemiologist. Eberth studies access to and quality of cancer prevention and treatment services, particularly for “the most prevalent and deadly cancers — lung, breast, colon,” she says. “Almost everybody can name someone they know who’s had one of those cancers.” Eberth hopes to combat cancer disparities with the help of the Mentored Research Scholar Award she received this year from the American Cancer Society. As one of only three researchers in South Carolina currently funded through this award, she’s studying clinical and neighborhood influences on colorectal cancer outcomes. “I want to do something to change the status quo, not just run the numbers,” Eberth says. “We already know so much about how we can prevent cancer. I want my research to help ensure that evidence-based guidelines become routine clinical practice everywhere, not just large urban centers.” 24
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Hearing & Technology
DAN FOGERTY ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, DEPARTMENT OF COMMUNICATION SCIENCES AND DISORDERS Arnold School of Public Health Ph.D., Indiana University, 2010
Listen up, there’s going to be a test — if Dan Fogerty has his say, a whole battery of them. Fogerty, director of USC’s Speech Perception Laboratory, leads a research team trying to fine tune hearing aid technology. A traditional hearing aid can be very important for treating the main limitations in speech understanding associated with hearing loss, but it’s less than a perfect technology. The brain plays an even bigger role in processing speech, and for people with hearing loss, understanding that role could make a big difference. “It’s not just the ear. The mind is processing things. Understanding the cognitive requirements, and knowing what are the cognitive capabilities of a given individual are crucial, too,” he says. Fogerty’s current research is funded in part by a $1.5 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to create a battery of tests to assess how cognitive abilities affect an individual’s processing of speech in different dynamic listening environments. “The challenge is to be able to improve these devices, but for them to still be affordable, too,” he says. 27
Mitochondrial Metabolism
NORMA FRIZZELL ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, DEPARTMENT OF PHARMACOLOGY, PHYSIOLOGY AND NEUROSCIENCE School of Medicine, Columbia Ph.D., The Queens University of Belfast, Northern Ireland, 2004
If a key component in a car goes bad, the car won’t go for long. That’s roughly what happens in the human body when mutations or toxins disrupt the mitochondria, the essential energy-making components of cells. Norma Frizzell has devoted much of her career to understanding how and why mitochondria become dysfunctional and lead to fatal maladies such as Leigh syndrome, or contribute to diabetes and certain cancers. “We want to understand normal mitochondrial regulation and what happens when it goes awry,” Frizzell says. “We know that high-fat, high-sugar diets cause changes in proteins and DNA, and that some of these changes lead to irreversible damage.” In the past five years Frizzell has been principal or co-principal investigator on grants totaling some $5 million, while authoring 25 publications, three book chapters and submitting six manuscripts. She was one of eight scientists nationally to receive the American Diabetes Association’s Junior Faculty Award in 2011. Her extensive efforts to expose undergraduates to biomedical research resulted in her 2012 receipt of the university’s Distinguished Undergraduate Research Mentor Award. 28
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Jumping Genes
NATHAN HANCOCK ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, BIOLOGY AND GEOLOGY USC Aiken Ph.D., University of Missouri-Columbia, 2005
Nathan Hancock likes taking things apart to see how they work. He studies the biochemical and genetic mechanisms of transposable elements, more simply known as transposons — and more colloquially as “jumping genes.” Whatever we name them, these pieces of DNA move from one part of the genome to another, often resulting in significant mutations to the organism. Learning how they do what they do, meanwhile, has applications for agriculture, medicine, pretty much any field affected by genetic mutations. “The first question is, how do they move around?” says Hancock, whose lab studies transposons found in rice. Instead of moving transposons around within their natural genome, though, Hancock and his undergraduate researchers move them to entirely different organisms, such as soybeans and even zebrafish. “When a transposon makes mutations, it breaks things, so you get weird looking organisms,” Hancock explains. “Then you can go back and say, ‘OK, what gene got broken?’ Since we know the sequence of the rice transposon, we can figure that out. It’s kind of like figuring out how a car works by breaking one piece at a time.” 31
Beating Heat
CHEN LI ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, DEPARTMENT OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERING College of Engineering and Computing Ph.D., Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, 2006
If there’s a problem with too much heat in a mechanical system, Chen Li probably has a plan to cool it down. Li has five patents related to heat dissiplation technology and has garnered major research grants on the topic from NSF and the Office of Naval Research for applications ranging from computer chips to power plants. “We’ve achieved breakthroughs at the nano scale, using microchannels about the diameter of human hair to cool microchips,” he says. Li has also worked on a conceptual plan to cool power plants with air, which would drastically reduce the amount of water traditionally used for that purpose. And Li’s research might make it to the moon. NASA sent a research fellow to his lab to learn more about a technology Li’s team has developed for generating steam in a gravity-free environment. Li teaches fluids and heat transfer at the undergraduate and graduate levels. “We have a lot of equations in engineering, and it’s easy to get lost if that’s all you focus on. But you can show them promising applications and demonstrate, step by step, how the equations work and relate them to real life.” 32
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Allergic Responses & Inflammation
CAROLE OSKERITZIAN ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, DEPARTMENT OF PATHOLOGY, MICROBIOLOGY AND IMMUNOLOGY School of Medicine, Columbia Ph.D., Denis Diderot University, Paris, France, 1994
Carole Oskeritzian nearly died from asthma attacks because of allergies. Now she is making important discoveries about the human immune system, that could lead to new preventative options for sufferers of asthma, eczema and chronic inflammatory diseases. Her research also focuses on creating novel screening tests to predict serious allergic responses or even cancer. “We are interested in identifying the early local changes preceding the disease stage. Our goal is to prevent rather than cure using precision prevention,” says Oskeritzian. Her research is centered on the interplay between tissue-resident mast cells, notorious in allergic responses, and sphingosine-1-phosphate, a signaling lipid locally produced by mast cells, that can activate many cells and cause remodeling in surrounding tissues and inflammation. Her laboratory team is trying to determine what drives the development of symptoms. Oskeritzian’s discoveries often find their way into her lectures on medical pathology, microbiology and immunology. “I use clinical vignettes to make the subject matter exciting and put science in context,” she says. “I make sure students understand these connections.” 35
Invasive Fish
VIRGINIA SHERVETTE ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, BIOLOGY AND GEOLOGY USC Aiken Ph.D., Texas A&M University, 2006
Virginia Shervette studies fish populations but always remembers that commercial fishers are in the equation, too. “Part of the goal of the group in the Caribbean that I work with is to ensure that fishermen are part of the process and that we utilize their expertise,” Shervette says. “We’re not coming in as scientists who know everything and are telling them what to do.” Her research has been funded by NOAA, EPA and the National Science Foundation and often includes undergraduates, 11 of whom have made more than 30 presentations at professional conferences. Lately, Shervette’s studies have expanded to lionfish, invasive species in the Atlantic Ocean that have no natural predators and damage other fish populations. The solution to containing lionfish might simply be to eat them. “There are these lionfish rodeos up and down the coast to get people to eat them to build up a commercial market so people will want to buy them,” Shervette says, but acknowledges that catching them is tricky. “The main way to get them is to go offshore and spear them.” 36
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Smart Sponges
NATALIA SHUSTOVA ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, DEPARTMENT OF CHEMISTRY AND BIOCHEMISTRY College of Arts and Sciences Ph.D., Colorado State University, 2010
Natalia Shustova calls them smart sponges, a hybrid metal-organic material that’s highly porous and has an extraordinarily large surface area — one gram equals the surface area of a football field. “The sponge can capture light, convert it to energy and then catalyze a reaction,” Shustova says. “With this, we could potentially use solar energy to convert carbon dioxide into something useful.” Shustova’s sponge material will also be tested for its ability to safely store uranium and thorium, two important radioactive components of spent nuclear fuel. In 2013 she launched the Carolina Women-in-Science Support Network to mentor female students in the STEM disciplines at colleges across the state. “We can tell students, ‘You can be a successful woman in science and have a work/life balance,’” she says. “But until they see it, they won’t believe you.” Along with successful women in industry and academia who speak at Womenin-Science workshops, Shustova presents herself as someone who has demonstrated success in several areas — teaching, research and raising a family. 38
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Uncertainty Models
GABRIEL TEREJANU ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, DEPARTMENT OF COMPUTER SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING College of Engineering and Computing Ph.D., State University of New York, Buffalo, 2010
Life is filled with uncertainty; science, even more so. Running sophisticated computer models to analyze large data sets and identify meaningful trends can itself introduce errors. Welcome to the field of uncertainty quantification — and to the world of Gabriel Terejanu, whose knowledge of uncertainty is attracting collaborators from the cornfield to the classroom. “Basically, I develop algorithms and models to accelerate scientific discoveries and decisionmaking under uncertainty,” says Terejanu. He has worked with researchers in mechanical engineering and the Arnold School of Public Health to develop models to study aflatoxin, a carcinogenic fungus in corn. He’s also collaborated with chemical engineering to improve catalysis for the biorefining industry. Another project, with civil and environmental engineering, is modeling student knowledge with remedial intervention in mind. “My approach is like a more formalized scientific method that now encapsulates uncertainty,” he says. “If a faculty member is doing models, I know how to talk with them, how to extract from them where they think the errors might be, as I have a good understanding of how the models get created.” 41
Mathematical Messes
FRANK THORNE ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, DEPARTMENT OF MATHEMATICS College of Arts and Sciences Ph.D., University of Wisconsin, Madison, 2008
Frank Thorne doesn’t mind messes. In fact, he gravitates toward them and thinks others should, too. “If you see some mess, as a young scientist, it’s often a good idea to tackle it,” says Thorne, who works in analytic number theory and arithmetic statistics. “Anytime you see a theory that’s beautiful, where everything’s been worked out and it’s just perfect — there’s no work left to do.” Thorne found himself drawn to a specific mess after getting his Ph.D. He had stumbled upon the 40-year-old theory of Shintani zeta functions, and, working with Japanese mathematician Takashi Taniguchi, used that theory to help prove a 10-year-old hypothesis on cubic number fields. The resulting paper earned Thorne acclaim and lead to a collaboration with Manjul Bhargava, who won a Fields Medal for his advances in the subject. Thorne speaks at conferences around the world, but he’s also passionate about his work with the Math Circle, a program for local middle and high school students. “Imagine just tossing raw meat into a tank full of sharks. You give these kids math problems and they go after them in the same way.” 42
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Antarctic Science
LORI ZIOLKOWSKI ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, DEPARTMENT OF EARTH AND OCEAN SCIENCES School of the Earth, Ocean and Environment College of Arts and Sciences Ph.D., University of California, Irvine, 2009
What Lori Ziolkowski discovers at the edge of Antarctica might one day provide a detailed roadmap to assist explorers probing for life on Mars. Ziolkowski spent a month this past winter there, searching for microbial life. She and fellow scientists collected rock and ice samples, then used a type of radiocarbon dating to understand the age of carbon in the microbes. “It just helps us understand more about where to look for life on Mars,” she says. Ziolkowski specializes in radiocarbon dating to address environmental concerns, such as whether thawing permafrost contributes to greenhouse gases. Her study of carbon cycling by microbes, years after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, showed those microbes are eating remnants of the oil — a finding with ramifications for pollution remediation. Her work has also taken her to Alaskan glaciers, where she’s investigated their darkening and accelerated melting. “I’m motivated by the implications for climate change, but also, who gets to do a job where you’re doing something that’s fun and adventurous but also helping understand what’s going to happen in the future?” she says. 45
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Graduate Scholars Successful graduate students are the lifeblood of every top-tier research university, bringing energy and curiosity that fosters a vibrant learning environment. The University of South Carolina’s 2017 Breakthrough Graduate Scholars epitomize these qualities. Their participation in the life of the university raises the bar for everyone.
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Doctoral advisers for each of this year’s cohort of Graduate Scholars comment on the qualities
1 | MARC
2 | TAYLOR
MARC DEMONT
TAYLOR GARRICK
PH.D., COMPARATIVE LITERATURE College of Arts and Sciences
PH.D., CHEMICAL ENGINEERING College of Engineering and Computing
“Marc Demont’s brilliant dissertation will transform discussions of philosophy, psychoanalysis and queer theory.”
“The depth, breadth and productivity Taylor has shown as a student are truly rare. By the time Taylor graduates in May, he will have one of the most impressive records of any graduate student coming out of our program.”
that make their respective students outstanding.
—David Greven
— John Weidner
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3 | MOHAMMAD
4 | EBONI
5 | MORGAN
MOHAMMAD RIFAT HAIDER
EBONI HARRIS
MORGAN HUGHEY
PH.D., NURSING SCIENCE College of Nursing
PH.D., HEALTH PROMOTION, EDUCATION AND BEHAVIOR Arnold School of Public Health
“Findings from her work can be translated into the development of effective strategies to promote health and prevent and reduce obesity in this population. I greatly admire how she has taken the age-old problem of obesity and applied an innovative approach that extends science and has practical implications.”
“Morgan has taken full advantage of her time at USC and has represented the university admirably through her extensive research, teaching and service.”
PH.D., HEALTH SERVICES POLICY AND MANAGEMENT Arnold School of Public Health
“Rifat Haider is one of the best health services researchers I have come across in my professional career of 30 years.” — M. Mahmud Khan
— Andrew Kaczynski
— Tisha Felder 49
6 | BEHRAD
7 | HENGYUN
8 | JO-YUN
BEHRAD KOOHBOR
HENGYUN LI
JO-YUN LI
PH.D., MECHANICAL ENGINEERING College of Engineering and Computing
PH.D., HOSPITALITY MANAGEMENT College of Hospitality, Retail and Sport Management
PH.D., JOURNALISM AND MASS COMMUNICATIONS College of Information and Communications
“I am proud to say that since he joined my research group, Mr. Koohbor has published 17 journal papers.”
“Based on Hengyun Li’s achievements and potential, he is the future star in the hospitality and tourism academia.”
“Jo-Yun Li has a very solid grounding in research design and statistical analysis. She is an excellent collaborator and will make a good communication scholar. Her scholarly vision and discipline have already borne fruit.”
— Addis Kidane
— Fang Meng
— Sei-Hill Kim
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9 | SAM
10 | YUAN
MINGHUI “SAM” LI
YUAN SHEN
PH.D., PHARMACEUTICAL SCIENCES College of Pharmacy
PH.D., MARINE SCIENCE College of Arts and Sciences
“Sam Li’s outstanding academic performance, research capabilities and exceptional teaching experiences make him a top Ph.D. student at USC. His great personality makes him a pleasant colleague to work with.”
“Yuan is highly motivated and very observant. He delves into the details while maintaining a keen sense of the big picture.” — Ronald Benner
— Kevin Lu
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11 | DEREK
12 | RYAN
13 | QINGFENG
DEREK SILVA
RYAN STRICKLER
QINGFENG ZHANG
PH.D., SOCIOLOGY College of Arts and Sciences
PH.D., POLITICAL SCIENCE College of Arts and Sciences
PH.D., CHEMISTRY College of Arts and Sciences
“Derek’s research is solidly situated in important theoretical work in the area of criminology and terrorism studies, and his methodological approach is simply unique in this field. There is no denying that Derek’s research is very well conceived in all relevant conceptual and methodological respects.”
“Ryan is easily the strongest student we have had in our department in the 11 years I have been at the University of South Carolina. He is already a published author with a strong pipeline of promising work and a highly dedicated and successful teacher.”
“The insights gained from Qinfeng’s work provide key design principles that guide the rational optimization of important noble metal-based catalytic and photocatalytic processes for real-world applications.” — Hui Wang
— David Darmofal
— Mathieu Deflem 52
UCS 17-10014
CONGRATULATIONS FROM THE UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH CAROLINA
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