June 2, 2025
The University mourns the loss of Associate Professor of Mathematics Michael D. Barrus Jr., who passed away on Thursday, May 29, after a two-year battle with cancer. He was 45 years old.
Michael joined the URI faculty in 2014. He was beloved as a colleague, teacher, and mentor to our undergraduate and graduate students. He was known for his kindness. His gentle manner and friendly smile made everyone who talked to him feel better. “Mike brought a warm light to our department, and we will deeply miss him,” said Mathematics Department Chair Barbara Kaskosz.
Michael was a man of great generosity — always ready to help his students, his colleagues, and the department, a man void of selfishness. It was due to his dedication and patience that students mentored by him were so successful. He instilled a love for mathematics in his students, and many of them have gone on to further studies.
“Dr. Barrus was an amazing professor and person. He profoundly changed my life trajectory, inspiring me to major in mathematics, and to pursue teaching as a career. I never thought he would die; he deserved so much more life,” said Calvin Higgins, Michael’s undergraduate student, a double major in mathematics and computer science, who is now a graduate student in computer science.
Morgan Prior, now a Ph.D. student in theoretical computer science at Tufts University, shared this: “I loved taking a class with Dr. Barrus. He was an incredibly warm person who truly cared how students learn best, and he went above and beyond to design his courses around that. He was supportive outside the classroom too — he had a note in his calendar each year to point out the Nebraska Conference for Women in Math to students who might be interested. Going to that conference was one of the most meaningful experiences of my undergrad, and I wouldn’t have known about it if not for him.”
During his eleven years at URI, Michael mentored four Ph.D. students who successfully earned their Ph.D. degree. Another of his Ph.D. students is expected to graduate in Spring 2026.
Michael received his M.S. in mathematics at the Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah, in 2004, and his Ph.D. in mathematics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2009.
He was an outstanding scientist. His passing is a loss to our mathematics department and our university. His research in graph theory and combinatorics, with emphasis in structural graph theory and graph classes, resulted in 23 published journal articles with two more submitted.
Michael’s work impacted scholars across the mathematical and computational sciences. His collaborations involved researchers in computer science, graph theory, and combinatorics, focused on clique problems and graphs representing degree sequences.
Michael passed away surrounded by his beloved family: his wife Michelle and their three children Katy, Abigail, and Lincoln. He is survived by his parents and his five siblings, and many in-laws, nephews, nieces, cousins, aunts, uncles, and friends.
Services for Michael Barrus will be provided by the Fagan-Quinn funeral home in North Kingstown and by his church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Narragansett.
Visitation will be held on Tuesday, June 3, at the Fagan-Quinn Funeral Home, 825 Boston Neck Rd, North Kingstown, from 5:30 pm – 7:30 p.m. Funeral services will be on Wednesday, June 4, at 10 a.m. at The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints at 1240 Boston Neck Rd in Narragansett.
To view the full obituary, or to leave condolences, please visit Fagan-Quinn Funeral Home.