KINGSTON, R.I. – Oct. 8, 2024 – The University of Rhode Island Foundation and Alumni Engagement hosts three experts to discuss “Whales and Wind Farms,” as part of its Faculty Office Hours lunchtime webinar series on Oct. 9 at noon. This event, which will be held virtually, is free and open to the public. Registration is required.
Scientists in URI’s ocean engineering program and the Graduate School of Oceanography are monitoring offshore wind developments like the Block Island Wind Farm to determine what type of impacts these developments are having on whales and other marine life, making them well-qualified for a discussion on this topic.
The webinar will feature URI College of Engineering professors Chris Baxter and James Miller, and Robert Kenney, URI Graduate School of Oceanography professor emeritus. Each will share their insight and experience and offer different perspectives on how wind farms may be affecting marine life. The three will address some of the misinformation that surrounds offshore wind and will attempt to debunk some of the falsehoods swirling online and in social media.
Baxter holds a joint appointment in the Departments of Ocean Engineering and Civil and Environmental Engineering. A member of the URI faculty since 2001, Baxter’s research expertise is in the areas of marine geotechnics, fundamental soil behavior, and coastal resilience.
Miller is a professor in the Department of Ocean Engineering and holds a joint appointment in the Graduate School of Oceanography. He conducts research in the fields of underwater acoustics, sonar, acoustical oceanography, marine bioacoustics, and, recently, the noise from anthropogenic (human-caused) activities.
Kenney was on the GSO faculty for 35 years, where he participated in two major research projects, both of which were linked to the North Atlantic Right Whale Consortium—one of the world’s most successful collaborative long-term studies of an endangered whale species. The Cetacean and Turtle Assessment Program was a landmark, federally funded study to understand the species diversity, distribution, seasonality, and abundance of whale, dolphin, and sea turtle populations off the northeastern United States. It was designed to provide basic environmental assessment information relative to oil drilling on Georges Bank and in the mid-Atlantic.
Faculty Office Hours will continue on Weds., Nov. 13, with “Marine Birds and Wind Farms,” and on Weds., Dec. 4, with “Communities and Wind Farms.”
For more information on Whales and Wind Farms and other Faculty Office Hours, or to register, visit the URI Foundation and Alumni Engagement events calendar.
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Ethan Weiner, a junior sports media major and PR minor at the University of Rhode Island and an intern in the Department of Communications and Marketing, wrote this press release.