An unexpected juxtaposition. And the unexpected is often what leads us to new ideas.

Reading this issue of the University of Rhode Island Magazine repeatedly reminded me why I am honored to be the president of this great university, whose history laid a lasting foundation for excellence, upon which we can build a bright future.

The intellectual and creative diversity on our beautiful campus continues to amaze me. On any given day, you may find theater majors huddled with celebrated artists such as Tony Estrella ’93 and Rachel Walshe ’01, while students enjoy lunch in our medicinal garden, a national resource for natural products research with more than 200 medicinal plants that help treat diseases ranging from anxiety to heart disease to cancer.

Where else but in this magazine will you find the story of aquaculture wizard Brendan Breen ’18, the first person to make pearls from quahogs, running alongside the story of Christopher Savoie ’92, head of Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Zapata Computing, a cutting-edge company modeling chemical reactions at the subatomic level using powerful quantum computers that could lead to a new generation of materials and medicine?

Qubits and quahogs—a fascinating juxtaposition. Not exactly what you might expect from the smallest state’s public research university. Think again. This is the place where award-winning British-Iranian journalist Christiane Amanpour ’83 started her remarkable career. And this is a university dedicated to ensuring access to the highest quality education that changes people’s lives: Henock Constant ’18, a father of four from Haiti—and recent 10 Under 10 alumni award honoree—attempted college twice without finishing. Through our Finish What You Started Program, he completed his degree last year.

In short, we are an amazing kaleidoscope of experiences, talents, and dreams. And our perspective continues to evolve in unexpected ways as we imagine new possibilities.

Ryan Vallee ’19, who is now mentored by Christopher Savoie, clearly gets this. He traces his love of chemistry to the fact that “You never know what’s going to happen.” He explains: “Say you’re doing synthesis and you have to leave the reaction overnight—you can’t see if it works until the next day. I like not knowing what will happen next. It’s all about infinite possibilities.”

Our confidence in the power of infinite possibilities spurred the launch of three exciting new Innovation Campuses: URI and Arizona State University Innovation Hub; the Rhode Island Innovation Hub, or “iHub”; and the URI AgTech Park. Each campus, publicly and privately funded, will catalyze academic research into new commercial products and businesses. Together they are expected to create hundreds of jobs in cybersecurity, data analytics, the Internet of Things, and agricultural technology, bridging the gap between world-class research at Rhode Island’s universities and high-tech jobs.

These campuses exemplify how thinking big has translated into taking bold actions with new partners Cisco, IBM, MassChallenge, RI Agricultural Technologies, Verinomics, and VoloAgri. While much of this work revolves around industries that no one could have imagined when URI was founded as a land-grant college in 1892, the URI AgTech Park is fittingly built on URI’s agricultural foundation.

And that makes perfect sense. Because connecting our past and our future is what URI—and the University of Rhode Island Magazine—is all about.

Like Ryan Vallee, we should all be excited at the prospect of not knowing what will happen next.

Until next time,

David M. Dooley
President, University of Rhode Island