UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH CAROLINA SPRING 2017 / RESEARCH
When the Whistle Blows Peer Intervention and the Adolescent Bully
Also in this issue • Data Breach • Magnetic Solution • Dark Side of the Sun
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OFFICE OF RESEARCH UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH CAROLINA President Harris Pastides Vice President for Research Prakash Nagarkatti Research Communications Manager Elizabeth Renedo
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Director of University Communications and Marketing/ Chief Communications Officer Wes Hickman Office of Communications and Marketing Creative Director Bob Wertz Editor Chris Horn Magazine Designer Brandi Lariscy Avant Contributing Writers Craig Brandhorst, Chris Horn, Page Ivey Photographer Kim Truett Cover Artist Maria Fabrizio, ’08 B.F.A. Website sc.edu/vpresearch To comment on an item in Breakthrough or to suggest an idea for a future issue, contact the University of South Carolina’s Office of Research at 803-777-5458 or email vpr@mailbox.sc.edu. The University of South Carolina does not discriminate in educational or employment opportunities or decisions for qualified persons on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, sexual orientation, genetics or veteran status. 16291 UCS 4/17 This piece was printed on McCoy Sheets manufactured by Sappi Fine Paper North America with 10 percent PCW and FSC® Chain of Custody Certification. One hundred percent of the electricity used to manufacture McCoy Sheets is Green-e® certified renewable energy. The University of South Carolina is committed to sustainability in all facets of operation, including the production of publications such as this one, which is printed on paper certified by SmartWood to the FSC standards.
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IN THIS ISSUE 4/
In brief
8/
When the Whistle Blows An education professor
investigates peer intervention and the adolescent bully.
14 /
Q&A with Simon Hudson A look at what the
16 /
Postmodern partnerships Examining the family
17 /
Meet the new boss Picking a CEO isn’t an easy process, but the Center for Executive Succession wants to make it more effective.
18 /
Data Breach More companies are getting hacked,
19 /
Magnetic Solution Magnetic nanoparticles coated with oil-absorbing polymers could be a new tool to remediate oil spills.
20 /
Infographic Soybean oil has proven to be a versatile foodstuff. Now a USC chemistry professor has patented a formula to turn it into ‘green’ plastic.
23 /
In the pipeline A rare transcontinental total solar eclipse is coming Aug. 21, and the USC community wants to share the view with visitors.
Palmetto State has to offer to African-American tourists and retirees.
dynamics of partnerships between cisgender women with transgender men.
but savvy retailers can survive, says marketing professor.
Visit at sc.edu/research for more information Video at sc.edu/breakthrough
Cover illustration by Maria Fabrizio
Prakash Nagarkatti, Ph.D. Vice President for Research University of South Carolina www.sc.edu/vpresearch
The University of South Carolina is a comprehensive research university where faculty mentors work closely with undergraduate and graduate students, postdoctoral fellows and medical scholars to provide unique, beyond-the-classroom experiences pursuing cutting-edge research, immersing themselves in creative and scholarly projects and developing leadership skills. All of these activities result in something new to share with the community through presentations and publications. On Friday, April 21, my office will bring undergraduates, graduate students, medical scholars and postdoctoral fellows together at a brand new, university-wide showcase of research, scholarship and innovation at every level of study. This daylong event, Discover USC, will provide a platform for these scholars to gather and share their projects with the entire USC community, including all system campuses, neighbors and officials from state and local government. The day will kick off with a keynote speech by Nobel Laureate Shuji Nakamura, the inventor of bright blue light-emitting diodes, which made possible the development of efficient white LED lighting that today is illuminating the world. The speech will be followed by more than 1,000 poster and oral presentations throughout the Columbia Metropolitan Convention Center and the USC Alumni Center. I encourage everyone reading this issue of Breakthrough to visit sc.edu/ DiscoverUSC to learn more about Discover USC, and join us if you can. If you can’t make it this year, mark your calendar for Friday, April 20, 2018, when the excitement of springtime, and Discover USC, arrive again.
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Jonathan Blalock, an Honors College exercise science major, pipettes muscle RNA for further analysis.
Spring 2017 / 3
In brief
HS
Health Sciences
STOPPING THE BLOODSUCKERS SCIENTIST’S RESEARCH AIMED AT STIFLING DENGUE VIRUS SPREAD THROUGH MOSQUITOES Tonya Colpitts’ profession is a real conversation starter —
ScienceDaily.com estimates that two billion people are at risk
or ender. Colpitts, a molecular virologist and assistant profes-
for dengue infection, mainly in tropical and subtropical regions
sor in the School of Medicine, spends her days surrounded
in Asia, the Americas, Africa and Pacific and Mediterranean
by mosquitoes.
regions. Most U.S. cases occur in travelers to those areas, but
“I’ll go to the neighborhood block party and say, ‘Well, here’s what I do,’” she says. “I start with ‘I’m a professor. I also do research in viruses.’ If anybody’s interested further, I’ll talk.” Save for the large stuffed mosquito crawling up her window blinds, the critters Colpitts studies are confined to cages in
recent outbreaks in Texas and Florida involved local transmission. While the U.S. population is largely protected by widespread use of air conditioning and window screens, “it could spike here,” Colpitts says. “We have the mosquito that spreads it.”
the pathology, microbiology and immunology department lab
In Colpitts’ lab, with its sealed windows, doors and floor drains,
where she’s made strides in combating dengue, a virus which
two types of mosquitoes — Aedes aegypti, the main dengue
can lead to hemorrhagic fever and is especially dangerous for
transmission vector, and secondary vector Aedes albopictus —
children and the elderly.
emerge from dried eggs immersed in water. They grow into
There is no vaccine or specific treatment for dengue, and initial exposure causes humans to produce antibodies that make it
mosquitoes that sip sugar water until they’re ready for meatier meals.
harder to fight off subsequent infections. So Colpitts concen-
Blood mixed with dengue virus goes into feeders containing
trates on the source: the mosquito.
skin heated to body temperature. Mosquitoes then dine on
Having identified several proteins necessary for virus survival or infection, Colpitts and colleagues pinpointed a direct correlation between one — called CRVP379 — in the mosquito gut and the animal’s level of infection. They created antibodies to bind the protein, preventing infection from occurring after the mosquito slurps dengue-tainted blood. Colpitts pursued a long-held fascination with viruses while earning her doctoral degree at the University of Texas and became further intrigued by mosquito -borne mysteries during postdoctoral work at Yale. “They’re not passed human to human, so you can’t really put
their specially prepared meal and are examined under a protective hood. The skin comes from the Cooperative Human Tissue Network and the blood from expired blood center stock. In her lab, Colpitts says, when a refrigerator has a No Food or Drink sign, “you really, really want to pay attention.” Questions about the viability of a transmission-blocking vaccine remain. It’s unclear how long the binding protein lasts, and people receiving a vaccine would have to be sold on a shot that doesn’t protect them from disease but instead causes them to manufacture antibodies for mosquitoes. “The virus can’t be controlled by controlling human behavior,” Colpitts says. “Controlling mosquitoes is much more daunting.”
a block there,” she says. “They’re not passed through eating food or contaminated water. It seems much harder to stop them.”
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(above) Aedes mosquito
MORE BANG FOR THE REBATE BUCK At first glance, California’s rebate incentives for plug-in electric vehicles make perfect sense. Motivated by a governmentsubsidized discount, consumers buy cars that spew less pollution. It turns out the rebates work, but not as efficiently as one might think. Tamara Sheldon, an environmental energy economist at the Moore School of Business, and her colleagues found that many of the plug-in electric cars in the Golden State would sell without the rebates. In a scholarly paper, Sheldon and her fellow economists at UCLA and the University of California, San Diego pointed out that tweaking the rebate policy would allow California to get more bang for its rebate bucks. “We recommended higher rebates to lower income groups and lower rebates to higher income groups as well as caps on the cost of vehicles for which rebates are offered so that you’re not providing rebates on luxury cars,” Sheldon says.
HACK THE ATTACK PHARMACY SCIENTIST PATENTS PROMISING INHIBITOR OF TUMOR DEVELOPMENT Mutant aliens hack the software of a city’s traffic lights, steering more and more aliens to a hidden site. No one suspects a thing until an enormous, slithering gob of aliens is discovered, hell bent on destruction. Sounds like the plot to a bad sci-fi movie, but, in essence, that’s how certain cancers develop into tumors, says Hippokratis Kiaris, an associate professor in USC’s College of Pharmacy. Kiaris has identified the chemokines — signaling proteins secreted by normal cells — that are co-opted by cancer cells
Those changes would have effectively lowered the state’s rebate
to tell other cancer cells to begin accumulating. The end result:
costs per car by $10,000. California officials didn’t completely
formation of a tumor.
follow the economists’ advice, but they did establish an income cap for eligible rebate users and increased the rebate offered to all lower-income buyers of electric cars.” “It always comes down to benefits and costs,” Sheldon says. “To the extent that we can compare actual costs with environmental benefits, you want to know when the rebate becomes superfluous. There is, after all, an opportunity cost to these funds — a government could be using the money earmarked for an electric car rebate in other ways to try to accompish the same goal of reducing greenhouse emissions.” Sheldon hasn’t seriously considered purchasing an electric vehicle herself, but her personal carbon footprint is already minimal: she lives downtown and rides a Vespa scooter.
“When you have a tumor, you have cancer cells and lots of normal cells that have assisted the tumor to grow,” Kiaris says. “In trying to understand that interaction and how it affects tumor genesis, we found that one particular chemical produced by normal cells assists and helps tumor cells form.” Kiaris and his research team have developed and patented a neutralizing antibody that inhibits the signaling protein. In effect, the traffic light is turned off, and cancer cells stop congregating. “We have done lots of experiments in tissue culture and in rodent models that are promising,” he says. “We used a minimal dose, and it was effective — about a 50 percent inhibition — and we think we can increase it.” While some negative side effects are unavoidable, Kiaris acknowledges that his lab’s antibody could be toxic at a maximum dose. That’s why several more years of testing and study will be necessary before human trials with the chemokine neutralizing antibody can begin. “This particular research Is looking at breast cancer tumors, but it could also be used to treat other types of cancer,” Kiaris says. “If you target a more global response, your drug will be active in a wider set of cancers. There is some bias, though, between this particular chemokine and breast cancer.”
Spring 2017 / 5
In brief
JAWS OF LIFE CUBA’S NATIONAL HERO He was Cuba’s George Washington, Walt Whitman and Ralph Waldo Emerson rolled into one, a freedom fighter, poet and philosopher who, more than 120 years after his death, is still revered on that island nation. Walk the streets of Havana and busts of José Martí are visible on nearly every block, says Jorge Camacho, a professor of Spanish and comparative literature at USC who has written two books about Martí and another about Caribbean culture. “Martí was a prolific writer — it’s how he made a living while he lived abroad — but he was also a poet and a novelist and a political organizer,” says Camacho, a Cuban native who came to the U.S. in 2000. In the aftermath of Fidel Castro’s death and the legacy of his dictator-
SEARCHING FOR NOVEL ANTIBIOTICS IN SHARKS Sharks and stingrays have an unusual ability to heal quickly from wounds, perhaps because of anti-bacterial microbes that they harbor. Marine scientist Kimberly Ritchie wants to understand that phenomenon better, and her curiosity means going out to sea in search of sharks. Ritchie, an associate professor in the Department of Natural Sciences at USC Beaufort, participates with the OCEARCH Expedition Team, a nonprofit organization that gathers critical scientific data on keystone marine species such as great white and tiger sharks. Ritchie has long been focused on shark-associated bacteria and its ability to produce antibiotic compounds. “Many of these bacteria and the compounds they produce are in the drug discovery pipeline,” says Ritchie, who also studies microbes that are beneficial to coral reefs. “So, I study sharks to learn more about their immune system, but they are also
ship — two million Cuban exiles, including one million alone in Miami
these incredible sources for novel antibiotics that no one has
— Martí remains a unifying figure among Cubans, Camacho says. Martí’s
studied.
mantra — ‘For all and for the good of all’ — defined his ideology of a democracy free of influence from Spain and the U.S.
“No one has looked to these marine hosts as sources for new therapies for humans. Since we’re entering a new era of anti-
“He wanted a color-blind democracy, and toward that end he founded
biotic resistance, the search for novel antibiotics and therapies
the Cuban Revolutionary Party in the U.S. and organized revolutionary
is incredibly important.”
clubs in Florida, New York and Philadelphia,” Camacho says. “He essentially published the basis for the war that he wanted to bring to Cuba and died in the fighting there in 1895.” During Martí’s 15 years in the U.S., he introduced literary figures such as Whitman and Emerson to Latin American writers and wrote extensively for newspapers, journals and whomever else would publish his work. Camacho recently discovered a trove of some 50 articles that Martí wrote for American-published newspapers during his years abroad. This discovery represents the largest cache of new articles of Martí found since his Complete Works were first edited at the beginning of the 20th century. That cache of materials has fueled further research by Martí scholars. For his part, Camacho continues to write about the Cuban national hero, but not in a hero worshiping manner. “Martí is the glue that binds Cubans together, but some of my research has tried to subvert that idea of his transcendence,” Camacho says. “He’s one of the untouchables — no one would dare to criticize him or his thoughts in Cuba — but my research points out that some of his ideas are not particularly useful today; they are bygone concepts. Still, I admire him greatly and believe he was the greatest Latino writer to live in the U.S. at the end of the 19th century.”
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Earlier this year Ritchie and several of her students participated in an OCEARCH expedition off the coast of South Carolina, a winter haven for great white and tiger sharks in the North Atlantic.
2017 BREAKTHROUGH AWARD RECIPIENTS HONORED
LEADERSHIP IN RESEARCH 1 Roger Dougal College of Engineering and Computing
The Office of the Vice President for Research has recognized 20 faculty members for its 2017 Breakthrough Awards. Fourteen were selected as Breakthrough Stars, demonstrating outstanding records of research, scholarship and teaching within the first few years of their service at USC. Six professors have received the Leadership in Research Award, having demonstrated leadership through such activities as mentoring junior faculty, establishing research centers and promoting research and outreach.
2 Julius Fridriksson Arnold School of Public Health 3 Victor Giurgiutiu College of Engineering and Computing 4 Sue Levko College of Social Work 5 John Weidner College of Engineering and Computing 6 Hans-Conrad zur Loye College of Arts and Sciences
BREAKTHROUGH STARS 7 Christina Andrews College of Social Work
1
8 Jessica Barnes
9
College of Arts and Sciences 9 Li Cai Chemistry, USC Salkehatchie
5
13
10 Jan Eberth Arnold School of Public Health 11 Daniel Fogerty
2
17
10
Arnold School of Public Health 12 Norma Frizzell Department of Pharmacology,
6
Physiology and Neuroscience
14
13 C. Nathan Hancock Biology and Geology, USC Aiken
3
18
11
14 Chen Li College of Engineering and Computing 15 Carole Oskeritzian
7
School of Medicine, Columbia
15
16 Virginia Shervette Biology and Geology, USC Aiken
4
19
12
17 Natalia Shustova College of Arts and Sciences 18 Gabriel Terejanu College of Engineering
8
and Computing
16
19 Frank Thorne College of Arts and Sciences
20
20 Lori Ziolkowski College of Arts and Sciences
Spring 2017 / 7
Front & Center
WHEN THE WHISTLE BLOWS Peer intervention and the adolescent bully
I
t starts with a joke, then maybe a jab. Then another joke, another jab. Maybe the bullying escalates, or maybe it stays at a low simmer, barely even acknowledged except by the victim. Does anyone say anything to stop the situation? Or does the situation come to a boil? What if it’s your friends who are doing the bullying? Who will blow the whistle? When it comes to bullying, most bystander intervention literature has examined the role of true bystanders, people who are not directly involved in the bullying incident. But intervention by members of the aggressor’s peer group — or of the victim’s — might be the most effective counter to aggressive and microaggresive behavior. Only it’s not as simple as all that, particularly if you’re talking about adolescents, whose quest for autonomy can come into direct conflict with a desire to belong. “You should have more effectiveness in challenging your own friends to change their behavior than somebody who has no connection to that group,” says Kelly Lynn Mulvey, an assistant professor of educational studies in the College of Education. “But it’s also riskier, because you’re really putting your own position in your group in jeopardy if you challenge your group’s behavior.” Mulvey devotes the bulk of her research to understanding the factors that contribute to an adolescent’s willingness to challenge peer group norms. Her research to-date has looked at gender stereotyping, race-based humor, perceptions of discrimination and other aspects of social exclusions and group dynamics. Now, Mulvey and a team consisting of College of Education colleagues Matt Irvin, Ryan Carlson and Christine DiStefano have embarked on a large-scale study of the relationships
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between peer group dynamics and intervention by individual students within those groups. Funded by the National Institute of Justice, the yearlong study will track 6th and 9th graders from half a dozen Midlands area schools. Having two time points for gathering data will allow them to look at change-over-time in critical transition years when group dynamics are in flux and peer groups are reorienting. “If you’re part of a peer group that has a lot of aggressive kids, are you then more likely to say, ‘Hey, it’s OK’ and let it slide? Or do you retaliate?” Mulvey asks. Tapping Irvin’s experience in social network analysis, the research team will attempt to determine peer group norms. Participating students will nominate the bullies and victims in their class, as well as class leaders, and those individuals will be factored into models that also map bullying behavior and peer responses. “We’ll be able to do their peer group nominations, map their social networks and match that onto their cognitions — their attitudes, evaluations and judgements surrounding bullying and aggression,” Mulvey says. “What’s novel is that we’re taking those mappings and looking at those models to see if there are differences in the way kids respond — in terms of their thinking about intervention and retaliation.” CHALLENGING THE NORM
Mulvey’s research into adolescent and pre-adolescent group membership dynamics owes to a previous career as an English teacher at an arts magnet school in Durham, N.C. “One of the great things about the school community I worked in was that it was incredibly diverse,” she says. “But
it was also putting kids who were not necessarily used to hanging out with kids who were so different from them in the same school context – and so there was a ton of social problems just surrounding group membership.” Among other efforts to combat social exclusion and bullying, Mulvey helped establish a gay-straight alliance for the students, but she felt stymied when it came to affecting change for the larger school community. “We could have rich social conversations about ‘Heart of Darkness’ or ‘Hamlet’ — they could bring in the connections to their own lives — but I didn’t feel like I was able to affect change in the way that I wanted to in the school community,” she says. “So I went back to grad school to figure out, on a broader scale, how we can work to address some of these problems.” Now, she says, all of her research relates in some way to group membership. “My particular niche is this idea of standing up and challenging your own group,” she says. “When can you act as a positive agent for change within your own social community? Kids have power over each other, there are these dynamics where you can influence those around you, but we don’t know very much about what makes someone a good, assertive challenger — what determines whether you feel comfortable standing up to your group.”
want to look just like and act just like your peer group — so there’s a conflict there.” In short, adolescents are seeking autonomy and membership in their peer group at the same time. It’s a classic case of dual reasoning. “They’ll say something about morality and say something about group functioning, though of course they don’t use those words,” Mulvey says. “They’ll say something like, ‘Well, I know it hurts his feelings, but it’s what my friends do,’ or, ‘It’s how we talk to each other so it’s OK.’” LET’S TALK ABOUT RACE
But bullying isn’t limited to overt intimidation or harassment. As Mulvey explains, it can also take the form of microaggressions,
*** #!@
AUTONOMY AT ANY COST?
“Adolescents are increasingly looking for sources of autonomy, they are increasingly independent,” says Mulvey. “At the same time, they are really tied into their peer groups. We have a lot of data showing that as you progress into adolescence, kids are much more likely to use group functioning reasoning. They say things like, ‘I wouldn’t want the group to get upset with me.’” As it turns out, younger adolescents are more likely to make decisions independent of their peers. And while that might seem counterintuitive, it starts to make more sense when you consider the developmental aspects of adolescence. “Younger kids are more willing to say, ‘I’ll do it my own way,’ which is so surprising because we tend to think of adolescence as a time period to strive for autonomy,” Mulvey says. “But that autonomy is frequently autonomy from parents, autonomy from teachers. You often look just like and act just like your peer group, though — and you
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which can easily infect not only an individual peer group but an entire school culture. Most recently, Mulvey completed a study (along with researchers from the University of London and the University of Kent) on race-based humor among 8th and 10th graders. It appeared in the journal Child Development and was inspired by a casual but disconcerting observation.
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“I was an interviewer for a project on CNN that was looking at kids’ cognition about race,” Mulvey says. “At the very end we asked the kids, ‘What is it about race that makes people uncomfortable?’ and in some schools, kids just anecdotally talking to me told stories that included racist jokes. I was thinking, ‘What are you doing? You’re being filmed by CNN right now, and you’re just openly retelling these racist jokes?’”
It wasn’t that way at every school, she’s quick to point out — “There’s definitely a school culture piece to the puzzle” — but where she did encounter that kind of rhetoric, it was pervasive. “I’d interview 20 kids in a day, and I’d hear five kids tell me racist jokes, which is just crazy,” she says. “They obviously didn’t recognize that there was a problem there.” And it is definitely a problem, she says, citing domestic terrorist Dylann Roof and the 2015 Emanual AME Church shooting in Charleston. While a host of factors contributed to Roof ’s decision to murder nine African-American congregants in an attempt to ignite a race war, one factor stood out to Mulvey. “Right after we finished this project and we submitted the paper, the Charleston massacre occurred and Dylann Roof ’s friends were saying things like, ‘Well, he told racist jokes all the time; we didn’t think it was a big deal,’” Mulvey explains. “That drove home for me the importance of this project. If kids don’t think it’s a big deal, the data shows that they end up thinking it’s not important to intervene. But if they think that the consequences are not so severe if you do intervene, they’re less concerned about social repercussions, like getting excluded from the group.” And make no mistake, telling race-based jokes and contributing to a peer group or larger school culture where race-based jokes are tolerated constitutes bullying — albeit not always in the ways we’re conditioned to think of it. “These mild forms of racism or microaggression are often overlooked in school contexts. They’re not seen as explicit forms of bullying,” Mulvey says. “But given cases like Dylann Roof, if someone had stood up to him, if he had been flagged, if someone had said, ‘This isn’t OK,’ maybe we’d have had a different trajectory.”
EVERYONE’S PROBLEM
Intervention can stop active bullying pretty quickly — within about 10 seconds, according to Mulvey. “Those are really active forms of intervening,” she says, “like actually saying, ‘Hey, that’s not OK,’ or saying [to the victim], ‘Hey, come with me, you don’t need to put up with this.’” There are also more subtle interventions that might not immediately stop a bad situation, but that can still be very effective. “I’ve done presentations for kids in schools around the Columbia area, and I always tell them, ‘Don’t feel like you need to be the hero. It’s not important for you to physically intervene and separate two kids,’” she says. “‘You have to be aware of the ways that you can intervene that aren’t going to put you at risk for repercussions, so find an adult or find a friend to talk about it with, or talk to the victim later.’ They may not stop the bullying in the moment, but those approaches are still effective and useful.” And the consequences of not intervening can be more severe than we realize. Mulvey returns to the race-based humor study to drive home her point. “With something like race-based humor there’s sometimes a tendency to trivialize it — ‘It’s not a big deal,’ ‘No one’s really getting hurt,’ so getting across the ways that, psychologically, people can get hurt can be harder,” she says. “But there’s a lot of good data that makes a powerful case, data showing that microaggressions can lead to heightened rates of anxiety, substance abuse, depression, lower academic achievement.” And that can make schoolboards, administrators, teachers and, yes, even students, take notice. “When they see the effects, and when they see that whole school communities are impacted by bullying, I think that can make a big difference in terms of communicating the message,” says Mulvey. “It’s not just the victims and the aggressors. The whole school community experiences these negative outcomes.”
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THE FAMILY CONNECTION Bullies aren’t created in a vacuum. A host of factors contribute to the problem — among them, family instability. But while researchers have previously looked at the role of family dynamics in bullying behavior, stressors related to the home life of aggressors and victims haven’t traditionally factored into school-based bullying interventions. “Rarely are family contexts included in school-based interventions that would target bullying,” says Ryan Carlson, an assistant professor of educational studies. “There are schools that have protocol and policies in place, even certain things that address bullying, but I’m not aware of a program that involves the family in that specific intervention.” Much of Carlson’s research to-date has focused more specifi cally on intimate partner violence, but partnering with colleague Kelly Lynn Mulvey and the other researchers on a team studying peer aggression and intervention allows for a broader, holistic approach to his own research agenda. As Carlson explains, parenting and co-parenting styles often play a role in how children who are bullied cope with the bullying as well as how the aggressors act. But it’s not merely a matter of children emulating the behavior modeled by their parents. “The literature suggests that kids who come from more structured environments — what I would call homes with better boundaries — are less likely to engage in bullying behaviors and are also better equipped to cope with bullying in a healthier manner.” But Carlson isn’t advocating for rigid or overbearing parenting. “When I say ‘structure and boundaries,’ I’m not talking about the helicopter parent but parents who are more actively involved,” he says. “That requires families to have some sense of stability, probably also some sense of support. There are a lot of contextual stressors like reliable transportation, money concerns, stable employment — not relying on shift work, knowing what your income will be on a daily basis.” Using a center-based approach, he ultimately hopes to take the conversation into the schools. “We have school counselors in just about every school, we have mental health and family health counselors in schools, so we have opportunities to use what they’re already doing,” Carlson says. “The long-term goal is to have very practical steps for testing interventions,
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and then to get school professionals engaged. Counselors, school social workers, school psychologists, special education teachers all have an opportunity to be at the table.” In a state like South Carolina, where economic hardships are a common reality in many communities, that all-hands-on-deck approach is not only critical but welcome. “The schools that we’ve talked to initially really strive for strong family partnerships,” says Carlson. “Being in the College of Education at the fl agship university, and being in a state with a lot of high-need areas, provides opportunities to work with schools that are often eager to get resources for their families and to understand how these family-based dynamics affect kids and their long-term outcomes.”
Spring 2017 / 13
What was the most surprising finding in your African-American tourism research? I was surprised and disappointed at the level of fear of racial discrimination. I wasn’t expecting that [since] the removal of the
Q&A With Simon Hudson College of Hospitality, Retail and Sport Management
flag. I have been here seven years now, and I’m always saying to people outside the state, ‘It’s not as bad as you think.’ We don’t have the best image in South Carolina. But perception is reality, so some people don’t come here. I kind of assumed that with the flag coming down, surely African-Americans would perceive it as a safe place to travel. And yet 50 percent of those who haven’t been here said that they would fear racial discrimination — even 40 percent of those who’ve already been here felt that way. Still, your study did find that South Carolina gets a larger number of African-American tourists than many states, correct? I was surprised at the numbers of African-Americans that we do get traveling to South Carolina. It’s a lot higher than people thought. For most states, it’s about 5 percent of their tourism arrivals and for us it’s 12 percent. But it could be a lot higher, given that 50 percent of African-Americans have their roots in South Carolina.
Simon Hudson, an endowed chair professor in the College of Hospitality, Retail and Sport Management and direc-
So does the state have the product to draw African-American
tor of the SmartState Center of Economic Excellence in
visitors?
Tourism and Economic Development, recently completed
We were looking at two things in this study: African-American tour-
two studies about the S.C. tourism market. One looked at African-American travelers, how the state performs in attracting them and what might improve those numbers. The second study examined how well the state attracts retirees to make South Carolina their new home. The current economic impact of the retiree market is estimated at nearly $30 billion, but could be higher according to Dr. Hudson.
ists themselves and African-American tourism, which we considered as the array of African-American cultural sites and attractions in South Carolina. And that second part could be for people of any race. And it’s not just African-Americans who are interested in that type of product. But what we found is despite South Carolina’s very unique, very rich history and culture, there is very low awareness of our cultural attractions. Also we’ve done a very poor job of displaying our heritage. Most of the sites that we went to and visited were rundown and poorly funded with very little interpretation. But there’s a lot of opportunity and the African-American museum in Charleston will be open in 2019, which will give us something to focus on.
14 / Breakthrough
Let’s talk a little bit about the retiree study. It seems the
What kind of role does the College of Hospitality, Retail and
state has had sort of a love-hate relationship with retirees;
Sport Management play in creating the entrepreneurs who
it wants their money but not their illnesses. What do you
will create new products?
see is the biggest stumbling block to getting retirees here?
I was brought in to make a difference. The Smartstate centers
I think it’s changing the mindset of decision-makers and
were formed to build a knowledge-based economy. It was
policy-makers because one thing we know from research over
a very smart move to create these research centers not just
the last decade or so is today’s retirees are very different from
to conduct research but also to help our economy. So in
retirees of the past. Today’s retirees are active. Today’s retirees
addition to the research, we also fund three businesses in the
want to continue their education. They want to volunteer.
USC incubator under the tourism-hospitality umbrella, and
They want to put back into the community. They want to start
we’ve had a lot of success. In the future, I would love to set
businesses. They want to be switched on. They’re connected;
up an incubator for African-American entrepreneurs to start
they’re on Facebook every day. They’ve got healthy lifestyles.
businesses catering to tourists desiring the African-American
They are bringing money when they come in. In fact, I don’t
cultural experience. In terms of our students, we are find-
think we should even use the word ‘retiree’ these days. It’s a
ing an increasing number of them staying in South Carolina
new stage of life. These people are not just looking to put
because it’s a great place to live and work and the cost of
their feet up, and they’re not going to be a drain on resources.
living is favorable. Hopefully, some of them will start new businesses and create new product for the tourism industry.
So what does South Carolina have to sell to retirees? What I am seeing is a move toward place branding to attract all segments – workers, tourists and retirees. Taking a place and saying, ‘Well let’s promote ourselves as a place to work,
From left: ITology seminar at HRSM; USC’s annual fashion show presented by HRSM; HRSM wine tasting
live and play.’ A few years ago our center was asked to do the research behind a new brand for Bluffton, just outside Hilton Head. They didn’t want a tourism brand, they didn’t want a retiree brand, they didn’t want an economic development brand, they said, ‘We want a brand for our town that will attract everybody.’ You’re promoting a lifestyle, and so I think there’s an opportunity for us in South Carolina to promote the state to everybody — including more retirees. So who is South Carolina likely to attract as a retiree? Retirees are going to move for a certain lifestyle. We found that people who had been on holiday here were significantly more likely to retire to South Carolina. The more they come here as a tourist, the more likely they are to retire here. So we could spend more effort and resources converting tourists into retirees.
Spring 2017 / 15
Book Corner
POSTMODERN PARTNERSHIPS Examining the family dynamics of cisgender women with transgender men
Modern families are very complex organisms with a mix of genders and gender identities, sexual identities and gender-based roles. But sometimes even the most unconventional pairings can look conventional to the outside world. Carla A. Pfeffer, who holds joint appointments as an assistant professor in sociology and women’s and gender studies, has taken on one dynamic of these couplings in her book “Queering Families: The Postmodern Partnerships of Cisgender Women and Transgender Men.” While the title might sound daunting, the basic construct focuses on families led by one partner who was born female and identifies as a woman and one partner who was born female but who identifies and lives in the world as a man. Pfeffer’s book is based on interviews with non-transgender (cisgender) women who have partnered and formed families with transgender men. While the pairings might seem foreign at first, there are some familiar similarities, Pfeffer says. “I found that some women partners of transgender men tended to enact more traditionally-gendered family roles, like doing the bulk of the household labor,” she says. “These new family forms are distinct and groundbreaking, but they also share many of the same challenges that other families and their members struggle with.” One of the more interesting dynamics, she says, is when the partnership predates the transition. “So you have these two people who started off as a lesbian couple, but now that one partner is transitioning to male, the other may question how to present herself,” Pfeffer says. “Is she gay, straight or something else? And some said that while they may identify as lesbian, they don’t want to present themselves 16 / Breakthrough
as lesbian out of respect for their partners who are now living life as a man.” The research began when Pfeffer was still an undergraduate at the University of Michigan, working on her honors thesis research about lesbians in psychotherapy. One theme that kept coming up among her research participants was issues around a partner or a friend who was transitioning to male. “What literature there was focused on trans men, but there was nothing about the women who partnered with them,” Pfeffer says. “So, that’s what I decided to look at.” She recruited 50 cisgender women partners of transgender men — mostly in the U.S. — to interview for her study. Some of the women identified as gay, others as straight, but the majority identified as queer since no other labels quite fit. “Ultimately, the women I interviewed are carving out contemporary families with very few models or guideposts for what their relationships might be or look like. That’s both exhilarating and terrifying,” Pfeffer says. Her research was the subject of several articles in leading sociology journals before she decided to write a book, published by Oxford University Press earlier this year. Pfeffer and her spouse, Maja, moved to Columbia in 2015 with their son when Pfeffer accepted a position at Carolina. She finished her book here and has been giving book talks around the country. She’s been excited to see the endorsements the book has received from scholars but has found another form of feedback particularly heartening. “In talks I have given, I get feedback from this community that says, ‘Finally, there’s a book about us and our experiences,’” she says. “That feels really great to hear.”
MEET THE NEW BOSS The process of picking a CEO might never be transparent, but researchers at the Center for Executive Succession are aiming to make it less mysterious — and more effective. The center, in its third year at the university’s Darla Moore School of Business, helps its 25 company partners, most of them Fortune 500 businesses, to pinpoint and eliminate common mistakes in the CEO succession process. Confidential surveys, interviews and interactions with chief human resource officers, board members and chief executives are emphasized, says center director Patrick Wright, the Thomas C. Vandiver Bicentennial Chair in Business. Candor usually follows. “We’re trying to bring in multiple perspectives and people around similar sets of questions,” Wright says. “They’re willing to share information with us through our research that, normally, I think they might be a little hesitant to do.” One issue that often crops up is the lack of diversity in executive leadership. A center study completed in October 2016 found that participating companies expect their CEO candidate pools to be 12 percent female and 9 percent other minorities in the next three years, with those percentages inching upward to 14 and 10, respectively, in the next three to five years. “We know there’s not a diverse pipeline over the next five years, so the emphasis is on what do we do now to build a more diverse pipeline over the longer term,” Wright says.
One way companies are trying to do that is by reimagining development paths to executive leadership that have traditionally included uprooting families to chase promotions — a sacrifice women have been historically less likely to make. “A lot of companies are beginning to ask, ‘Why does that have to be the model? A lot of these jobs can be done virtually. You don’t have to move to take on this role,’” Wright says. The study, which consisted of interviews with board members from 123 companies conducted from January 2015 through this past August, found that the CEO search process suffers from the same biases that affect most decisionmaking. These biases can result in choosing the wrong CEO successor. “If, as a board member, I’ve decided in my mind that you’re the right person, any information that doesn’t confirm that I’ll discount,” Wright says. With the information gleaned from the center, companies can customize a CEO succession plan that increases and diversifies their candidate pools. “We tend to get a lot of insight into what’s going on Patrick Wright in the boardroom or within the company,” Wright says. “What we’re beginning to see now is both boards and CEOs are increasingly recognizing that the emphasis on diversity has to be higher in the organization.” Spring 2017 / 17
DATA BREACH More companies are getting hacked, but savvy retailers can survive, says marketing professor
There’s a famous quote by former FBI Director Robert Mueller that Ramkumar Janakiraman likes to cite: “There are only two types of companies: those that have been hacked, and those that will be.” According to the Identity Theft Resource Center, there were 781 publicly reported data breaches in the United States in 2015 — and 40 percent of those breaches came in the business sector. However, says Janakiraman, associate professor of marketing and Business Partnership Foundation Research Fellow, the actual number could be much higher. “The problem is that many firms don’t know that they have been hacked,” Janakiraman says. The prevalence of data breaches means that it’s increasingly important for businesses to understand them. While computer scientists focus on prevention, Janakiraman is trying to understand what happens after a data breach, with the goal of helping retailers react more effectively. It’s no surprise that sales will drop following the announcement of a breach, Janakiraman says — but the question is how much, for how long, among which customers and in what exact ways. To delve into this question, he has conducted research on the sales of a major retailer following a data breach announcement. Rather than just using aggregated sales data, Janakiraman and research partner Rishika Rishika, clinical assistant professor of marketing, are working with individual-level customer sales data. The researchers found that in the particular case they are looking at, a data breach announcement led to a sales decline of as much as 10 percent. The effects, however, differed among various customer groups. “One of the interesting findings in my study is that people who have greater engagement, bonding or patronage with the 18 / Breakthrough
retailer are more forgiving, in the sense that their sales drop, but they are willing to migrate to a different channel of the same retailer,” Janakiraman says. So, for example, if a retailer’s website was hacked, some customers might still be willing to shop in their stores. “From a marketing perspective, one of the prescriptions that we offer is that it shows the power of multi-channel retailing,” Janakiraman says. In some ways, he says, data breaches produce similar effects to product recalls, except that it is the perceived payment risk rather that the quality of a particular product that affects customers’ perceptions. There have been some studies looking at the reaction to data breaches in the stock market, he says, but very little has been done at the retail level. “What we want to differentiate is how Wall Street reacts versus how Main Street reacts,” Janakiraman says. “So, to that extent ours is probably one of the very first papers to look at the effect of this announcement on the individual customer level.” In a follow-up study, he says, “We are trying to figure out if there are some mechanisms or in-house organizational practices that can be put in place that can assuage the concerns of both customers and investors. So, we are looking at the role of CIOs and CMOs.” Part of the challenge is convincing companies that data breaches are not just a technological problem. One insight he is already seeing in his research is that retailers who have a chief marketing officer tend to be better equipped to react to a data breach than those that don’t. It’s a danger, Janakiraman says, to view a data breach as only a technological problem. From a customer perspective, it’s more than that, he says, and “once you lose them, you might not get them back.”
ES
AM
Environment and Sustainability, Advanced Materials
MAGNETIC SOLUTION It’s been seven years since the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, which discharged an estimated 130 million gallons into the Gulf of Mexico. While most oil spills are much smaller — and the number of such incidents has been decreasing for decades — effective cleanup methods are still elusive.
Enter Jamie Lead, SmartState endowed chair and founding director of USC’s Center for Environmental Nanoscience and Risk. “We have no real ways of cleaning oil spills up — or, I should say, no really effective ways,” Lead says. “Take marine spills; people will use booms and skimmers and dispersants and sometimes burn surface oil. But all of these are either costly or inefficient or cause extra environmental problems on top of the oil.” Lead and his team of researchers have been working to change that, developing a potentially revolutionary way to clean up spills in an efficient and environmentally sustainable way. The idea is to use magnetic nanoparticles covered with an oil-absorbing polymer. “They are made of iron oxide, which is a naturally occurring material,” Lead says. “It is effectively a high-technology rust, so we know that it is easily available. It’s cheap and it is low toxicity.” The initial idea was to release the nanoparticles into an oil-spill environment and then remove them — with the oil attached — via magnetic means. While that idea is still in play, it turns out that the toxicity of these magnetic nanoparticles is so low that remediation could also work another way: Release the nanoparticles into an oil spill and leave them there. The nanoparticles remove the oil toxicity and, at the same time, speed up the natural processes that break oil down. Fish and other organisms will still be protected. “Even if we leave oil in the presence of an organism, such as algae or fish or something else — if we add the nanoparticles, it removes the oil’s toxicity by binding the oil to the polymer and preventing it from passing into the organism as a toxin,” Lead says. Meanwhile, the iron in the nanoparticles is a nutrient, and it stimulates the growth of bacteria that naturally degrade oil, Lead says. In nanoparticle form, the iron is more easily used by the bacteria and causes them to rapidly grow; once the iron is used, the bacteria will return to their normal levels. At this point, Lead says, researchers have cleared all the scientific hurdles and are starting to commercialize the method; his team has even developed variations that are applicable in soil. Now he is working to develop the method further in an effort to treat multiple waste components at the same time. The result of these efforts could be enormous cost savings in treating soils and waste sites, and greatly reduced environmental impacts. “We have overcome all of the scientific and technical problems,” he says. “It’s a matter now of actually implementing the technology and starting the scale-up and commercialization process.”
Spring 2017 / 19
20 / Breakthrough
THE ART OF SCIENCE
MASTER GLAND The pituitary gland of a mid-gestation mouse embryo takes on the appearance of an impressionist painting when magnified 100-times and dyed to illuminate proteins that regulate its function. The blue dots represent cell nuclei and the green and magenta dots identify proteins necessary for the production of hormones, such as growth hormone. Julie Youngblood, a third-year Ph.D. student in biology assistant professor Shannon Davis’ lab, is studying formation of the pituitary, the so-called master gland because of its role in regulating growth, stress response and reproduction. People with pituitary hormone deficiencies or pituitary tumors can be aected with dwarfism, gigantism, acromegaly and other conditions, some potentially fatal. Research in Davis’ lab provides the basic research necessary to understand and potentially treat these disorders.
Spring 2017 / 21
AM
Advanced Materials
GOING GREEN Soy paints and plastics The versatile soybean, long used in margarine, milk and tofu, is getting tapped for another purpose — plastics and paints. USC chemistry professor Chuanbing Tang has a patent pending for a chemical formula to convert soybean oil into “green” versions of both products. Tang has launched a startup — SUSMER (short for sustainable monomers and polymers) — focused on derivatives of plant oils for industries making detergents, personal care and cosmetic products. Tang’s formula doesn’t require hydrogen or high pressure processes like some industrial production; it’s also efficient with no carbon waste. Tang has made batches of different types of plastics in his lab and has his sights set on soybean oil-based paint.
3) Depending on the targeted chemical formula, the soybean polymers can be used to make hard plastic and plastic films. Regular plastic production consumes 7 percent
1
of fossil fuels.
2
3
NH2
1) Soybeans are abundant in plant oil, a renewable raw material for the chemical industry.
2) Chuanbing Tang’s
HO
patent-pending formula converts the triglycerides in soybean oil to polymers with varying physical properties.
4) Tang also has
4
his sights set on making soybean oil-based paint, which he thinks will have better durability, adhesion and lower cost compared to fossil fuel-based paints.
22 / Breakthrough
In the Pipeline
DARK SIDE OF THE SUN Columbia will be a prime viewing spot for an historic transcontinental solar eclipse in August, and USC is gearing up for the event. A shadow miles wide and zooming , miles-per-hour is headed for the United States — and the University of South Carolina is ready to welcome it. The shadow, courtesy of a rare total solar eclipse, will arrive Aug. when the moon will completely block the sun in the middle of the day. It will be the first total solar eclipse in the continental United States since , and the first transcontinental total solar eclipse, in which the eclipse’s path goes coast to coast, in years. The eclipse is a big deal for Columbia, S.C., already dubbed the Total Eclipse Capital of the East Coast, because the city is in the middle of its path and the last major metropolis before the eclipse’s shadow goes out to sea. If the forecast is clear, South Carolina could see an enormous influx of visitors eager to experience the event, and that’s where the university comes in. “We’ll set up several eclipse viewing stations across campus on the day of the eclipse to accommodate the campus community and visitors,” says Steven Rodney, an assistant professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy. The department’s eclipse activities, coordinated by physics and astronomy professor Varsha Kulkarni, also include a public lecture on Aug. , featuring renowned solar astrophysicist Sarbani Basu, chair of the astronomy department at Yale University.
In addition, there will be an exhibit from the Irvin Department of Rare Books and Special Collections at Thomas Cooper Library, and a faculty member from the geography department will be conducting an atmospheric experiment with weather balloons during the eclipse. There are also plans to have a large viewing screen set up, perhaps in the Russell House, to show live video of the eclipse as it makes its way from Oregon to South Carolina. That will also provide an alternative viewing site in case of clouds or rainy weather in Columbia. If you plan to watch the eclipse with your own eyes, get a pair of eclipse viewing glasses, Rodney says. They’re a must-have item because regular sunglasses can’t provide enough filtration to protect eyes from the sun. Campus viewing sites will have a limited number of the special glasses. The darkest sequence of the eclipse, called the time of totality when the sun is completely blocked by the moon, won’t last long — only two minutes and seconds on USC’s campus — and it will begin in Columbia at : p.m. with about minutes of partial darkness both before and after. When considered only in minutes and seconds, the eclipse might not sound like a big deal — but that’s defintely the wrong conclusion, Rodney says. “You could say it is among the most extraordinary natural events that anyone will experience in their lifetime,” he says. “Don’t miss it!” And those brief moments of sun-less day on Aug. aren’t all that will be happening on campus related to the eclipse.
Spring 2017 / 23
In the Pipeline
MAN ON THE MOON
Records of solar eclipses date back to 700 B.C. from the Assyrian and Chinese cultures, and Herodotus is often cited as the source for many eclipses from the classical period. But those ancient people’s understanding of the phenomenon was understandably incomplete, says Michael Weisenburg, a reference and instruction librarian in USC’s Irvin Department of Rare Books and Special Collections. “The early Chinese word for eclipse meant ‘to eat’ or ‘to swallow,’” he says. “The idea was that a supernatural being was swallowing the moon or the sun [during an eclipse], and it was considered a bad omen. Vietnamese folklore spoke of a frog that ate the sun. Of course, there was no empirical way to explain how an eclipse was happening back then.” The Irvin Department plans to mount an exhibit of several rare books dating back to the 16th century that provide some of the earliest printed scientific explanations of solar eclipses. Most of the books will come from the Robert B. Woodcut depiction of an eclipse Ariail Collection of Historical Astronomy. The Venerable Saint Bede, an ecclesiastical historian, presented the pre-Copernican philosophy of the day when he described the sun, moon and other planets and stars rotating around the Earth, then considered the center of the universe. A woodcut illustration from a book published on Bede’s writings in the 17th century depicts a rudimentary understanding of an eclipse with the sun’s rays blocked by the moon. “By the 1600s, they weren’t saying a frog ate the sun; they were trying to be scientific,” Weisenburg says. “From a cultural perspective, the book’s production was created by printers who would often insert biblically themed illustrations. So you have these woodcuts that have the sun and moon personified with human faces.” Also on display will be “Theoricae Novae Planetarum,” a book published in 1537 and written by Georg von Peuerbach, an Austrian mathematician and astronomer. Von Peuerbach’s text was the standard astronomical textbook of its day but
24 / Breakthrough
was abandoned after Copernicus’ theories of the sun being the center of the universe became more widely accepted. “The church saw Copernicus’ ideas as a threat because of hundreds of years of canonical thought that had stated the earth as the center universe,” Weisenburg says. “They were probably thinking, ‘If we’re wrong about this, what else in our doctrine will people think we got wrong.’” The exhibit will also include De la Sfera del Mondo, the first printed star atlas written by the Italian philosopher Alessandro Piccolomini and published in 1540. The book includes woodcut illustrations of constellations in the visible universe — stars that can be seen without a telescope. Other books on display will include 19th century amateur science volumes that served as popular guides to making astronomical observations. UP, UP AND AWAY
While the eclipse is taking place Aug. 21, April Hiscox and a team of students will be busy launching atmospheric datacollecting balloons. The balloon launches will tie into her research of the near-surface atmosphere — the layer that extends from earth’s surface to about a half-mile high. Hiscox’s team will be joined by 11 other universities from coast to coast, conducting a coordinated atmospheric survey during the eclipse. “If it’s a sunny day, I think we’ll see small changes in temperature, wind direction shift and, hopefully, a wave event that occurs when there’s an oscillation of air trying to regain its buoyancy,” she says. “That wave can drive turbulence — enough to affect a small plane flying a mile high, but not violently.” The helium-filled balloons, four to five feet in diameter, carry a small payload of sensors that measure solar radiation, temperature, wind speed and direction. “From an experimental standpoint, we have one shot,” Hiscox says. “So if it’s overcast that day, it will probably affect the data we get. We might launch several balloons in succession during the time of totality to get a fuller picture of what’s occurring.” One of Hiscox’s master’s students will use the data for a thesis project, and members of the undergraduate geography club will help launch the balloons, which will rise 8-10 kilometers before collapsing and returning to earth by a small parachute.
FRIDAY, APRIL 21 / 8:30 A.M. Columbia Metropolitan Convention Center and USC Alumni Center This event is free and open to the public.
All year, University of South Carolina undergraduate and graduate students, postdoctoral and medical scholars take their skills beyond the classroom, seeking new insights and solutions. At the Discover USC showcase, these talented achievers show how they have turned ideas into results. Join us for a glimpse into the Palmetto State’s bright future.
THIS YEAR’S INAUGURAL EVENT WILL FEATURE • keynote speech by Nobel Laureate Shuji Nakamura, inventor of bright blue lightemitting diodes • opportunities to have your picture taken with everyone’s favorite mascot, Cocky • more than 1,000 poster and oral presentations of cutting-edge research, outstanding scholarship, student leadership and community outreach
sc.edu/DiscoverUSC Spring 2017 / 25
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CATHERINE HEIGEL, ’92 Agency Director S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control
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