Take note! Accolades are in order for these newsmakers

January 22, 2014

The growth of the Arnold School's public health undergraduate program is reflected in recent changes to the Office of Undergraduate Student Affairs, which is led by Dr. Sara Corwin.

Dr. Kara Montgomery, clinical assistant professor and faculty advisor, joins the office from the Department of Health Promotion, Education, and Behavior in the Arnold School. She earned a master's degree in higher education (i.e., student services!) and a doctoral degree in health promotion and education from USC. Montgomery has extensive experience in advising and providing student support services. In the past, she held positions at UNC-Wilmington and at USC in the Athletics Department. Montgomery’s interest and training is in nutrition and her dissertation research focused on athletes and nutritional practices.

"Dr. Montgomery is the recipient of numerous awards for excellence in teaching and has been an important part of our Arnold School and USC family for nearly 20 years," Corwin said.

Dr. Charlotte T. Galloway, instructor and faculty advisor, earned a master's degree from the Department of Environmental Health Sciences and a doctoral degree in Health Promotion, Education, and Behavior from the Arnold School. She has extensive experience in a variety of public health topics, including indoor air quality, public health emergency preparedness and community health development. Her dissertation research focused on adolescent sexual risk reduction.

"Dr. Galloway has taught PUBH 102 in our program for the past three years and has been with the Arnold School for nearly 14 years," Corwin said. " Dr. Montgomery and Dr. Galloway bring a wealth of experience to our office, and we look forward to their influence on the success of our undergraduate public health program."

The undergraduate office is located in Room 108, PHRC.

8 from Arnold School among 51 to earn SPARC awards

Eight graduate students from the Arnold School of Public Health are among the 51 recipients of the Support to Promote Advancement of Research and Creativity Fellowships (SPARC) from the Office of the Vice President for Research.

The SPARC Graduate Fellowship, which comprised 10 of USC's academic units in the current round of funding, is a merit-based award designed to ignite research and creative excellence across all disciplines at USC. The fellowship may be used to support the student in a variety of ways, including salary, supplies, travel and other costs essential to promote research and creative and scholarly activity. Applicants may request up to $5,000 for a project period of up to 15 months.

Armold School fellowship recipients and their departments include Melissa Kolar, Rebecca Kyryliuk and Kara Whitaker, all from Exercise Science; Christopher Peter Aluah and Chiwoneso Tinago, Health Promotion, Education, and Behavior; Samuel Antwi, Epidemiology and Biostatistics; Grishma Bhavsar, Health Services Policy and Management, and Svetlana Malyutina, Communication Sciences and Disorders.

Recipients of the SPARC award present their work at Graduate Student Day the year after their award notification.

The SPARC Graduate Research Grant program was created in 2012 to support research and creative projects from all disciplines. For more information about the SPARC fellowship program, visit http://www.sc.edu/vpresearch/sparc.shtml.

Dr. Sara Wilcox among USC's "25 Arrive"

The January issue of "USC Times" pays tribute to the 25th year of the publication. Dr. Sara Wilcox is one of the 25 members of the Carolina community being recognized one year at a time.

Wilcox, now a professor in the Department of Exercise Science, joined USC's faculty in 1999. Asked "Why USC?," Wilcox said that she liked the collaborative spirit at the University.

"I really enjoy collaborative and community-based research. I've had the opportunity to work with many talented students. Both accomplishments and effort are rewarded and appreciated at USC," said Wilcox, director of the Prevention Research Center. "That's not a given in academia."

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