Samin Ashjaei - Communication Sciences and Disorders

Research Interests: Samin Ashjaei is a Ph.D. student  in the Translational Auditory Neuroscience Lab. She studies how hearing loss and cochlear implants affect the ability to understand speech, especially in noisy environments. Her research combines listening tests, cognitive assessments, and brain imaging methods to better understand the link between hearing and brain health, with the goal of improving outcomes for people with hearing difficulties

Almas Ashraf - Linguistics

Research Interests: My research interests are in syntax, information structure, and questions in Hindi-Urdu. I am interested in how sentence structure interacts with meaning and discourse, especially in relation to variation in word order and the interpretation of different question types.

Christian Bevilacqua - Geography

Research Interests: My research examines the geopolitics of labor migration in Jordan, with particular attention to how mobility, labor, citizenship, and belonging are shaped by ordinary transnational relations and state power. I am especially interested in how geopolitical processes take shape through everyday relationships with place and community, and how migrants themselves navigate and participate in making these processes in varied, often intimate ways.

Anirban Chatterjee - Health Services Policy and Management

Research Interests: Anirban Chatterjee is a PhD student in the Department of Health Services Policy and Management. His research interests include maternal and child health, global health, health policies, and health outcome disparities.

Austin Engelhardt - Music Composition

Research Interests: In my doctoral studies, I prioritize the aesthetic nature of sound and continuously endeavor to redefine how I am able to communicate musical expression. As a composer, I integrate multimedia components and improvisational elements into my compositions, aiming to elicit perceptual shifts in the musicians who interpret them. I wholeheartedly embrace the ideas of experimentation and imperfection, with the goal of imbuing each work with the distinct musical identity of its performer. Composition, to me, is a dynamic art form that requires a commitment to representing our evolving humanity through each musical experience.

Matthew Gentile - Chemical Engineering

Research Interests: Battery materials such as cobalt, nickel, and lithium are projected to face critical supply risks in the United States within the next decade.  My research focuses on recycling used battery materials to reduce environmental waste and enhance the stability of the supply chain for these essential resources.

Ryan Gonzales - Wind Band Conducting

Research Interests: Ryan Gonzales is a first-year doctoral student in Wind Band Conducting at the University of South Carolina. His research interests focus on arts education in K–12 public school settings and the systems that shape and impact those educational experiences.

Olivia Hinds - Health Services Policy and Management

Research Interests: My research primarily focuses on health insurance design for substance use disorder (SUD) treatment benefits for Medicaid enrollees in the United States. I am also interested in the intersection of perinatal SUD and maternal and child health, ultimately aiming to better understand how health insurance design around perinatal SUD treatment can be optimized to improve SUD-related maternal health and child protective services outcomes.

Kiani J.C. Jacobs - Exercise Science

Research Interests: My research focus is to investigate the impact of exercise training on biomarkers and molecular signatures in individuals across the health spectrum. The goal is to identify the features & functions of circulating molecules contributing to the cardioprotective benefits of a healthy lifestyle.

Su-ha Kim - Health Promotion, Education, and Behavior

Research Interests: My research interests focus on early childhood development, particularly how caregiving structures, dietary practices, and cultural contexts shape children's development and well-being. I am especially interested in understanding how caregiving roles and responsibilities within households influence young children's nutrition, care, and developmental opportunities. I am also interested in how culturally embedded food practices shape dietary diversity and feeding behaviors for young children. 

Gitanjali Lall - Health Promotion, Education, and Behavior

Research Interests: Early childhood development (ECD) and community-based interventions that may help promote the same in Low- and Middle-Income country settings. 

Seonjin Lee - Hospitality and Tourism Management

Research Interests: Seonjin Lee is interested in understanding tourism as a social phenomenon, as well as tourism’s implications for broader society. His research focuses on analyzing the spatiotemporal movement of tourists between places, from the lens of network science.

Taelee Lee - Exercise Science

Research Interests: My research focuses on brain structure and neurological mechanisms related to human behavior and cognitive function. In addition, I study the effect of specific intervention protocols on motor control, learning, and cognition in healthy subject and patients with neurodegenerative disease.

Yin Liu - Biostatistics

Research Interests: My research interests focus on the application of survival analysis, machine learning, and Electronic Health Records (EHRs) to understand long-term health outcomes in vulnerable populations. My current work focuses on mental health conditions and substance use disorders among adults living in South Carolina who have been diagnosed with HIV.

Amanda Lockett - Library and Information Science

Research Interests: Maternal Health Data, Information, & Knowledge. Current research focus is a comparative analysis of U.S. Granny Midwifery archived records and hospital obstetrics EHR. 

Emily Lohrbach - Educational Psychology and Research

Research Interests: Emily Lohrbach is a doctoral student in Educational Psychology and Research within the Department of Education and Developmental Science. Her research focuses on peer relationships, with particular interest in peer victimization and bullying, including the various forms it takes and its impact on student outcomes. She is also engaged in research related to preservice teacher preparation.

Sarah Moser - Music Performance (Voice)

Research Interests: Sarah Moser is a DMA student in Voice Performance in the Music Department. Her research interests include music as an expression of personal identity and the restoration and amplification of compositions from historically underrepresented composers, including multimedia and concert works. Research activities include manuscript transcription, score analysis, and construction of new music analysis methods.

Bianca Malkoc - Geography

Research Interests: My research focuses on the socio-environmental effects of Chinese-led copper mining in Serbia, using qualitative methods to understand how communities make sense of and adapt to extractive change.

Dalia Marquez - Clinical-Community Psychology

Research Interests: Dalia is interested in studying the implementation of family-mediated autism interventions as well as exploring music as a supplement to existing evidence-based practices. In partnership with community stakeholders, families, and autistic individuals, the goal is to improve access to services and quality of life for autistic individuals and their families. 

Wiz Maung - Physics and Astronomy

Research Interests: My research is in the areas of Mathematical Physics, Theoretical Physics, and Quantum Mechanics.

Adrián Montero Moya - Music Performance

Research Interests: Adrián Montero Moya is an internationally acclaimed classical guitarist, known for his dynamic performances and strong advocacy for contemporary Latin American music. His repertoire ranges broadly from Baroque to modern works, with special attention to living composers from Costa Rica and Ibero-America. His recording projects include Azulado, featuring Costa Rican contemporary composers, and Sonatas and Partitas. He has also contributed to collaborative recordings such as Sueños y Sones, Marco Corrales’s Elruido del Agua, and the world-premiere of the string quintet Oché by Alejandro Cardona with the Cuarteto Latinoamericano.  

Ryan Myers - History

Research Interests: My research interests lie in the ways disease and medicine interacted and impacted American militarization and armed conflict in the late early modern and modern time periods. Current research that I am working on is the role Yellow Fever had in the American South during the Civil War. 

Gabriel L. Newvine - Music Composition

Research Interests: With a focus on theatricality and the intricacies of living, Gabriel L. Newvine's works have been performed domestically and abroad by ensembles and soloists such as Loadbang, CAMP, VICE quartet, Lee Hinkle, Velvet Brown, and many more.

Samiha Nuzhat - Geography

Research Interests: Samiha’s research examines the complex dynamics of human–environment interactions, with particular attention to how climate change shapes people’s decision-making and drives variations in health outcomes.

Amber Peaslee - Biomedical Sciences

Research Interests: My research focuses on characterizing the influence of CB2 receptors on the physiological properties of dopamine neurons and how to utilize these receptors as potential therapeutic targets for schizophrenia.  

Luis F. Quintanilla - Epidemiology

Research Interests: Luis Quintanilla is a Ph.D. student in Epidemiology interested in using predictive modeling, bioinformatics, and environmental data to study mosquito dispersal and disease dynamics. His research focuses on understanding how biological and environmental factors influence mosquito movement and using these insights to improve disease prediction, environmental risk assessment, and public health decision-making. 

AB Reese - Quantitative Psychology

Research Interests: My research interests broadly lie in longitudinal structural equation modeling. Currently, I am working on developing and evaluating a statistical model for the analysis of data collected from randomized pretest, posttest, follow-up experimental designs. 

Brynn Schuetter - Criminology and Criminal Justice

Research Interests: Pending.

Kiley Stoj - Biological Sciences

Research Interests: Kiley studies plant-insect interactions, with a focus on nocturnal pollination and how factors like artificial light and environmental unpredictability shape pollination success. She also investigates carnivorous plants, examining what drives successful prey capture in sundews, and explores how random events influence the survival and germination of sticky seeds.

Kalil Warren - Psychology

Research Interests: Kalil's broad research interests center on how language interfaces with other cognitive faculties in the mind and brain. His current work investigates the interaction between language and spatial cognition, with a particular focus on referential processing and production, and the role of the superior parietal lobule in these processes. He also collaborates with researchers in Communication Sciences and Disorders to study how the language system operates and adapts when disruptions occur. 

Kira R. Wright - Clinical-Community Psychology

Research Interests: Kira's research examines long-term outcomes following exposure to childhood maltreatment, specifically developmental trajectories of multiple levels of emotion regulation, the role of interpersonal relationships, and intergenerational considerations. Kira's goal is to study interventions for processing trauma and strategies for preventing and addressing child maltreatment, specifically as they relate to parenting, the family environment, and the community. 

Yawei Wu - Hospitality and Tourism Management

Research Interests: Yawei Wu’s research focuses on tourism experiences and their transformative and social consequences. His current research examines how tourism experiences shape personal development and well-being, while also exploring inequality and the darker sides of tourism, particularly in food tourism.

Jinyu Yang - Anthropology

Research Interests: My research examines the intersections of multilingualism, transnationalism, and globalization. I am particularly interested in how language practices shape identity formation, negotiations of belonging, and the maintenance of social relationships across borders. 

Shameema M. Yousuf - Foundations of Education

Research Interests: Shameema (Shams) researches cultural theories in education with an interdisciplinary approach to impact in sport, physical education, and psychology. Her focus is on leadership and policy to create spaces of positive mental health, wellness, safety and thriving for stakeholders in these domains.