McCausland researchers are uncovering how the brain and nervous system develop, function and heal while translating discoveries into new possibilities for patients and families.

USC Leads the Nation in Fragile X Research and Education

Researchers led by psychology professor Jane Roberts are taking a lifespan approach to fragile X-associated conditions. A $6.3 million NIH Fragile X Center of Excellence award supports research ranging from the first years of childhood through adulthood, with the goal of improving early detection, diagnosis and treatment.

Helping Damaged Nerves Heal

Biological sciences professor Ashley Kalinski and her team discovered that SARM1, a protein known for helping break down damaged nerve cells, also plays an important role in creating the conditions those nerves need to regrow. The finding offers new insight into nerve repair and future neurotherapeutic research.

Understanding the Human Brain

From advanced brain imaging and aphasia research to neurodegenerative disease and autism, McCausland faculty are part of a growing university-wide neuroscience community working to better understand the brain and improve health outcomes.

McCausland scientists investigate everything from the water we drink to microscopic materials and coastal ecosystems. Their discoveries help us better understand the natural world and develop new approaches to some of its most complex challenges.

Making Drinking Water Safer

Chemistry professor Susan Richardson, recipient of the 2026 Governor's Award for Excellence in Scientific Research, has built her career around improving water quality. Her research identifies contaminants and disinfection byproducts in drinking water and develops new methods to measure substances that could affect human and environmental health.

Building the Future at the Nanoscale

Chemistry professor Olja Simoska studies how nanoparticles form on electrified surfaces and how their properties can be controlled. Her work could contribute to technologies ranging from medical diagnostics to renewable energy, while giving undergraduate researchers opportunities to make their own discoveries.

Studying a Changing Coastal Ecosystem

Scientists at USC's Baruch Institute for Marine and Coastal Sciences are studying juvenile blue catfish that have moved into the Winyah Bay estuary. By examining what the fish eat and how they interact with native species, researchers are uncovering how ecological changes can ripple through coastal food webs.

McCausland scholars combine data, fieldwork, archives and community partnerships to understand how people create communities, respond to technology, remember the past and navigate a changing world.

Do Drones Improve Police Response?

Criminology and criminal justice researcher Scott Mourtgos conducted the world's first randomized controlled trial examining drones used as first responders. His research is providing new evidence about how emerging technology affects police response times, workloads and public safety.

Life, Death and Community on the Eurasian Steppe

Anthropologist Magdalena Stawkowski studies communities surrounding the former Soviet nuclear testing site in Kazakhstan. Her long-term fieldwork explores radiation and environmental risk as well as the relationships, identities and systems of mutual support that allow communities to persist in a landscape profoundly altered by the Cold War.

Recovering the History of a Black Cemetery

Anthropology professor Terrance Weik is working with community members and researchers to document and preserve a historic Black cemetery in Richland County. Archaeological fieldwork, archival research, oral histories, GPS mapping and 3D modeling are helping uncover a history that has largely gone undocumented.

Research and creative scholarship allow us to reconsider familiar histories, preserve overlooked stories and explore human experience in new ways.

Jewish Life in Renaissance Italy

History professor Andrew Berns studies how Jewish physicians and scholars connected medicine, geography, religion and the environment in Renaissance Italy. His research, supported by a prestigious Rome Prize, is helping reconsider assumptions about Jewish intellectual and cultural life in early modern Europe.

Bringing Southern History to Life Through Dance

Professors Tanya Wideman-Davis and Thaddeus Davis combine academic research with choreography, oral history, visual design and digital media. Their creative scholarship explores Black Southern history, memory, landscape and the ways people built lives and spaces of resistance.