SII Grants

USCB Gives Grants to its Faculty for Research in the Lowcountry

USCB's Sea Island Institute awards grants to support research that directly impacts our region’s economic, ecologic, and cultural vitality. Grant proposals are peer reviewed by a committee of USCB faculty, and supported by the Office of the Executive Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs and Provost.

The following Sea Islands Institute grants have been awarded to USCB faculty:

• 2025
  • Ronald Erdei - $3,232
    USCB & The Children’s Center: Early Learning Application [Phase 4]
  • Babet Villena-Alvarez, Kimberly Cavanagh, Kim Kelley, Cindy Lahar, Angela Nadeau, & Carol Weir - $7,520
    The 2025 Lowcountry and Coastal Empire One-Day Conference on Asian Studies (Second Year Conference)

• 2024
  • Edward D"Antonio & Kimberly Ritchie - $5,000
    Rapid wound healing observed in the Great White Shark: Identification and molecular characterization of a key antibiotic produced from a symbiotic bacterium
    
  • Cindy Lahar, Caroline Sawyer, Kimberly Cavanagh, & Angela Nadeau - $5,000
    USCB Global Learning Experience (GLE) Project: Support for Capturing and Editing Asian Video Content
  • Ronald Erdei - $2,810
    USCB & The Children’s Center: Early Learning Application [Phase 3]
  • Babet Villena-Alvarez, Kyle Messick & Sam Morris - $4,920
    The Lowcountry and Coastal Empire One-Day Conference on Asian Studies

• 2023
  • Mollie Barnes - $2,500
    Real Life Heroines: How Women Reformers Wrote One Another's Lives in the Sea Islands 1838-1902
  • Serkan Catma & Hancy Hritz - $4,000
    Assessing the Recreational Value of Beach Width in Hilton Head Island
  • Edward D'Antonio - $5,000
    Development of Amperometric Biosensors for the Assay of Persistent Organic Pollutants Based on Amphitrite Ornate Dehaloperoxidase Absorbed onto Gold Electrodes
  • Libby Ricardo & Morgin Jones Williams - $5,000
    Audacious Minds: An Educational Play Featuring Black Women Mathematicians
  • Caroline Sawyer & Timothy (Mac) James - $5,000
    Mather School Digital Walking Tour Sample
    
• 2020
  • Mollie Barnes, Beth Hammond, Jo Kuehn, Libby Ricardo & Jim Sidletsky - $4,600
    Lowcountry Historical Connections for Local Children: A Summer Institute
  • Ronald Erdei, Jody Levitt & Sarah Swofford - $4,800
    USCB & The Children’s Center Early Learning Application
  • Cindy Lahar, Angela Nadeau, Diana Reindl, Summer Roberts & Jayne Violette - $5,000
    Solitude, Seclusion, and Survival: Stories from Older Adults in the Lowcountry during the COVID-19 Pandemic
• 2019
  • Joe Iglesias, Rena Lewis-Kratky & Diana Reindl - $2,117
    Do healthcare organizations address the needs of their patients including the Hispanic minority groups during the delivery of their services and after patients receive the services?
  • Mollie Barnes, Caroline Sawyer & Sarah Swofford - $4,770
    Assessing the Public Health and Economic Impact of Climate Change on Beach Width
  • Serkan Catma & Elizabeth Serieux - $2,490
    Assessing the Public Health and Economic Impact of Climate Change on Beach Width
• 2018
  • Kim Cavanagh - $4,524
    The Barnwell Site Project
  • Kim Ritchie - $2,750
    Genetic Identification of Beneficial Bacteria Associated with Regional Sharks
  • Caroline Sawyer - $4,859
    SCETV & USCB’s By The River’s Season Two Post-Production
• 2017
  • Swati DebRoy - $2,500
    Student-Driven Educational Intervention in Jasper County School to Alleviate the Obesity Epidemic
  • Carey Fitzgerald - $5,000
    Student-Driven Educational Intervention in Jasper County School to Alleviate the Obesity Epidemic
  • Topher Maraffi - $2,500
    Preproduction Research for an Educational Documentary On the Carolina Roots of American Swing Dance
  • Eric Montie - $5,000
    Locating Spawning Aggregations and Critical Nursery Habitats of Red Drum in the Calibogue and Port Royal Sound Estuarine System
  • Kim Ritchie - $5,000
    Antibiotic-Producing Bacteria as a Health Proxy for Tiger Sharks of Port Royal Sound
• 2016
  • Swati DebRoy - $5,000
    Statistical Modeling for Trend Analysis of the Obesity Epidemic in Beaufort County School Children over the Past 8 years
  • Brian Glaze - $2,500
    Open Air Metal Sculpture
  • Steve Borgianini & Eric Montie - $5,000
    Establishing a relationship between seasonal patterns of fish sound production and seasonal patterns of juvenile fish abundance in the May River, SC
  • Najmah Thomas - $2,500
    African American Culture: Understanding and Celebrating Our Shared South Carolina Story
• 2015
  • Swati DebRoy - $5,000
    Modeling the dynamics of childhood obesity in Beaufort
    County school children in order to recommend sustainable interventions
  • Brent Morris - $5,000
    Radical Reconstruction at 150: Reassessing America’s Most Progressive Era
  • Kasia Pawelek - $5,000
    Optimizing insecticide treatments against culex pipiens complex mosquitoes to decrease in the risk of a West Nile virus outbreak in Beaufort County, SC: collaboration with Beaufort County Mosquito Control on the preliminary results towards NSF grant proposal
  • Joe Staton - $5,000
    Developing microsatellite loci protocols for Palaemonetes pugio

Apply for a Sea Islands Institute Grant

All tenured and tenure-track USCB faculty are encouraged to apply. Please see below for the Call for Proposals for 2025 projects.

2025 CALL FOR PROPOSALS

SII GRANT APPLICATION