A University of Southern California Ph.D. alum, Dr. Genevieve G. Carpio, recently released a new book about California’s Inland Empire. Dr. Carpio says the book, Collisions at the Crossroads: How Place and Mobility Make Race is her answer to a series of puzzling contradictions she witnessed growing up in the multicultural area where a diverse population often clashed over race, memory and place making.

“What I found is conflicts over cultural belonging have materialized over the meanings, practices, and policies attached to mobility across the 20^th century,” said Dr. Carpio. “This realization motivated me to work towards making sense of relational histories of race-making in this diverse place, where effective movement across the region shapes power in sites as different as bicycle ordinances, immigration policy, incarceration, traffic checkpoints, and Route 66 heritage.”

Dr. Carpio is currently an Assistant Professor in UCLA’s César E. Chávez Department of Chicana/o Studies. She completed her Ph.D. in American Studies and Ethnicity at USC. Her new book is based on the interdisciplinary work she did as a Ph.D. candidate at USC.

“As someone who grew up at the crossroads of Los Angeles and the Inland Empire, studying in Southern California was a huge advantage” explained Dr. Carpio. “It allowed me to complete the project in ways that felt right to me—for instance, by maintaining my connections to community-based organizations engaged in the practice of connecting the past and the present.”

Dr. Carpio has carried much of her research with her to her role at UCLA. Her current work focuses on how people of color have navigated, accommodated and resisted barriers to their free movement. She has a few different projects going on including a piece about African American mobility in postwar Los Angeles and a piece on the movement of Latinx inspired architecture in 1920’s Los Angeles to places like Australia and New Zealand. Dr. Carpio says the courses she teaches investigate how space changes over time and how that impacts power in multiracial places.

Dr. Carpio knows the trials and tribulations of life as a Ph.D. student and encourages people currently in the process to take time for themselves.

“Sleep and eat and foster your social relationships now,” said Dr. Carpio. “It doesn’t get any easier down the line and these are vital skills.”

Dr. Carpio has an Instagram account (@DrGenaGarpio) where she talks about academic life for graduate students and junior faculty.

You can find her book on Amazon or at Powell’s Books.

Graduate school often feels like a test of your ability to juggle class, research, work, family, and friends. Sometimes the process is incredibly rewarding. Other times, it’s overwhelming and you feel like there are not enough hours in the day to complete everything. While trying to master the art of the graduate school juggle, it’s imperative that students emphasize their mental health and well-being and seek assistance when they feel overwhelmed, anxious, or down.

A PhD student at the University of Southern California is now leading the charge to improve the resources available to graduate students seeking mental health support. Gulnaz Kiper, a PhD candidate in Social Psychology, is working to expand TrojanSupport to graduate students. TrojanSupport was started last year by a team of undergraduate students and offers free peer-to-peer counseling to students, as well as mental health related talks and events. TrojanSupport is currently recruiting volunteer peer counselors and will start to assist graduate students in spring 2020.

“The more I talked with my graduate student friends, the more I realized just how widespread mental health problems were,” said Kiper. “I noticed that there was a fundamental problem in the system and felt the urge to do something about it. I just did not feel comfortable going about my day and pretending this was all normal when I saw so many wonderful people around me suffering while trying to do good things for their careers and for the world.”

Kiper says she is deeply passionate about human psychology and wanted to do something to raise awareness about mental health, create a safe space and offer guidance on improving well-being.

“I am so happy I found the TrojanSupport organization when I did because what TrojanSupport will offer to grad students truly resonates with my values and passions,” said Kiper.

Kiper is helping to build TrojanSupport while in the midst of research for her PhD. Her work focuses on motivation and mindsets. She says she is currently studying a specific difficulty mindset called “difficult-as-sanctifying.” This is the belief that overcoming difficulties can build character and purify the self. Kiper says she is investigating how the endorsement of this mindset can improve performance on tasks by increasing resilience, add to a sense of purpose and meaning in life, and how it may change based on daily experiences. Kiper anticipates completing her PhD in May 2022. For more information on TrojanSupport visit their website or follow the organization on Instagram and Facebook. If you would like to get involved and become part of TrojanSupport, you can apply on the website.

USC also offers the following regular drop-in workshops to facilitate stress relief:

• “Let’s Talk” on  Monday, Wednesday and Thursday from 2:30 to 3:30 p.m. in STU 422
• “Well-being Wednesday” every Wednesday from 6-7 p.m. in TCC 222
• “Thriving Thursdays” every Thursday from 12 – 1p.m. in TCC 222

If you are in need of urgent mental health assistance, walk-in to USC Student Health at Engemann or Eric Cogen Student Health Centers or call 213-740-WELL.

Here is a difficult question—Do you think it is okay to insert a chip in someone’s brain if they have suffered a brain injury or have experienced a loss in brain function? Is it ethical to give that person a ‘chip in the brain’ or brain implant? 

Professors from USC posed these questions to a group of Ph.D. students to spark a dialogue during the annual USC Annenberg Graduate Fellowship Micro Seminar Series on Friday, September 27. The topic of this particular seminar was “Narrative and Neural Implants: A Workshop on the Ethical Portrayal of Advanced Technologies” led by Professor Dong Song from the Viterbi School of Engineering.

The USC Annenberg Graduate Fellowship Micro Seminar Series is a one-day event featuring workshops taught by faculty members from the Annenberg School for Communications & Journalism, School of Cinematic Arts and Viterbi School of Engineering. The micro-seminars are designed for new and returning Annenberg Fellows. The seminars discuss special topics in communication, digital media research and creative practice and encourage collaboration between students and disciplines. 

Professor Dong Song’s seminar was unique because he included two other professors to help him discuss the implication of virtual reality technologies and how they can be used across different disciplines. The two other professors were Marientina Gotsis from the School of Cinematic Arts and Robert Hernandez from the Annenberg School for Communications & Journalism. Together, the faculty members shared their research and expertise on advanced technologies and the implications in their fields. 

Professor Dong Song is a Research Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering and the co-director of the USC Center for Neural Engineering. He has worked on technology to aid people with injuries to the hippocampus. Professor Marientina Gotsis is Associate Professor of Practice at the USC School of Cinematic Arts and the director for the Creative Media & Behavioral Health Center. She has worked with people who have suffered spinal cord injuries and has used virtual reality technology to help people with Parkinson’s. She has also worked on creating multi-sensory environments for people with severe dementia. Professor Robert Hernandez is Associate Professor of Professional Practice at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. He is using virtual reality and advanced technology to tell stories and shape the future of journalism. 

Students from all three schools attended the seminar and discussed the merits and pitfalls of advanced technologies. Students shared their thoughts on the power advanced technology has to help or hurt society. 

Professor Dong Song’s seminar is just one example of the many interesting seminars offered. Other workshops offered included When the Dog Catches the Car: Getting and Using Data from Games taught by Professor Dmitri Williams of the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, Outrage & Empathy in Creating Media taught by Professor Pablo Frasconi of the School of Cinematic Arts, Post/Human/Cinema taught by Professor Holly Wills of the School of Cinematic Arts, AI, Networks and Society taught by Professor Myank Kejriwal of the Viterbi School of Engineering, and Fake News, Real Harm – Multiple Perspectives on Disinformation taught by Saty Raghavachary from the Viterbi School of Engineering.

Erin Brown, a student in the Strategic Public Relations program at the Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism, attended the Outrage & Empathy in Creating Media seminar and said there were some important lessons from the discussion. 

“What I took away from the seminar is that it’s very difficult to be empathetic and it is something we all need to work on. No matter how good we feel we are at it or how much we connect with people, there’s always work that can be improved upon to increase our levels of empathy,” said Brown. “It’s not something that comes naturally to us, so it’s really something we need to focus on as people so that we can connect with each other better.”

Students from all seminars have the opportunity to follow-up with the professors throughout the school year and are encouraged to meet again in groups to discuss topics that came up during the seminars. 

Six outstanding Ph.D. candidates at the University of Southern California have been selected to receive the 2019 Ph.D. Achievement Award. The annual award recognizes students from across the University who have exceptional academic profiles and have excelled in their field. Each recipient’s faculty advisor is also recognized with a Graduate School Ph.D. Mentoring Award.

“When I think about the Ph.D. Achievement Awards, I think, Yes! This is what we do here,” said Vice Provost for Graduate Programs Sally Pratt. “The Ph.D. Achievement Awards are a beacon. This really shows what a USC Ph.D. can be. It is very special.”

This year’s Achievement Award recipients are Jennifer Candipan, Aroussiak Gabrielian, Pragya Goel, Shanyuan Niu, Rebecca Peer and Maria Francesca Piazzoni.

Jennifer Candipan is part of the Department of Sociology at USC’s Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences. Her research explores the link between neighborhoods and schools and how that can contribute to inequality in children’s education. Specifically, Candipan explores how gentrification simultaneously segregates schools and integrates neighborhoods and the problems that arise from this new paradigm. Candipan’s primary faculty advisor is Ann Owens, Associate Professor of Sociology.

Candipan’s work has been published in top sociology and urban studies journals. She will receive her degree in May and will start a two-year postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard University in the fall.

Arroussiak Gabrielian is a Ph.D. candidate in the Media Arts & Practice Ph.D. Program at the School of Cinematic Arts. Over the past five years, her work has focused on questions of environmental justice, health and ethics. Her dissertation project is called “Encounters in the Anthropocene: Synthetic Geologies, Diegetic Ecologies and other Landscape Imaginaries.”

“My work aims to torque our imaginaries to get us to rethink our interactions with both human and non-human agents on the planet,” said Gabrielian. “I use technology to amplify the energies of the living world using various different creative projects.”

Holly Willis, the Associate Dean of Research in the Media Arts & Practice Division is Gabrielian’s primary faculty advisor. Upon completion of her Ph.D, Gabrielian will stay in the Trojan family and teach in the landscape program at the USC School of Architecture.

Pragya Goel is a Ph.D. candidate in Molecular and Computational Biology at USC Dornsife. She says she is broadly interested in neuroplasticity and how remodeling specialized connections between neurons can influence memory, behavior and cognitions. Specifically, her research focuses on how neurons in the brain communicate with each other and what can go wrong in neurological diseases. Goel has been a key member of her faculty adviser, Dr. Dion Dickman’s, laboratory.

Goel has published and co-authored multiple papers throughout her time at USC. By the time she completes her degree, she is expected to have at least nine first author publications. Goel has accepted a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard University.

Shanyuan Niu is a Ph.D. candidate in the Materials Science Program at USC Viterbi. Niu says his research focuses on developing new materials to solve problems like renewable energy generation and efficient light emission detection. Niu’s faculty advisor is Jayakanth Ravichandran, Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science and Electrical and Computer Engineering – Electrophysics. Niu has multiple offers for postdoctoral fellowships and will make a decision on which to accept soon.

Rebecca Peer is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. Her research focuses on energy and water systems. Her dissertation looked at cooling water and water requirements for electricity systems across the United States. Peer says she focuses on understanding and quantifying the relationship between the water and electricity sectors by combining elements from computational modeling, data analysis and statistics.

Kelly Sanders, Assistant Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering serves as Peer’s faculty advisor. Peer will start a position as a postdoctoral researcher at the Carnegie Institution for Science at Stanford University in June. In 2020, she will join the University of Canterbury as a Lecturer (equivalent to Assistant Professor in the United States).

Maria Francesca Piazzoni is a Ph.D. candidate in Urban Planning at the Price School of Public Policy. Piazzoni is about to earn her second Ph.D. She completed her first Ph.D. in Architecture at the University of Venice in 2014. Piazzoni’s research focuses on how planners can make cities more inclusive through urban design.

“I work on issues of immigrants in cities specifically in the built department,” said Piazzoni. “My research was on the immigrant street vendors in Rome, looking at the ways in which transformations of the built environment can help to create cities that welcome everybody.”

Piazzoni’s faculty advisor is Tridib Banerjee, Professor and the James Irvine Chair in Urban and Regional Planning. Piazzoni’s first book, The Real Fake: Authenticity and the Production of Space was published by Fordham University Press last year. Piazzoni will join the University of Liverpool as a Lecturer in Landscape Architecture and Urban Design in the fall.

All six Ph.D. Achievement Award winners and their advisors were honored during a reception hosted by USC Graduate School. Congratulations to all the recipients on their remarkable academic careers.

Ph.D. research doesn’t have to keep students tied to a single university in a single city. In fact, there are many funding opportunities to help students explore and take their studies abroad. During the course of their Ph.D. research, students from USC have found themselves interviewing children in South Korea, combing through archives in France, working with the government in Peru and more. 

Each year, the University of Southern California helps graduate and undergraduate students apply for and receive funding from the Fulbright U.S. Student Program. It is sponsored by the U.S. government and allows U.S. citizens to travel, study and work abroad. About four to five Ph.D. students typically apply for Fulbright awards in any given year. USC is encouraging more Ph.D. students to consider a Fulbright award and is providing resources to help students during the application process.

Depending on your field, a Fulbright award can help you dive deeper into your research and take advantage of resources you might not otherwise be able to access. Natalia Lauricella, a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Art History, received a Fulbright for the 2018-2019 academic year to conduct archival research in Paris. Lauricella says her dissertation looks at the networks of master lithographers, avant-garde painters and art dealers who produced color prints, posters and books in the late 19^th and early 20^th century in France. The Fulbright award is allowing her to examine archival material housed in libraries in Paris for nine months. Lauricella says the length of the Fulbright gave her a unique opportunity to immerse herself in the research.

“One of the central figures in my dissertation is a master lithographer who opened his own atelier in the 1890s. The atelier still operates in Paris, and during my time here, I have spent many afternoons visiting the shop and speaking with the printers and artists working there today. Because of the Fulbright grant and the length of time I am in Paris, I have had the opportunity to return multiple times to the atelier and cultivate relationships with these printers. Some of the most important developments in my project have come from my discussions and observations in the print atelier,” said Lauricella.

Another Ph.D. candidate’s research has taken her to South America with a Fulbright award. Hai-Vu Phan is a Ph.D. candidate in Political Science and International Relations. Her research focuses on renewable energy policies. Through Fulbright, she was able to work with the energy regulator of Peru. She says she visited wind farms and solar farms as part of official state visits. She also traveled to isolated communities in the Amazon to check on distributed solar energy systems.

“I highly recommend that students apply for Fulbright,” said Phan. “It is a generous award. You are offered many resources in the host country and you forever belong to an alumni network of distinguished people that can help your career in the future.”

Stephanie Kang’s research took her to South Korea. Kang, a Ph.D. candidate in Political Science and International Relations, says her research focuses on the design and implementation of security commitments between countries and how such commitments affect the likelihood of conflict. She says the U.S.-South Korean military alliance is the ideal case study for her dissertation project. She says she her Fulbright award has allowed her to interview people at the U.S. Embassy in Seoul, the U.S. Combined Forces Command and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

“The Fulbright program provides a unique opportunity to establish academic and professional relationships with scholars outside the U.S.,” said Kang. “These avenues for transnational research cooperation are important for PhD students who conduct research on international topics or have area interests in which the perspectives and work of scholars and professionals from other countries is essential.”

Kang says aside from the academic opportunities, one of her most memorable experiences in South Korea was having Thanksgiving dinner at the U.S. ambassador’s residence in Seoul, complete with turkey, stuffing and pumpkin pie.

Katie Capra, the Associate Director of Academic Honors and Fellowships, says Ph.D. students who are interested in applying for a Fulbright should attend one of USC’s Fulbright Writing Workshops or watch the workshop online. She also encourages students to think about how the timing of a Fulbright will enhance their dissertation. Once students decide to apply for Fulbright, they need to participate in advising during the summer with Academic Honors and Fellowships staff. Students can find detailed information on the application process and resources here.

When you think of cancer, you hardly think of beauty. You likely think of a destructive disease that wreaks havoc on the body and causes heartache and suffering for millions of people around the world. However, if you look at the process of diagnosing cancer from a purely aesthetic perspective, you could confuse it for art. The colorful tissue biopsies and stains that are used to identify, subtype and select treatments for cancer can look a lot like photographs, water colors or oil paintings intended to hang on a wall.

Rishi Rawat, an MD-PhD student at the University of Southern California, encountered the striking aesthetics during his research to develop digital pathology. Rawat submitted an image taken during his examination of cancer cells to the USC Graduate School’s annual “Deck Our Halls” competition. The competition is designed to showcase student research and creative work in its many different forms. Students submit their projects and those who are selected display their pieces on the walls of the graduate school office for one year. Rawat will exhibit an image of a slide that is part of his cancer research.

“This is a picture of the natural fluorescence of 35 pieces of cancer tissue without any dyes and stains, just the intrinsic, naked fluorescence of the cells,” said Rawat. “As a person, looking at this image gives me the chills because if I didn’t know it was cancer, I’d think it was beautiful.”

Rawat is working on groundbreaking research that could revolutionize the way cancer is diagnosed and treated. The idea behind digital pathology is to use technology and artificial intelligence to analyze cells and tissue and detect abnormalities. It has major implications in cancer research as a computer is able to recognize cell patterns more quickly than a human. Rawat says digital pathology could reduce the amount of time it takes to diagnose a disease and allow patients to start treatment faster. It can also be used in situations where doctors are not readily available to diagnose cancer.

“If you go to places where they barely have the technologies to take the biopsy and perform the simple stains, they don’t have the expertise to look at that biopsy and give you a deep comprehensive analysis. But, a computer could do that,” said Rawat. “A computer could learn patterns from the tissue, patterns that it learns on its own automatically and patterns that we teach it from the expertise of pathologists, and we could democratize pathology.”

Digital pathology has the potential to improve our understanding of cancer. Rawat says a computer can learn from far more data points than a human, meaning a computer has the potential to learn patterns and discrepancies that go beyond our visual understanding of cancer.

“It could teach us things that we don’t know,” said Rawat. “The more we study cancer, the more we realize it is an extremely complex disease. Computers are going to be able to help us synthesize all of the knowledge that exists into a framework that we can use to think about it more intelligently.”

Interdisciplinary research is central to Rawat’s work. He currently has four mentors at USC’s Keck School of Medicine and USC’s Viterbi School of Engineering who come from a variety of backgrounds: David Augus, a professor in both the medical and engineering schools; Dan Ruderman, a professor at the Keck School of medicine who has a background in physics; Fae Sha, a professor at Viterbi who specializes in artificial intelligence and machine learning; and Michael Press, a professor in the Department of Pathology at Keck and an expert in breast cancer pathology.

Rawat earned his undergraduate degree from the University of California at Berkley and says he decided to continue his education at USC because of unparalleled access to the best professors in each field. “This particular project and this program not only connected me to the best medical people, but to people in other fields who could help me grow in a multidimensional way,” said Rawat.

Rawat’s image of cancer cells will be displayed in the USC Graduate School offices through the year alongside the work of about 30 other USC graduate students. In February, USC Graduate School and the Office of Undergraduate Programs hosted a reception and invited the USC community to see the new creative works decorating the walls.

You’ve probably heard the term gentrification thrown around many times to describe how neighborhoods are transforming in cities like Los Angeles, New York, Denver, Seattle, San Francisco and Portland. You probably think of gentrification and picture an influx of hip coffee shops and trendy restaurants. But, have you considered the impact on children and schools?

Jennifer Candipan, a Ph.D. candidate in sociology at USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, is diving into this question. Jennifer is studying the relationship between neighborhoods and schools and is specifically looking at racial, ethnic and socioeconomic composition. She’s trying to understand the effects on students and how certain circumstances can shape a child’s experience or contribute to inequality.

She says part of her dissertation focuses on trying to understand the changes in how parents choose neighborhoods and schools, especially as more and more parents decide to send their children to non-neighborhood schools, like charter schools, magnets schools or private schools. Jennifer says she has found that the link between where you live and where you attend school has not changed much over time, but it is decoupling the most in gentrifying neighborhoods.

“I look at trends over time in terms of where this is happening and to what degree,” said Candipan. “The second part of it is understanding on a more individual level what are the family factors, the neighborhood factors, and the school factors that are contributing to those decisions.”

Candipan looks at cities across the U.S. for her research, but she says she was partly inspired by what she saw in Los Angeles. Candipan grew up in Southern California and has lived in Los Angeles at various times throughout her life.

“Everyone talks about Los Angeles being this diverse metropolitan region, but seeing all the segregation in various contexts, the segregation in the neighborhood level and the school level and all sorts of institutional settings. Being here really awakened me to these larger processes that were probably happening at a national level,” said Candipan.

Candipan says that housing policy and school policy are often looked at separately, but they shouldn’t be.

“In order to solve this very longstanding issue of school segregation you kind of have to fix things at the neighborhood level too and have affordable housing and neighborhood initiatives that keep people in place without displacing them,” said Candipan.

Candipan is a recipient of a 2018 National Academy of Education/Spencer Dissertation Fellowship, allowing her to spend this academic year writing her analysis. The fellowship is awarded to researchers who focus on education and the improvement of education. The fellowship incorporates professional development and mentoring sessions with senior academics in the field. Candipan is scheduled to present her research at the National Academy of Education/Spencer Dissertation Fellowship Spring Fellows Retreat in March in Washington D.C.

As you vote in the midterm elections, you may not realize just how many students at USC are researching voting and politics. Ph.D. candidates across multiple schools at USC spend countless hours studying voting, what drives people to the polls and how we express our political opinions.

Sara Sadhwani, Ph.D. candidate at USC

Sara Sadhwani is receiving national attention for her research on voting. Sadhwani is a Ph.D. candidate in the Political Science and International Relations program at USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences. Her work focuses on estimating vote choice using surname matched vote returns for Asian American and Latino voters.

Sadhwani wrote an article for The Washington Post in May, just ahead of the primary elections. She looked at the potential influence of Asian American voters in Orange County. She found that Asian American voters in Southern California tend to lean Republican. This finding is the opposite of the national trend. However, she also found that Asian Americans in many Southern California districts supported Hillary Clinton over President Trump in the 2016 election. Sadhwani notes in her article that Asian Americans are the fastest growing immigrant group in the U.S. The research she details in The Washington Post article was also highlighted in two pieces in the New York Times and on KCRW radio station.

Jarred Cuellar, Ph.D. candidate at USC

Another Ph.D. candidate, Jarred Cuellar, is researching Latino voting behavior. His research focuses on what mobilization efforts drive Latinos to the polls. He’s looking at the impact of a variety of mobilization techniques including “Get Out the Vote” campaigns, mailers and canvassing. Cueller is currently a second year Ph.D. candidate in political science.

Jeeyun (Sophia) Baik, Ph.D. candidate at USC

At the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, part of Ph.D. candidate Jeeyun (Sophia) Baik’s research focuses on how people express, or hide, their opinions about politics in conversations and on social media. Baik says, “I am researching (re)configurations of public spheres facilitated by communication media and their impacts on people’s engagement in social and political issues.” Baik says she plans to further investigate people’s privacy concerns when they express opinions on digital platforms.

Whitney Hua, Ph.D. candidate at USC

Whitney Hua, a Ph.D. candidate in the Political Science and International Relations program, is also studying the impact of social media in political communication. Her work focuses on how elected officials communicate with the public via social media, and how the public receives and processes those messages. “We hear a lot about politicians from both the right and the left nowadays thinking that the opposing side is simply wrong about various political issues,” says Hua. “I think understanding how our elected officials view ‘right’ and ‘wrong’, and concurrently, how they use language to support these conceptions in their public messages, is an important area of study given that this may be a huge contributing factor in the political polarization we’re seeing today.”