The University of Rhode Island has named the winners of its second annual Research and Scholarship Photo Contest, which highlights the work URI students, faculty, and staff are doing around the world.
The contest was sponsored by URI’s three magazines, the University of Rhode Island Magazine, 41ºN, and Momentum: Research and Innovation.
First Place
Matthew Palasciano ’20, an undergraduate student with a major in geological oceanography, was awarded first place for “The Endless Bond Between Mother and Child.” The photo captures a young macaque clinging to its mother at a local watering hole in Ubud, Bali, Indonesia, where Palasciano was studying biodiversity, hydrology, and water resource management. He and two other students studied deforestation and illegal logging to understand the destruction it imposes on wildlife and its habitat.
Palasciano plans to pursue a master’s degree in coastal geology and business administration. He has his sights set on working in cultural resource management and as a professional shark diver in the Bahamas.
Second Place
Professor Yeqiao Wang in the Department of Natural Resources Science is leading and engaging more than three hundred scholars and practitioners from URI and around the world to develop a multi-volume book series entitled The Handbook of Natural Resources. He was awarded second place for this photo, which was taken during one of his field trips for the series. It shows a rural village home in southern China that is designed to collect rainwater from all directions through a rectangular opening in its sloped roof. The water is stored in a stone cellar underneath the central hall. This photograph showcases the wisdom of a sustainable rural routine presented by this hundred-year-old eco-friendly house.
Third Place
Laird French ’21, an undergraduate marketing major and fine arts minor, was named third place winner for “Raining Sparks.” This long-exposure photograph of burning steel wool being spun on a rope was taken using 8-second shutter speed as part of a project for Photography 1 (ART 214). French plans to move to Hawaii and become a professional photographer/videographer after graduation.
Honorable Mentions
This photograph, taken in Manitoba, Canada, depicts research with the McWilliams Lab in Biological and Environmental Sciences monitoring the demographics, breeding success, and growth rates of long-distance migratory birds at the far northern reaches of their range in shifting habitats and climate.
Jaacks shot this photos while free diving in Raja Ampat, Indonesia. The reef manta was cruising through a cloud of plankton. Jaacks, originally from Denver, Colorado, was working on a short film about sustainable fisheries practices in Indonesia, as part of a multi-year visual study of the biodiversity of the Coral Triangle region of the South Pacific.
Pictured is a frost bolete mushroom that is experiencing a rapid growth phase. The yellow droplets on the pores are not dew, but the result of a process known as guttation: when a mushroom exudes fluid during high metabolic times. After this photo was taken in the Great Swamp Management Area in West Kingston, Rhode Island, the mushroom was collected and brought back to the laboratory for extraction and isolation experiments. Kirk is pursuing a doctoral degree in natural product chemistry.