Faculty & Research

The ocean is one of the most productive and complex environments on Earth. Covering more than 70% of the Earth’s surface, it plays a major role in regulating the Earth’s climate and supports a diversity of life that impacts industry, tourism, and human health. Understanding the natural oceanic ecosystem, as well as human impacts on the marine realm, represents a major challenge to marine scientists worldwide. In particular, determining how the marine environment responds to and is affected by global climate change has become critically important. The University of South Carolina’s Marine Science Program is a leader both within South Carolina and internationally in examining a variety of research questions that are vital to increasing our current understanding of the marine environment. Marine Science Faculty are highly active researchers that maintain funding from a variety of private, state, and local agencies, including the NSF, NASA, NOAA, and Seagrant. Over the past 5 years, our jointly appointed Marine Science Faculty have received in excess of $25 million in grant support, and published in premier journals, such as Nature, Science, and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Our Faculty have been further recognized for their outstanding international leadership in the field, and include American Association for the Advancement of Science and American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fellows, and an AGU Ocean Sciences Early Career Recipient. At the University level, we have had several faculty win either the Russell Research Award or Educational Foundation Research Award, which are given annually to USC’s top researchers, and have had two Faculty named as USC’s Rising Stars, young innovators and up-and-coming scholars who are clearly making their marks in research, teaching, and scholarly endeavors. This is considered to be one of the highest honors that junior Faculty can receive within USC.