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Arts & Sciences A group of URI researchers has found that chemicals used to make bombs remain in the hair of explosives handlers long after repeated washings. The lead researcher, Chemistry Professor Jimmie Oxley, one of the directors of URI’s Forensic Science Partnership, has also found that when ordinary gauze was attached to a comb, it made an effective collection device. The team’s early findings are the result of a two-year, $320,000 grant awarded by the National Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism in Oklahoma City. • Cheryl Wilga, assistant professor of biological sciences, will attempt to shed some light on how sharks bite or suction by studying their jaws and their feeding mechanisms, thanks to a recently awarded, three-year $395,000 National Science Foundation grant. “Sharks are the most primitive vertebrate with jaws,” Wilga explains. “Studying them is a good place to start to give us some basic knowledge and help us understand how biting and suction feeding mechanisms have evolved in higher vertebrates.” Engineering High school seniors Wayne Powers and Joshua Bennett of Bristol and Justine Fortier of Coventry have won scholarships to study engineering at URI as a result of their strong showing at the Rhode Island State Science and Engineering Fair in March. “This is the first year that the College of Engineering has offered scholarships to the top winners of the fair,” said Dean Bahram Nassersharif. “All of the participating students did excellent work. I look forward to returning next year to offer even more scholarships so we can recruit more of the students with the greatest engineering potential to attend URI.”
Environment & Life Sciences The Peckham Farm animals provide hands-on teaching for animal science students. Protecting the farm’s flock of sheep became the number one priority last October when dogs bypassed the old electric fence and killed one of the sheep and seriously harmed six others, including one that had to be euthanized. The solution has proven to be Bonnie, a guard donkey, who joined the flock last December. “She’s round-the-clock protection,” says Katherine Petersson, a lecturer in the Fisheries, Animal, and Veterinary Science Department, who found Bonnie while browsing the Internet in search of a way to protect the sheep.
Human Science & Services Associate Professor Debra Ballinger has engaged scores of teachers statewide to join the fight on the fitness front. Physical education teachers from 34 of Rhode Island’s 37 school districts are being trained and armed with the tools to track their individual students’ activity and fitness levels. The teachers will translate this information into personalized fitness plans. The program is funded by a $450,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Education’s Safe and Drug-Free Schools program. Pharmacy After an 18-month process involving an intensive self-study, the College of Pharmacy was awarded full accreditation for its six-year doctor of pharmacy program. The doctor of pharmacy is now the only entry-level professional degree offered by the college and the 86 colleges of pharmacy nationwide. The last full class of pharmacy students earning the five-year B.S. at URI graduated in 2002. This year’s graduating class is the first to complete the new entry-level doctor of pharmacy degree curriculum in its entirety. URI continues to offer an M.S. and a Ph.D. in pharmacy. Graduate School of Oceanography Physical oceanographers from URI and the University Massachusetts at Dartmouth have received three new National Science Foundation grants totaling more than $1.1 million. The grants were awarded to support two projects that will utilize a new rotating table in GSO’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory. The rotating table, purchased by Peter Cornillon with funding from NASA and URI, is used to simulate the rotation of the earth, which has a major influence on the circulation in the ocean. |
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