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@uri_cels

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College of the Environment and Life Sciences @universityofri
Bringing URI’s land-grant mission to life: Education and research for the public good

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A land-grant university doesn’t simply generate knowledge. It serves the public good.

What does that look like in 2026, 163 years after the Morrill Act reshaped higher education by establishing land-grant institutions?

At the University of Rhode Island, it's education, research, and public service working together for the common good. It’s about impact: from strengthening agriculture and food systems to supporting local economies, protecting natural resources, and advancing community health. Work with real, measurable public benefit.

But the land-grant story also carries complexity. It expanded access to education while dispossessing Indigenous communities of their lands. Today, that history is being acknowledged alongside growing efforts to build more equitable partnerships.

At its core, the land-grant model is about collaboration with communities as partners in shaping knowledge. That reciprocity keeps the work relevant and accountable.

A land-grant university's mission is an ongoing obligation to connect research and teaching with public need - and to continually ask who that work serves, and how it can do better.

🔗 Read more at the link in our bio! by @uri_cels

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5 months ago

What does it take to study coral 1,500 feet below the surface?

Today, the CELS Dean’s Advisory Board and some of the Dean’s team visited Dr. Andrew Davies’ lab at the URI Bay Campus. Dr. Davies is a professor of biological sciences with a joint appointment in @uri.gso

Students and graduate researchers walked us through how they study deep-sea coral communities, where there’s no sunlight and the corals depend entirely on food drifting down from above.

Along the way we met Wall-E, one of the lab’s five full-size ALBEX landers (Autonomous Lander for Biological Experiments). Wall-E sits on the seafloor for up to a year at a time, using vacuum-sealed glass spheres for buoyancy and a drop weight that releases on command to send it back to the surface. Its sensors track currents, temperature, salinity, oxygen, and even sound. Its hydrophone may have picked up whales overhead! It also hosts a lights and camera system to record fauna at depth once per hour.

We saw a student’s design for a smaller lander that can launch from smaller (and less expensive) ships. We watched footage of a lantern shark that was startled by the camera. We learned how one grad student cut video analysis from more than 40 minutes per minute of footage to about 30 seconds for a two-minute clip, using an AI tool anyone can use without writing code. And we heard how a hurricane physically moved one of the lab’s landers along the seafloor!

All of this work helps answer important questions about how currents, storms, Mississippi River outflow, and the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill shape life in the deep sea.

Thank you to our guides and presenters: Marley Ahlijanian, Lexie DelViscio, Celeste Weidemann, Francisco Sack, Tim Melendez, Andrew Baccari, Phil Yang, Christine de Silva, and Jasper Meagher, and of course Dr. Andrew Davies!

Celeste Weidemann and Francisco Sack introduced Wall-E, a long-term research platform that measures currents and ocean conditions near deep-sea coral. Francisco first joined the lab as a CELS Summer Research Fellow, and they have stayed on in the Davies Lab to study seasonal patterns in the data!

Tim Melendez and Andrew Baccari showed the lab’s stereo camera, whic taken in URI Narragansett Bay Campus by @uri_cels

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2 days ago

📽️ Webinar Recording Now Available!

🌊 “Diluting Ocean Equity with the Ocean Equity Index?”

💡 What did we explore?

This session examined what may be lost when ocean equity is reduced to quantitative measures.

The discussion considered how metrics such as the Ocean Equity Index can obscure the historical, political, and social conditions that shape inequity.

It also explored the intellectual foundations of “equity” as a concept in ocean governance.

🎙️ Host
Yoshitaka Ota Director, Ocean Nexus | Professor, University of Rhode Island

🎙️ Speakers
Brian O’Neill Ocean Nexus Research Fellow University of Victoria | The Sea Lab, University of North Carolina Wilmington

Matthew Jerome Schneider Ocean Nexus Collaborating Professor University of North Carolina Wilmington | The Sea Lab

👉 Link In our bio to watch the full recording!

#OceanEquity #OceanNexus #OceanEquityIndex #OceanGovernance #OceanPolicy
@oceannexus_japan @universityofri @uncwilmington @socioneill @40mjs @uri_cels by @uri_cels

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3 days ago

Norah Aguirre ’26 put her education into action as a Cooperative Extension Agriculture and Food Systems Fellow at the Farm and Forest Education Center at Pat’s Pastured in East Greenwich, R.I.

A triple major in Spanish, anthropology, and environmental education, Norah has spent her fellowship leading field trips, developing educational activities, and helping children connect with agriculture through hands-on experiences.

“Learning how to think up on the spot, how to create a more comfortable and safe environment for both the campers and the chickens was something I got really good at.”

She also put her anthropology skills to work, creating activities that encourage students to explore the land's history at the Briggs-Boesch Farm.

From building confidence in the field to making professional connections, the experience has opened Norah’s eyes to new career possibilities as she prepares to graduate.

Her advice to future fellows? Be yourself, follow your interests, and make connections. “You never know what opportunities a 30-second conversation could bring!”

🚨Interested in a Cooperative Extension Fellowship? Apply on Handshake by tomorrow (10/16) at 11:59 PM!🚨

Learn more about Norah’s experience at the link in our bio. by @uri_cels

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3 days ago

Learning about climate policy is one thing. Helping shape the conversation is another.

As a Senior Extension Fellow in @rhodeisland.dem Director’s Office, URI student Cailey Mingolla works with the climate policy team on data collection, report writing, outreach, and communicating climate challenges and solutions to Rhode Island audiences. She also attends meetings of the RI Executive Climate Change Coordinating Council and its advisory boards.

“It’s one thing to read about the challenges associated with environmental policy change," she says. "It’s another to observe it in real time and be a part of some of those discussions.”

Her placement comes through the URI Cooperative Extension Environmental Fellows Program, a year-long, paid experience that pairs students with public- and private-sector mentors on real projects.

At URI, she double majors in environmental science and management and political science.

Thanks to her mentor Elizabeth Stone at RIDEM and fellowship leaders Kate Venturini Hardesty and Sejal Lanterman for supporting students like Cailey!

✍ Read more in our bio! by @uri_cels

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3 days ago

What does a shark actually do all day? We know surprisingly little.

University of Rhode Island master’s student Owen Fleischer is working to change that. Last month, after 27 hours on the water over two days, Owen and his team caught a 10-foot common thresher shark just outside Narragansett Bay and fitted it with a specialized tag equipped with an accelerometer and video camera — a first for the species.

Provided by @guyharveyocean , the tag recorded 100 data points per second for 24 hours, capturing an extraordinarily detailed picture of the shark’s movements, dives, and behavior by day and night. Then it detached near Martha’s Vineyard and floated to the surface, where the team could recover it.

Early findings reveal differences in how the shark used the water column between day and night, with a dive pattern unlike those documented in blue and mako sharks in the same general habitat.

At URI, Owen works with Dr. Kathleen Carroll in the Quest Lab.

🔗 Read the full story at the link in our bio! by @uri_cels

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4 days ago

Listen to the bugs! URI students found lots of caddisflies and mayflies — more evidence that a mill pond on the Beaver River is rapidly returning to a healthy trout stream. Both insects like cold, oxygenated water and are sensitive to pollution, so their presence is good news.

#stream #insects #science #rhodeisland #conservation taken in Richmond, Rhode Island by @uri_cels

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4 days ago

Spotted lanternflies may be less visible as temperatures cool, but their egg masses can survive the winter!

URI's Biocontrol Lab share what Rhode Islanders should look for this fall and how taking action now can help reduce spotted lanternfly populations next spring.

Read the full Rhody Today story at uri.edu/coopext/news or the link in our bio.

#URICooperativeExtension #RhodyToday #SpottedLanternfly

@uri_cels @uri_biocontrol @urimastergardeners Getting a jump on spotted lanternfly. now is the time to tackle pesky pest's egg masses before they hatch by @uri_cels

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4 days ago

This past weekend, alumni, retired faculty, students, and friends came back to Kingston to celebrate 75 years of URI’s Department of Environmental and Natural Resource Economics (ENRE).

What began in 1950 as a small agricultural economics program grew into a national leader. ENRE launched the nation’s first Ph.D. program dedicated to resource economics, helped shape federal methods for assessing oil spill damages, and gave the field Marine Resource Economics, founded here in 1982 and now a leading international journal in fisheries and coastal economics.

Today’s faculty and students carry that work forward: applying economic tools to new environmental challenges, from setting fishing quotas to valuing beaches and protecting wetlands. And ENRE alumni lead in government ministries, agencies, and industries around the world.

Thank you to Professor Emi Uchida and everyone who organized the celebration. Thank you also to former faculty Jim Opaluch, Cathy Roheim, and Tim Tyrrell, whose matching gift helped a spring campaign raise more than $26,000 for the department.

Here’s to the next chapter!

📸: Mike Salerno by @uri_cels

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5 days ago

Students headed to Beaver River with @rhodeisland.dem biologist Corey Pelletier to see stream surveying in action! They learned how scientists collect the data that helps Rhode Island manage its bodies of water and the life they support.

Every URI first-year takes URI 101, but students in the Department of Natural Resources Science (NRS) get an extra opportunity to explore their field through NRS 101. The course helps students dive deeper into their major, meet faculty, and explore career paths early on.

NRS is home to our Wildlife Conservation Biology and Environmental Science and Management majors!

📸: Graham Forrester, professor and chair of NRS by @uri_cels

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5 days ago

Who knew the campus greenhouse could satisfy a sweet tooth? 🍌

“Garden to table” never tasted so good! This delicious banana bread was made with bananas harvested from our very own campus greenhouse.

The baker behind it? Isabella Morganelli, a wildlife conservation biology major who recently joined the URI greenhouse team. She’s working with @uri.plantsciences major Dan Meservey, who’s been showing her the ropes of greenhouse care, from watering and fertilizing to pruning.

Swipe to meet another recent greenhouse discovery: a praying mantis! by @uri_cels

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5 days ago

Ribbed mussels can detect chemical cues from blue crabs that have recently fed. In response, they eat less and anchor themselves more tightly to the marsh. Scientists call this a “fear effect.”

Why does it matter? Ribbed mussels help hold New England salt marshes together, supporting cordgrass growth and trapping sediment that helps protect coasts from storms and rising seas.

URI graduate student Maja Nielsen, working with Assistant Professor Shelby Rinehart, is investigating whether fishing-driven changes in blue crab populations affect this response — and what that could mean for salt marsh resilience.

From nighttime crab hunts to long days in the marsh, this research is a team effort powered by researchers, friends and lab mates, the seawater facility @uri.gso and local fishermen.

🔗 Read more at the link in our bio! by @uri_cels

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6 days ago