March 30, 2026, Rebekah Friedman
First responders train for what happens in moments of crisis. Others train for what happens after, when first responders need help grappling with what they have seen. That includes LaQuita “Keke” Cowart-Drayton, a 2013 USC College of Social Work alumna.
February 19, 2026, Rebekah Friedman
When she’s not riding her Harley, Karan “Kay” Andrea explores the role women have played in motorcycle culture. The first-year Ph.D. student has also built a community where female motorcyclists can connect and develop confidence.
February 06, 2026, Rebekah Friedman
Strongyloides stercoralis is an intestinal parasite rarely seen in the U.S. University of South Carolina researchers Dr. Melissa Nolan and Dr. Matthew Haldeman wondered if these worms might still be lingering under the radar in South Carolina. What they found surprised them.
February 06, 2026, Rebekah Friedman
Back from Ukraine, journalism alumna and former war correspondent Isabelle Khurshudyan begins next chapter at CNN.
January 22, 2026, Rebekah Friedman
Fabio Matta’s next-generation building materials include fiber-reinforced plastic bars — essentially, glass fibers immersed in a strong polymeric resin. They are stronger than steel, don’t corrode and are lighter than traditional materials — all qualities that make them ideal for bridge and infrastructure rehabilitation.
October 10, 2025, Rebekah Friedman
Today’s engineering students are flooded with information, and the answer to any question is in their pockets. But the role of an educator, says associate professor Nikolaos Vitzilaios, isn’t teaching students how to find those answers — it is teaching them to solve problems.
October 08, 2025, Rebekah Friedman
From improving outcomes for premature babies to nurturing research advancements in chronic illness to strengthening the next generation of nursing leadership, University of South Carolina faculty members Robin Dail, Cindy Corbett and Jeanne Cavanaugh have had careers worth celebrating. While these three center directors are retiring this year, their legacies will endure through their centers’ continued impact at USC and beyond.
September 24, 2025, Rebekah Friedman
The McCausland Center’s MRI scanner is a 3 Tesla, twice the strength of typical MRIs. Access to equipment of that caliber has enabled the center to bring in tens of millions in grant funding and has led to an explosion in research studies that have advanced our understanding of aphasia, stroke treatment and brain aging.
September 17, 2025, Rebekah Friedman
Patrick Pianezza worked as a paramedic while earning his bachelor’s in public relations and master’s in health administration. He never imagined his career path would lead to Hollywood, or that an undergraduate creative writing assignment would inspire his first movie.
September 08, 2025, Rebekah Friedman
Cognitive decline is a significant problem for South Carolina’s aging population. That’s one reason the University of South Carolina has prioritized its efforts to improve brain health across the Palmetto State. In USC’s Arnold School of Public Health, researchers are leading the charge to better understand how diet, exercise and intervention factor into the solution.
September 03, 2025, Rebekah Friedman
Asking why is an integral part of Vanessa Kitzie’s personality. As a 2025 winner of the university’s Garnet Apple Award for Teaching Innovation, Kitzie is putting the question to her students in ways that force them to consider emerging technology from every perspective.
May 19, 2025, Rebekah Friedman
As the state’s flagship public university, the University of South Carolina seeks solutions to a range of modern challenges. And our researchers are lighting the way.
January 14, 2025, Rebekah Friedman
The University of South Carolina wasn’t on Dave Bollinger’s radar until his daughter, Ruth, enrolled in CarolinaLIFE. Now both Bollingers are giving back to support the next generation of USC students with intellectual disabilities.
January 14, 2025, Rebekah Friedman
Newly hired Molinaroli College of Engineering and Computing professor Thorsten "Thor" Wuest is a recognized thought leader in smart manufacturing. As South Carolina experiences record manufacturing job growth, Wuest sees an opportunity for USC’s engineering graduates to keep that momentum going.
January 13, 2025, Rebekah Friedman
Arnold School of Public Health professor Mohammed Baalousha studies how wildfires affect the formation of nanomaterials and how these ultra-tiny particles are seeping into water and soil.
January 07, 2025, Rebekah Friedman
At CarolinaLIFE, students with intellectual disabilities take charge of their futures through transformative education.
January 06, 2025, Rebekah Friedman
When Cathy Knox, ’72, started her career as an elementary school teacher, her principal played a critical role as a mentor. Now retired, she is helping the next generation of educators get the coaching and support they need by supporting the Carolina Teacher Induction Program.
October 14, 2024, Rebekah Friedman
Associate professor of sport and entertainment management Armen Shaomian can’t help but give 100 percent. In addition to teaching students the business side of entertainment, he also guides them as faculty director of the Preston Residential College for Leadership.
October 09, 2024, Rebekah Friedman
Dr. Sara Lindsey, a clinical assistant professor of pediatrics, helps School of Medicine students prepare for bedside care by guiding them in the classroom and during their clinical rotations.
October 07, 2024, Rebekah Friedman
As a 2024 Garnet Apple Award for Teaching Innovation recipient, Scott Smith has a knack for identifying future hospitality workers and leading them toward their dream careers.
August 15, 2024, Rebekah Friedman
Thanks to the Washington Media Scholars Foundation, students pursuing careers in media and policy have a little less to worry about and a lot more within their reach. Founded by University of South Carolina alumnus Robin Roberts in 2009, the foundation supports undergraduates from USC and other institutions around the country through two very specific initiatives.
August 05, 2024, Rebekah Friedman
Many students enter the University of South Carolina with entrepreneurial dreams. But the entrepreneurial mindset is as much about how you think about solving problems as it is about launching a new business or bringing an invention to market — and acquiring that mindset requires a very particular kind of educational environment. Since 2017, USC’s McNair Institute for Entrepreneurism and Free Enterprise has provided exactly that.
May 31, 2024, Rebekah Friedman
Co-founded by 2014 University of South Carolina graduate Kelsey Sawyer Carter, Camp Cole is named after her brother, Cole Sawyer, who died in 2004 at age 11. The fully accessible facilities offer fun and hope to campers facing challenges.
May 16, 2024, Rebekah Friedman
Van Robotics founder Laura Boccanfuso has a vision for improving education, one dancing, smiling, fist-bumping robot at a time.
April 19, 2024, Rebekah Friedman
The University of South Carolina unveiled a monument honoring the first Black students admitted since Reconstruction — Robert Anderson, Henrie Monteith Treadwell and James Solomon Jr. — whose enrollment six decades ago changed the course of university history.
March 01, 2024, Rebekah Friedman
Artificial intelligence is making plenty of headlines these days — and, in some cases, even writing them. Some concerns are valid, some are overblown, but as the global economy embraces the emerging technology, there’s no avoiding the larger conversation. There’s also no denying AI’s real-world potential. For every Sports Illustrated byline scandal or news story about the danger of self-driving cars, there’s an untold story of how AI research promises to change our world for the better, and a lot of that research is happening right here at the University of South Carolina.
February 27, 2024, Rebekah Friedman
Since graduating from medical school, former student body president turned OB-GYN Ross Lordo has been making meaningful connections with patients in Greenville.
January 12, 2024, Rebekah Friedman
Since being named Miss South Carolina last June, School of Journalism and Mass Communications alumna Jada Samuel has been on a mission to promote high self-esteem and positive body image for girls across the Palmetto State.
January 11, 2024, Rebekah Friedman
After losing her mother to Alzheimer’s, journalist and TV personality Leeza Gibbons devoted her second act to helping caregivers through Leeza’s Care Connection.
December 01, 2023, Rebekah Friedman
Since being named CEO of South Carolina’s largest food bank in 2021, University of South Carolina alumna Erinn Rowe has played an integral role in combating food insecurity across the state.
November 07, 2023, Rebekah Friedman
In the spring, audiences at USC had the chance to learn more about Jewish history from award-winning author and Holocaust expert Wendy Lower. Her weeklong fellowship with the university’s Jewish studies program was made possible by a generous gift from the Henry and Sylvia Yaschik Foundation.
November 06, 2023, Rebekah Friedman
South Carolina’s nursing shortage is an ongoing issue, and it is projected to worsen, particularly in the state’s rural areas. From Union to Walterboro, the USC system is on a mission to meet those needs.
October 10, 2023, Rebekah Friedman
Morgan Stefik, an associate professor in the chemistry and biochemistry department, helps guide students through the first formative moments of their STEM careers. Stefik is a 2023 recipient of the Michael J. Mungo Undergraduate Teaching Award.
October 02, 2023, Rebekah Friedman
Through her job as director of behavioral health initiatives and workforce development at the South Carolina Office of Rural Health, Jessica Seel is doing the high-impact work she dreamed of when she came to USC for her master’s in public health.
September 22, 2023, Rebekah Friedman
Most pharmacists will eventually care for a child, even if they don’t specialize in pediatrics. Clinical associate professor Christina Cox is on a mission to teach them how.
August 14, 2023, Rebekah Friedman
In South Carolina, 42 percent of women have experienced intimate partner physical violence, sexual violence or stalking. Sara Barber knows the statistics. Since 2014, the University of South Carolina alumna has served as executive director of the South Carolina Coalition Against Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault, a coalition of 22 organizations that connect survivors with emergency shelter, counseling and other services.
August 07, 2023, Rebekah Friedman
After 46 years in the business, Bojangles knows how to do fried chicken. And alumna Stacey McCray, the company’s vice president of communications, knows how to promote it.
July 06, 2023, Rebekah Friedman
Each year, close to 2,000 University of South Carolina undergrads venture overseas for once-in-a-lifetime educational opportunities. And behind the scenes, staff members are there to navigate new terrain, keep schedules running smoothly and provide emotional support when students feel stressed. USC TIMES sat down with five of them to learn more about what they do.
May 24, 2023, Rebekah Friedman
Education professor Catherine Compton-Lilly traveled to Taiwan to help two indigenous communities reclaim their language through children’s books.
May 22, 2023, Rebekah Friedman
When it comes to understanding the challenges related to pregnancy, birth and early childhood, USC’s researchers deliver answers.
May 16, 2023, Rebekah Friedman
Aphasia is a language disorder that can occur after a stroke. It is especially prevalent in South Carolina, which has one of the highest stroke rates in the nation. Researchers at C-STAR — USC’s Center for the Study of Aphasia Recovery — are working to better understand it.
April 10, 2023, Rebekah Friedman
As senior director of policy and research at Sisters of Charity Foundation of South Carolina, Chynna A. Phillips is taking on poverty one partnership at a time.
March 14, 2023, Rebekah Friedman
As a tribute to the Black alumnae featured in the student-produced documentary The Backbone, USC’s Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion installed 18 personalized bricks on the Horseshoe. The honorees' stories span seven decades of university history.
January 17, 2023, Rebekah Friedman
Indigo is tightly woven into South Carolina history, but few have worked with the rich natural dye since it fell out of favor nearly 150 years ago. Alumna Caroline Harper is bringing it back.
January 10, 2023, Rebekah Friedman
Health care workers are in the midst of a burnout crisis. As director of field education for the College of Social Work, Melissa Reitmeier has seen it first-hand when placing students in clinical sites across the state. She and her colleagues hope their new online training series will help.
January 03, 2023, Rebekah Friedman
Art professor Sara Schneckloth found herself in uncharted territory when COVID-19 abruptly shut down in-person instruction and she faced the challenge of connecting with students over the internet instead of in a studio classroom. But she put technology to work to help students in her drawing graduate seminar mimic the classroom experience and create "a network of satellite studios."
December 14, 2022, Rebekah Friedman
Garnet Apple award-winning professor Morgan Stefik uses an advertising trick — the memorable jingle — to help his students remember complex chemistry formulas.
December 05, 2022, Rebekah Friedman
“Arf woof bark, bark bark bark woof,” says George, who works at the University of South Carolina Honors College. “Woof woof, woof woof, woof woof woof woof.” George is referring, of course, to the impact he has had on students as a registered therapy dog. And across campus, other canines are logging long hours, too. Their goal? To do what dogs do best: spread paw-sitivity. (Sorry, we couldn’t help ourselves.) These good boys and girls work like dogs. We met with four of them — and their people — to get a ruff idea of how they’re improving life on campus.
December 01, 2022, Rebekah Friedman
December graduate Sarah Anne Livingston didn’t just ace her engineering classes. She also engineered her future by racking up a whopping six internships with three different companies.
November 17, 2022, Rebekah Friedman
With courses that combine data science and strategic planning, the new data and communication master’s degree in the College of Information and Communications prepares students to share complex ideas across an organization. Instructor Ryan Rucker is the perfect person to show them how.
October 31, 2022, Rebekah Friedman
College of Pharmacy assistant professor Tessa Hastings and her research team are working to pinpoint the factors that prevent pharmacists from recording and recommending vaccines.
October 26, 2022, Rebekah Friedman
Mathematics professor Matthew Ballard has developed a teaching style that promotes student effort over innate abilities. His goal is to usher more students through the funnel of introductory STEM classes.
October 14, 2022, Rebekah Friedman
Internationally acclaimed sculptor Basil Watson has been selected to design a statue commemorating Robert Anderson, Henrie Monteith Treadwell and James Solomon Jr., the first Black students admitted to the university since Reconstruction.
September 06, 2022, Rebekah Friedman
Over the course of his 20-year career in higher education, J. Rex Tolliver has learned to ask questions — and seek solutions — in student affairs. And one question in particular drives his efforts: What can we do to improve the student experience?
July 27, 2022, Rebekah Friedman
President Michael Amiridis finalized his leadership cabinet with two key hires, the University of South Carolina announced Thursday. Michelle Dodenhoff will return as vice president for Development, and the University of Illinois Chicago’s J. Rex Tolliver has been selected as the new vice president for Student Affairs and Academic Support.
May 09, 2022, Rebekah Friedman
A portrait of I.S. Leevy Johnson, ’68 law, was unveiled Monday at the School of Law in recognition of the trailblazing alumnus’ legal, business and political achievements.
March 17, 2022, Rebekah Friedman
Alumna Lee Satterfield, ’89 journalism, has spent three decades in the political arena, gaining responsibilities with each stop. At the end of 2021, Satterfield was confirmed by the U.S Senate as assistant secretary of state for the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs at the State Department.
December 03, 2020, Rebekah Friedman
If you’ve ever come across a story or image or video online and thought to yourself, “There’s no way this is real,” there’s a good chance you were right. Fake news is a growing threat, and advances in technology are making it harder to spot. Two researchers in the College of Information and Communications discuss what it is, how it works and what can be done to address it.
August 26, 2020, Rebekah Friedman
COVID-19 has meant putting a hold on in-person programming, but Cocky’s Reading Express hasn’t stopped – it’s gone online. Since April, its Virtual Storytime YouTube playlist has featured a line-up of guest readers, including former mascots, Miss Gamecock 2020, and even famed talk show host and University of South Carolina alumna Leeza Gibbons.
May 18, 2020, Rebekah Friedman
Ask anyone who knows Sarah Massengale to describe her in a word and they might say she’s brazen. Or fearless. Or even stubborn. What they won’t tell you — at least not at first — is that she’s blind. The public relations major is applying her communications knowledge and personal experience by helping the university with its widescale effort to address its digital accessibility.
March 27, 2019, Rebekah Friedman
Lisa Sisk, senior instructor in the School of Journalism and Mass Communications, is charting a new course for teaching after being diagnosed with a degenerative neurological disorder that affects communication.
October 07, 2014, Rebekah Friedman
Dr. Jason Stacy is right at home as Student Health Services director for sports medicine and physical therapy. He started working full-time at the Thomson Student Health Center after 10 years as team physician for Gamecock athletes. His stint as team physician also included one day a week at the health center seeing injured students.