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URI faculty, staff honored with 2022 Excellence Awards

Beauvais, Gamache-Griffiths, O'Rourke, Parlange, Menezes, Lohmann, Barber
EXCELLENCE AT URI: URI and URI Foundation & Alumni Engagement officials join winners of this year’s Excellence Awards. From left are: Interim Provost Laura Beauvais, Donna Gamache-Griffiths, URI Foundation & Alumni Engagement President Lil O'Rourke, URI President Marc Parlange, Sunshine Menezes, Rainer Lohmann, and Excellence Awards Committee Chair Gerry Barber. URI photo by Nora Lewis.

KINGSTON, RI — July 6, 2022 — The University of Rhode Island Foundation & Alumni Engagement honored the 2022 Excellence Award winners on June 15, recognizing their distinguished achievement among URI faculty and staff.

Representing four distinct categories, the Excellence Award honorees are:

Sunshine Menezes, Ph.D.’05, executive director of Metcalf Institute, College of the Environment and Life Sciences, who received the Administrative Excellence Award. Menezes lives in West Kingston.

Melissa Schenck ’09, M.A. ’11, coordinator of the International Engineering Program, College of Engineering, who received the Staff Excellence Award. Schenck lives in Cumberland.

Donna Gamache-Griffiths ’94, J.D., Ph.D., senior lecturer and international business coordinator, College of Business, who received the Teaching Excellence Award. She lives in West Greenwich.

Rainer Lohmann, Ph.D., professor of oceanography, Graduate School of Oceanography, who received the Scholarly Excellence Award. Lohmann lives in Narragansett.

URI President Marc Parlange, URI Foundation & Alumni Engagement President Lil Breul O’Rourke, and Chair of the Excellence Awards Committee Geraldine Barber, who is also a member of the executive committee of the board of directors, presented formal citations, certificates, and honoraria to the recipients before an audience of University officials, faculty, staff, family and friends at the URI Alumni Center.

The Excellence Awards honor University members whose hard work and dedication consistently elevate their departments and colleges. Established in 1970, the awards have recognized more than 200 faculty and staff for their outstanding academic and administrative accomplishments.