College of Charleston School of Sciences, Mathematics, and Engineering

CofC Alum Sasha Pramesti has recently been awarded a Community Horticulture Fellowship with Charleston Parks Conservancy where they are helping to support historically marginalized community members pursue careers in horticulture and agriculture. Congratulations on this amazing accomplishment, Sasha!

Geology Major Helps Plan NASA Mission to Dwarf Planet Planning a NASA mission to land a rover on the dwarf planet Ceres isn't something a whole lot of people can say they've done. But that's exactly what College of Charleston sophomore Tyler Glymph did during his internship with NASA last summer. A Columbia, South Carolina, native majoring in geology a...

The Pollution in the Environment class had a field lab collaboration with Charleston Waterkeeper where they tested the water quality in Shem Creek. Andrew Wunderley met with students in Shem Creek, and Cheryl Carmack showed them how to process water samples!

Students in the Geology 253 Earth System Science lab used system mapping techniques to analyze the koi-turtle pond at Stern Student Center, all while enjoying the fall weather!

Biomimicry First-Year Seminar students study functional biology and reconnect with nature in the Stern Center gardens. How does nature attach temporarily or convey materials, for example? Students will translate biological strategies and mechanisms into regenerative human design innovations.

First Year Experience at the College of Charleston
College of Charleston Department of Biology

Students of Dr. Jaume' had the opportunity to visit the research vessel Langseth! In addition to exploring areas of the ship like the main science control room and the sonar room, they were able to speak to the ship's staff about the systems.

Systems Engineering major Sydney Pearson discusses her summer internship experience on a recent episode of the "Speaking of ... College of Charleston" podcast.

CofC Podcast: How a Summer Internship Offers Marketable Skills, Launches Careers On this episode of the Speaking of … College of Charleston podcast, Nick Plasmati '18, associate director of marketing and academic programs in the College of Charleston Honors College, speaks with Sydney Pearson, a junior Honors student majoring in systems engineering, about her summer internship...

Students in ENGR 103, Introduction to Engineering, got to learn how to develop a simple pick-and-place application from scratch using Staubli TX40 during a guest talk from Dr. van Delden!

The Math department's Friday party and movie marathon event was a success! Keep an eye out for future fun-filled ways to get involved with the department!

Biology students collected data at the CofC Marine Lab on Charleston Harbor for independent projects in Dr. Allison Welch’s Biodiversity, Ecology, and Conservation Biology class.

Dr. Adam Ali was recently awarded a National Science Foundation Research EPSCoR RII Research Fellow Award totaling $300,000. Dr. Ali will be using NASA's satellite technology to provide accurate information regarding harmful algal blooms in coastal regions. Congratulations!!

Come join us at the SSME Weeks of Welcome event. Professors are waiting to talk to you, and we have free pizza!

Alumni Spotlight! Previous SSME student, Jasmin Graham is making a huge difference as the President and CEO of Minorities in Shark Science (MISS). Jasmin has a passion for science education and accessibility, and is bringing opportunities for underrepresented students with summer camps, research summits, fellowships, workshops, and more! More information on the amazing work of MISS and Jasmin is available at misselasmo.org. Great job, Jasmin!

Congratulations to Dr. Steve Jaume' for his publication about the new earthquake monitoring network in the Summerville area!
Read it at: https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/ssa/srl/article-abstract/doi/10.1785/0220230085/624616/Preliminary-Results-from-a-Dense-Short-Period?redirectedFrom=fulltext

Our annual Celebration of Summer Research event was a big success. Congratulations again to our student researchers for doing such an excellent job! Thank you all for the fantastic turnout.

Dr. Jay Forsythe is the principal investigator (PI) on a Major Research Instrumentation grant from NSF! This grant will fund the purchasing of a matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization mass spectrometer. Co-PIs on the grant are Dr. Michael Giuliano, Dr. Brooke Van Horn, Dr. Wendy Cory, and Dr. Yu Gong. This is an amazing opportunity in both research and teaching here at the College of Charleston!

Computer Science students Wish Shao and Cayden Dunn have been working with Dr. Hashemi on summer research! Wish Shao is working on utilizing machine learning techniques to predict COVID-19's impact on foot traffic in Charleston. Cayden Dunn is focusing on a system that will help bridge the gap between GPT language models and computational knowledge engines.

Dr. Paul Young was recently awarded the Paul R. Halmos-Lester R. Ford Award for outstanding expository papers in The American Mathematical Monthly. The award was given by the Mathematical Association of America for his paper "From Madhava-Leibniz to Lehmer's Limit", The American Mathematical Monthly, 129:6. Congratulations!

Six undergraduate and graduate students from the College of Charleston presented their research at the Phycological Society of America conference in Rhode Island in July 2023 with Dr. Heather Spalding. They did a fantastic job with their oral and poster presentations! GPMB graduate student Ray Radick won the Ralph Lewin award for Best Student Poster.

They were even able to participate in the algal fieldtrips to collect, press, and identify macroalgae from Rhode Island! Awesome job!

This summer research highlight comes from Dr. Frazier's lab! The overall focus of the lab is purification and characterization of viral endoribonucleases, but there are multiple projects being worked on. Andrew O'Brien is building a freezing robot for cryo-EM. Erik Daquilanea is working on nucleases from coronavirus, while Katelyn Morris works on those from arteriviruses. Patrick O'Reilly and Jaci Fleming are both studying nucleases in toroviruses. Such an awesome group! Great job!

SSME students Harrison Caspino and Whitney Kitchen are taking advantage of experiential learning opportunities this summer through SURF grants. Click below to learn more.

Summer Research Grants Keep Learning Cool Each summer, students at the College of Charleston gain hands-on experience through Summer Undergraduate Research with Faculty (SURF) grants, which pair students with faculty mentors to pursue experiential research that tackles real-world problems. For summer 2023, a total of 22 student projects hav...

That's a wrap for STEM 360 this summer. We ended the week with a focus on Marine Biology. Students learned about marine animals and completed an algae pressing activity. They finished off the day with a CofC campus tour. We are already looking forward to next summer.

Yesterday, STEM 360 participants had a fun-filled day learning about computer science and mathematics!

SSME students Jenna Snead and Brianna Joyner are working in Dr. Carson's lab this summer to develop new AI-driven medical imaging systems that would expand access to cancer screenings to severely underserved global populations!

Sorinel Oprisan, professor of physics, was recognized yesterday by Governor McMaster for excellence in research.

Dr. Oprisan joined the College in 2005 and has taught a wide range of courses from algebra- and calculus-based introductory physics to upper-level (bio)physics. An outstanding and internationally recognized scientist, Dr. Oprisan actively engages students in his groundbreaking research, which has significantly expanded the world’s knowledge of computational neuroscience. He has mentored almost 50 undergraduate research students, and 17 of his peer-reviewed research papers have undergraduate co-authors.

It was Biology Day for our STEM 360 participants today. The students traveled to Stono Preserve for a hike around the property and environmental discussion. They also took part in an activity on human diseases that simulated tracking a disease outbreak and transmission.

The second day of STEM 360 was all about Geology and Physics. Participants toured the Mace Brown Museum of Natural History at the College of Charleston and learned about fossils from Curator and paleontologist Dr. Scott Persons.

Later, Dr. Vijay Vulava guided students through an interactive exercise where they used a stream table to learn how streams sculpt landscapes as well as learn about how humans can influence stream behavior. Participants modeled many processes including the development of meanders to catastrophic flood events.

For the physics portion of the day, students used sensors to measure reflectivity.

Day one of STEM 360 is complete! Today was chemistry day, where our participants got to experiment with protein folding, TLC analysis, and making different colored compounds. We can't wait for day two!

Angela Nganga is a rising senior who recently completed her Margaret A. Davidson Undergraduate Resilience Research Scholars project with Dr. Levine. She helped develop an interactive flooding application and tide prediction model to provide people with information regarding currently flooding areas or areas that are predicted to flood in the Charleston area. Amazing job!

Kids On Point paid us a visit yesterday to learn about STEM-related activities. The group consists of students in grades K -8. Yesterday they met our SPOT robot. Other plans include visiting the Mace Brown Museum of Natural History at the College of Charleston and learning about sea creatures during our interactive marine biology touch tank at Grice Marine Lab.

Dr. McGlinn's summer field team is studying the biodiversity of ephemeral wetlands. Specific projects include Matthew McDonald focusing on arthropods and reptiles, and Alannah Burrill reintroducing an endangered species of plant.

Students in Dr. Zhang's lab are researching stress-monitoring for operators during human-robot collaboration. They're using cameras to determine if monitoring facial expressions can perceive the stress-level of operators.

Biochemistry students Christian Herring and Jordyn Pieper are spending their summers conducting research with Dr. Giuliano. Christian is determining the structure of different forms of the neuropeptide somatostatin, and Jordyn is studying the initial stages of folding in small peptides.

Biology student Ansley Elkins working hard on her research with Dr. Geslain. She's been working with Dr. Geslain for three years, and is currently balancing two research projects. She was also recently awarded the prestigious Barry N. Goldwater Scholarship! Great job!

Hannah Houston, a graduate student in the Masters of Environmental and Sustainability Studies program, is spending her summer injecting nitrogen and carbon isotope tracers into tree seedlings to track the movement of organic compounds from tree to tree through shared fungal partners

Highlighting another one of our summer research students! Here we have Dr. Fragile instructing his research student, Joel. Their current research is focusing on magnetically arrested disks.

Students in Dr. Chartas's astronomy lab are conducting summer research. They are working on projects such as determining the velocities of ultrafast winds and resolving extended x-ray emissions around quasars.

Dr. Sandifer is the lead author of chapter 19, Observing and Monitoring the Ocean, in a new Oceans and Human Health textbook. Check out the book when it releases on June 8th!

Biology Major Wins Student Entrepreneur of the Year for Kitten Feeding Device Above: Michele Graham with kittens at Pet Helpers animal shelter. (Photo by Catie Cleveland) By Kennedy Robinson Ideas can spark from anywhere. Just ask rising junior Michele Graham. A compelling notion hit her late one night while volunteering at a local animal shelter a few years ago. After observ...

Calling all high school sophomores, juniors, and seniors to join us this summer for a fun-filled week of STEM activities.

Learn more and register: go.cofc.edu/STEM360