When it comes to global issues such as access to clean water, changing climate conditions, oil spill clean-ups, and more, the world needs a steady flow of big ideas. And URI is perfectly positioned to help.

We’re especially good at helping organizations move people and products from where they are to where they need to be. For instance, our students and faculty are working together to help national organizations improve the delivery of humanitarian aid around the world. “Strong supply chain links are vital to today’s global marketplace. Everyday for the past six years, there is something in the Wall Street Journal about an issue with supply chain,” said Douglas Hales, Professor of Marketing Supply Chain Management. “It’s a rapidly changing field.” Our interns and alumni are also making sure our armed forces fighting overseas get the equipment they need and ensuring the latest toys are available on retail shelves. In fact, our Supply Chain Management program has been named one of the best in the nation by two different industry groups.

URI is also well known for our marine sciences and oceanography work, because we recognize that the health of the world’s oceans is directly tied to the health of the fishing industry, food availability, eco-tourism and water-based recreation, the safety and stability of coastal structures, and coastal economies. In labs and at sea with biological sciences professor Carol Thornber, oceanography professor Jeremy Collie, fisheries professor Marta Gomez-Chiarri and others, students are assessing how climate change is affecting marine ecosystems and how those changing environments will affect human society.

The fact is, if you have big ideas about solving problems around the world, URI is a great place to starting working on them.

But that’s not the only way we’re looking at the health of the oceans. With a couple of pretty big grants, chemical engineering professors Arijit Bose and Geoffrey Bothun and chemistry professor Mindy Levine are researching environmentally friendly nanoparticles that could make oil spill cleanups safer for marine ecosystems. For instance, Professors Bose and Levine and their students are developing carbon-based nanoparticles that will change the shape of toxic molecules, so that they can no longer penetrate the cells of living organisms – a development that could dramatically reduce the harmful effects of oil spills on marine life. And Professor Bothun is using porous silica nanoparticles loaded with nutrients that the ocean bacteria need to survive. “It’s like putting a little candy on the particles to attract oil-eating microbes,” he said. When these particles are used as a dispersant, “they will enhance the growth of the microbes and their desire to eat the oil.”

URI students and faculty are also working to bring clean water to people in developing countries where inadequate sanitation leads to unhealthy drinking water. Civil Engineering Professor Vinka Craver, for instance, takes students to Guatemala every year to design and build wastewater treatment facilities for rural schools. And this year she and her students are working in Jordan to develop a new desalination process to make ocean water drinkable. With funding from The World Bank, Geosciences Professor Tom Boving and his students are improving water quality in rural villages in India, Jordan, and Indonesia with a riverbank filtration technology that the professor developed. “This is the type of solution that is needed in these local communities,” said Professor Boving. “It’s technologically simple, inexpensive compared to conventional water systems, and can be maintained by local operators. And it’s a project that provides my students with tremendous learning opportunities.”

And these are just for starters. The fact is, if you’ve got a big idea about solving problems around the world, URI is a great place to starting working on it.

Related Links:

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