Two EPIC Members Receive URSAAA Awards

The University Research, Scholarship and Artistic Achievement Awards (URSAAA) were established in 2018 to celebrate the exceptional accomplishments of Clemson University faculty members. Among the Class of 2024 URSAAA recipients are two distinguished leaders from the EPIC, Dr. Jim Morris and Dr. Bruce Rafert. They join two other EPIC members who were inducted into URSAAA in the inaugural 2018 year, Dr. Lesly Temesvari and Dr. Kerry Smith.

The URSAAA Awards serve as a platform to acknowledge and commend the rare career milestones achieved by Clemson University faculty members. Dr. Morris and Dr. Rafert’s commitment to excellence is truly commendable, and their recognition as URSAAA recipients is a testament to their outstanding achievements.

Please join us in congratulating Jim and Bruce on this well-deserved honor!

EPIC Welcomes New Faculty Member

We are delighted to welcome Dr. Andrew Jezewski to EPIC. Dr. Jezewski, currently a postdoctoral fellow in Damian Krysan’s Lab in the Stead Family Department of Pediatrics at the University of Iowa, brings a wealth of knowledge and expertise in the field of eukaryotic pathogens. He will be joining the Department of Genetics and Biochemistry as an assistant professor. For more information, please see https://grad.uiowa.edu/news/2024/05/postdoc-examines-impact-fungal-priority-pathogen-cryptococcus.

We are excited to have Dr. Jezewski start his lab at Clemson in January 2025.

Arohi Singhal Wins Clemson’s iGRADS Competition

Arohi Singhal, PhD student in Kerry Smith’s lab, won Clemson’s iGRADS competition! In addition, she also received the People’s Choice Award. Congratulations Arohi!

The aim of the iGRADS competition is to help graduate students effectively communicate their research to a lay audience. Students create a 3-4 minute video that presents their research in an engaging way through the use of videos and creative elements. This is part of the Clemson University Graduate Research and Discovery Symposium (GRADS), which showcases the innovative and outstanding research being done by graduate students across all of Clemson’s colleges.

Watch on Youtube

EPIC Researcher Accepted into Fulbright Specialist Program

Dr. Bruce Rafert has received notification that his application to join the Fulbright Specialist Roster has been approved. While serving as Director of EPIC Initiatives (EPIC: Eukaryotic Pathogens Innovation Center) he has maintained his research in hyperspectral imaging and is now planning to use various remote sensing technologies to look at eukaryotic pathogens through microscopes, rather than at space objects through large telescopes or the surface of the earth from satellites whose instruments he helped design.

Read more

Undergraduate Student Emma Chin Receives Two Student Awards

Emma Chin, an undergraduate student in the Stamatikos lab, received the 2023-2024 CAFLS Blue Key Academic & Leadership award, as well as the Human Nutrition Outstanding Senior Award in 2024. Congratulations, Emma!

Melanie Key Successfully Defends Dissertation

On Friday April 5, 2024, Melanie Key, a graduate student in the Dou lab, successfully defended her PhD dissertation entitled “Exploring A Novel Nutrient Acquisition Mechanism Used to Obtain Host-Derived Glycolytic Metabolites for Energy Metabolism in Toxoplasma gondii.” Congratulations, Dr. Key!

Alexis Stamatikos Receives Award from Clemson University Division of Research

Dr. Alexis Stamatikos has been awarded an $84,426 Research Faculty and Postdoctoral Research Support Grant (Clemson Research Fellows) R-Initiatives Award from the Clemson University Division of Research. “CU FELLOWS: Controlling ABC-transporter overexpression: the final frontier in atherosclerosis research” is expected to run from June 1, 2024 to May 31, 2026. Congratulations, Dr. Stamatikos!

Graduate Student Hannah Akohoho Selected for Oral Presentation at the Fungal Genetics International Conference

Congratulations to Hannah Akahoho (PhD student in the Kozubowski laboratory), who was selected for an oral presentation during the 32nd Fungal Genetics international conference, which was organized by the Genetics Society of America and was held in Asilomar, CA in March 2024. Hannah also presented a poster at this conference along with two other EPIC students, Tejas Patel (Kozubowski Lab) and Arohi Singhal (Smith Lab).

Graduate Student Stephani Martinez-Barrera Selected for Oral Presentation at The Allied Genetics Conference

Congratulations to Stephani Martinez-Barrera (PhD candidate in the Kozubowski laboratory), who was selected for an oral presentation during The Allied Genetics Conference (TAGC), which was organized by the Genetics Society of America and was held in Washington DC in March 2024. The Genetics Society of America also presented Stephani with the Minoritized Scientists-NSF Rising Scientist Award. The award supported Stephani’s participation in this conference. Another member of Kozubowski Lab, Jessica Keeran, presented a poster at TAGC.

James Lewis Receives NSF Career Award

Dr. James Lewis has been awarded a Career grant in the amount of $1,327,489 by the National Science Foundation Division of Environmental Biology. “Functional genomic architecture and population differentiation of a polygenic and sexually dimorphic butterfly mimicry phenotype” will use integrative functional and quantitative genomics approaches to explore butterfly wing color and patterning. Congratulations, Dr. Lewis!

Rodrigo Martinez-Duarte Invited to Give Talk at TMS 2024 Annual Meeting & Exhibition

Dr. Rodrigo Martinez-Duarte was invited to give his talk, “Towards architecting bacterial cellulose from the bottom-up using electric fields” at the TMS Annual Meeting & Exhibition, Biological Materials Science Symposium in Orlando, Florida in March 2024.