URI faculty members honored for
outstanding research and outreach

KINGSTON, R.I. -- May 23, 2000 -- Twenty faculty members were honored by the University of Rhode Island at a recognition luncheon for outstanding research and outreach earlier this month. The award recipients for research were selected by URI's 18 member Council for Research, and the outreach award recipients were selected by URI's 25 member Council for Outreach, upon the nominations of deans. Each recipient received a certificate and pen.

This was the first year URI presented faculty with research and outreach awards.

"We wanted to provide some formal recognition for these outstanding faculty members who do so much to support those important parts of the University's mission which have to do with research and outreach. These faculty help the University to contribute to the economic development of the State of Rhode Island as well as create and disseminate new knowledge. These particular faculty members are excellent examples of the contributions URI faculty members make," explained M. Beverly Swan, provost and vice-president of student affairs.

The honorees for outstanding research are:

1. Nikhilesh Dholakia, of Wakefield, is professor of marketing and associate director of the Research Institute for Telecommunications and Information Marketing. His research focuses on technology, innovation, market processes, and consumer culture and he has worked on projects dealing with organization buying of telecom systems, global telecom markets, information technology in the home, technology adoption and diffusion processes, and public policy towards telecommunications. His research has been published extensively in various international journals in marketing, management, public policy, and technology.

2. Ruby R. Dholakia, professor of marketing, is interested in the areas of consumer socialization and the market acceptance of new technologies. For the past 15 years, Dholakia, of Wakefield, has concentrated her research on new information and telecommunications technologies. Her efforts have been supported by grants from private, state, national and international organizations.

3. Margaret M. McGrath, professor of nursing from Warwick, has been intrigued with the concept of risk and protection and vulnerable, under-served populations throughout her career. She has explored the mystery of risk and protection in high-risk populations of children defined by health, environmental, and bioregulatory risk with the aim of understanding developmental trajectories within the context of the family and environment.

4. James O. Prochaska, director of the Cancer Prevention Research Center (CPRC) and professor of clinical and health psychology, is internationally recognized for his work as a developer of the stage model of behavior change. Prochaska, of Wakefield, is the author of more than 150 publications, has served as a consultant for several major corporations, universities, research centers, health organizations and has won numerous awards. The CPRC health promotion research has reached out to more than 50,000 Rhode Islanders and have provided services worth more than 20 million dollars.

5. James G. Quinn, of Kingston, professor of oceanography, focuses his research on marine organic chemistry with emphasis on the geochemistry of organic compounds in estuaries and the coastal zone. In particular, his students, colleagues and he have studied the sources, transport and fate of natural and anthropogenic organic chemicals in Narragansett Bay and Rhode Island Sound for more than 30 years. These efforts have resulted in one of the most extensive organic geochemical databases available on any coastal ecosystem in the world.

6. Marie Jenkins Schwartz, assistant professor of history, has twice received fellowships for her work on slave life and culture from the National Endowment for the Humanities, as well as other organizations including the American Historical Association and the John Nicholas Brown Center for American Civilization. Schwartz, of Wakefield, is the author of Born in Bondage: Growing Up Enslaved in the Antebellum South. Her latest research entitled "Medical Men and Midwives: Managing Pregnancy and Childbirth in the Slave South" has received funding from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the Ortho Pharmaceutical Corporation.

7. Brent E. Stucker's research interests are in the area of rapid fabrication technologies and their applications to manufacturing. Stucker, of West Kingston, works with laser consolidation processes that enable geometrically complex parts to be made directly from computer models in advanced materials. He is the founder and director of the Rapid Manufacturing Center, an industry/university collaborative research center. During the past three years he has established and developed a rapid manufacturing laboratory with more than $2 million worth of equipment.

8. Stephen K. Swallow, of West Kingston, conducts research on the economics of ecosystem management and environmental resource uses. He is particularly interested in integrating economics and conservation biology in relation to land use change and conservation of biological diversity. Swallow is also a founding steering committee member for the URI Partnership for the Coastal Environment, which brings together students, researchers, and outside professionals to address environmental problems facing society.

9. Bingfang Yan, assistant professor of pharmacology and toxicology, has focused his research on the elucidation of molecular mechanisms on individual variations among humans in responding to drugs and environmental contaminants. Yan, of Saunderstown, has his research supported by the National Institutes of Health as well as several foundations.

10. Betty J. Young, associate professor of education from Exeter, has focused her work on the areas of curriculum and assessment reform with a special interest in elementary science and mathematics. As principal investigator on the Guiding Education in Math & Science Network (GEMS-NET) project, she works with seven Rhode Island school districts assisting in the implementation of an innovative science curriculum by providing science professional development for more than 500 teachers.

Honorees for outstanding outreach are:

1. John Boulmetis, of Kingston, is the director of the Center for Human Services. The Center, which has had a contractual agreement with the Rhode Island Department of Human Services and the Rhode Island Department of Children and their Families, provides supplemental training to the staff of those two departments of state government. The intent of the contracts is to use the rich talents of the faculty and staff of the University of Rhode Island, Rhode Island College and the Community College of Rhode Island to provide professional development that is not available through the staff development units of the respective departments.

2. Phillip G. Clark, of West Kingston, is professor of human development and family studies. He heads the URI program in gerontology, the Rhode Island Geriatric Education Center, and the aging and health team of the President's Health Promotion Partnership. The programs are multifaceted outreach efforts involving a number of faculty and students across the URI campus. In the area of health promotion with older adults, they have received grants to support programs to increase physical activity in older adults across the state, sponsored wellness workshops at senior centers and housing sites, and written a "URI Research Update" column for the Senior Living newspaper.

3. Philip Datseris, of Kingston, is the director of URI's Center for Automation and Robotics Research at URI and has worked with many companies to design and build the prototypes and production machines of intelligent automation systems. The most recent project involves the design of a portable, remote and computer controlled system for diffusing live munitions, using a high-pressure waterjet system.

4. Marcia Marker Feld, of Newton Centre, Mass., is a faculty member of Community Planning and Landscape Architecture and executive director of the URI Urban Field Center. In her 25 years as director, she and the Center's professional team have established the first partnership between URI and urban school districts, organized a community-wide dropout prevention coalition and worked with local communities in the development of leadership in housing and neighborhood revitalization.

5. Marion Gold, of North Kingstown, coordinates the URI Cooperative Extension GreenShare Program. GreenShare's goal is to provide horticultural professionals and the gardening public with environmentally sound research-based information on creating and maintaining beautiful landscapes. To reach different target audiences, the program uses television and print media as well as workshops, garden tours, demonstrations and field days.

6. Theodore Kellogg, professor of education from Wakefield, has worked with 2600 public school teachers who received technology training through the Rhode Island Teachers and Technology Initiative and other URI programs during the last few years. It is the teachers' excitement, leadership and commitment that has made the University of Rhode Island involvement in these efforts professionally and personally rewarding, according to Kellogg.

7. Ronald Lee, of Kingston, serves as artistic director of the University Artist Series, which included performances by the Rhode Island Philharmonic Orchestra and Ocean State Chamber Orchestra this year. As chair of URI's Music Department, he oversees and guides four music festivals and one summer music camp for talented high school musicians. The Kingston Chamber Music Festival is also presented in conjunction with the Department of Music.

8. Virginia Lee, of Wakefield, serves as leader of the Rhode Island Sea Grant Advisory Services in Coastal Management and as manager of the Coastal Resource Center's U.S. Program. She directs all of the Center's local and national projects dealing with integrated coastal management, pollution prevention, public access and hazard mitigation, and has been in the forefront of creating special area management and harbor management plans for Rhode Island. She worked with a major interdisciplinary research project on the Rhode Island salt pond lagoons and barrier systems and worked with state agencies and watershed municipalities to devise management policies including zoning changes and a management plan adopted by the Rhode Island Coastal Zone Program.

9. Virginia Nardone, of South Kingstown, is the director of the Feinstein CCE special programs office, the major outreach activity of continuing education. The office provides contract training and education for area businesses and offers programs regionally and internationally. She has been instrumental in articulating partnership agreements with area hospitals for the cytotechnology program and for the healthcare administration portion of the BGS program at CCE, URI courses in writing and math in RI high schools, and developing the ALTER program for older adults.

10. Robert A. Saritelli, of Wickford, is coordinator of the Pharmacy Outreach Program, which serves the elderly, disadvantaged and the sometimes overlooked members of society. It provides education on healthcare topics to promote preventative medicine efforts and to help people continue to function as participating members of their communities.

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For Information: Jan Sawyer, 401-874-2116, Jennifer Smith, 401-874-2116