WINTER 2015
QUADANGLES
Anytime, Anywhere Online education as complement, not competition, to in-person classes | 12
Drowned Villages Exploring the coastal settlements of the last ice age | 16
Star Gala We honor alumni who shine | 28
In the Swim 7 stories of midcareer switch-ups and entrepreneurial courage | 20
STUDENTBODY
Sean Fay-Wolfe ’19 Imagination Station Not many college freshmen take time out of their first semester to dash down to NYC and discuss marketing strategy with a team from HarperCollins Publishers. But it’s just another day for Sean Fay-Wolfe, a South Kingstown, R.I. native who finished Quest for Justice, the first in a trilogy of books set in the fictional world of the video game Minecraft, when he was 16. These days Fay-Wolfe, who’s 6-foot-4 and a double major in English and elementary education, is keeping an eye on sales of the second book in his Elementia Chronicles. He’s also finishing edits to the third, sitting on Comic-Con author panels, granting interviews to the likes of the BBC, and giving inspirational talks in schools around the country and even, via Skype, around the world. Oh yes—and he’s taking classes, making friends, and settling into dorm life at Adams Hall. Quest for Justice, originally self-published, has now been featured on several bestseller lists, and although the target audience is 8–14 year olds, Fay-Wolfe says he’s noticed that people of all ages enjoy its action-packed tale of oppression and rebellion. No audience is more important than Faye-Wolfe’s mother and grandmother, however, and he’s proud of the fact that both loved the book even though they’ve never stacked blocks or dodged Creepers in Minecraft. In fact, his mom Kelli Fay-Wolfe, who is also his manager, is the whole reason he finished Quest. “She read the first third and immediately asked that I finish it, because she wanted to know what happened next,” he remembers. “I had put a lot of thought into giving the story wide appeal, rather than just being a gimmick based on Minecraft. I guess it worked.” • —Pippa Jack VIDEO | URI.EDU/QUADANGLES
QUADANGLES
WINTER 2015 | VOLUME 23, NO. 2
Features 12
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The Real World of Online Education
As virtual learning evolves, URI is harnessing its strengths—personalized attention, with room for the shy to speak out—and appealing to traditional students as well as working adults.
Villages Beneath the Sea
Exploring the secrets of the Paleolithic settlements off Rhode Island’s coast that succumbed to sea-level rise at the end of the last ice age.
Paths Less Taken
Seven stories of unusual career paths, purpose-driven professions, and day jobs left in the dust.
Thought Leadership
Alzheimer’s expert Paula Grammas takes the helm of URI’s new neuroscience institute, as researchers hover at the beginning of a golden age in brain research and treatment.
10th Annual Distinguished Achievement Awards
Hats off to this year’s winners, who have brought distinction to themselves—and URI— through their professional achievements, leadership and community service. At right, sorting coffee beans in Vanuatu, page 20.
Departments 2
FEEDBACK
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PRESIDENT’SVIEW
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5-MINUTEEXPERT
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A Berlin Prize winner on the mystery of mood
NEWS&VIEWS PRESSBOX
More Online 31
CLASSACTS
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CLOSEUP
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CLOSEUP
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News from your classmates John Grant M.S. ’86 Katy Krassner ’90 What’s in a name?
URI.EDU/QUADANGLES
Butterfield Hall and the Ram’s Den Then and Now
Spotlight
The movie, the Boston church scandal, and one alum’s role
Design Awards
Two URI buildings win
Flow to Feed
Yogathon benefits hungry children
Alumni Serve PHOTOS: COVER, HEATHER PERRY FOR SWIMVACATION INSIDE FRONT COVER: NORA LEWIS; CONTENTS: COURTESY JIMMY LAPIN
Alumni give back around the world
FEEDBACK Write to us: pjack@uri.edu Read more online: uri.edu/quadangles
Happy holidays from all of us at QuadAngles! To the Editor: Former URI sports announcer Jim Norman writes to remind us that this year marks anniversaries for some of URI football’s most glorious moments.
Tom Ehrhardt
Dameon Reilly
Brian Forster
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URI has played football now for 115 seasons and only two teams since 1895 have gone undefeated in regular season or conference play—and each celebrate milestone anniversaries this fall. Come back with me to 1955. Hal Kopp was head coach for what was to be the last of his five gridiron teams at Kingston. The Rams finished 6–0–2 (4–0–1 in the Yankee Conference), the only undefeated (regular season) team in URI football history, the first unbeaten in League play and first to win an outright title. That was 60 years ago. Rhode Island didn’t do it again for 30 years, until 1985—which means this fall marks the 30th and 60th anniversaries of those most successful eras in Ram gridiron history. The 1955 team included some of the finest athletes playing any sport at URI. The 37-man roster boasted a dozen players, and Coach Kopp, who were all eventually elected to the URI Athletic Hall of Fame. Allowing only nine touchdowns, the Rams outscored opponents 162-67 en route to a final 6-1-2 record, including an invitation to play in the first bowl game in Rhody football annals. The loss came at the Refrigerator Bowl in Evansville, Indiana, billed as the refrigerator capital of the nation. URI lost 12-10 to Jacksonville State (Alabama), but the appearance in one of only 15 bowl games played at any level in the nation that year was a major accomplishment. In that game, Jim Jerue ’58 kicked a 38-yard field goal (the first of his life) and Ed DiSimone ’57 caught a TD pass from Bob Sammartino on a fake kick attempt to put the Rams up 10-6 in the third quarter. The Gamecocks scored late to win it, following a URI fumble. Chuck Hunt ’57 was credited with 17 tackles, playing in frigid (no pun intended) weather on Dec. 4 before 8,500 fans. As the Rams left for Indiana, morning classes were delayed for a send-off rally on the quad. In a whirlwind, two-day “fund” drive, some 1,011 students paid a nickel each to sign a telegram of encouragement (no telling where the $50.55 went). As editor-in-chief and former sports editor of the campus newspaper, the Beacon (now we have The Good 5 Cent Cigar), I was privileged to travel with the team (all expenses paid!) and was thrilled to be seated with Coach Kopp for the flight to
Evansville. Little did we dream that many seasons later he would join me in the radio booth for our URI football broadcasts. There were also firsts for yours truly at the game. As an undergraduate, I had broadcast all of Rhody’s football and men’s basketball games for WHOE (now WRIU) for four years, and one day before we embarked for Indiana, word was that Dean of Men John Quinn wanted to see me in his office (a bit scary, since most of the time you were in trouble if he beckoned). Good news, though. The general manager of WEAN Radio (then owned by the Providence Journal) had called Dr. Quinn, inquiring if I‘d be interested in broadcasting the game back to Providence. Are you kidding?! We found out after the fact that WEAN fed the broadcast to several other stations, including ones in Boston and Springfield, attesting to fan interest. As it turned out, it was my first professional broadcast—for which I was paid the princely sum of $25! (I would have done it for nothing.) We learned later that it was also the first commercial radio broadcast of a URI football game. At the time, I never would have predicted that I would have the privilege and pleasure of airing all the games for 34 years, starting in the fall of 1961. Fast forward 30 years to 1985, capping a spectacular two-year gridiron era at Kingston. The Rams repeated 1984’s 10-3 record and won the Conference crown at 5-0, the only time URI has done it undefeated and untied. With All-America QB Tom Ehrhardt ’86 at the helm, Rhode Island led the U.S. in passing, finished seventh in the country’s final 1AA poll (after placing second in the nation in 1984); won its second Lambert-Meadowlands Cup, symbolizing Eastern supremacy; gained Bob Griffin five coachof-the-year plaudits; and played in the NCAA 1AA Tournament for a second straight year.
PHOTOS: CHEMART; COURTESY URI SPORTS INFORMATION; URI 1955 YEARBOOK, THE GRIST
QUADANGLES A quarterly publication of the University of Rhode Island Alumni Association, 73 Upper College Road, Kingston, RI 02881. p: 401.874.2242 e: quadangles@uri.edu Executive Editor Michele A. Nota ’87, M.S. ’06, Executive Director, URI Alumni Relations; Secretary, Alumni Association Executive Board
The key victory to the undefeated and untied Conference slate, and the automatic NCAA berth, was a come-from-behind, fingernail-biting contest against arch-rival Connecticut at Kingston, won by the Rams 56-42, after being behind at the half 42-28. Ehrhardt tossed eight touchdown passes (one shy of the national record), with four each going for scores to Brian Forster ’87 and Dameon Reilly ’86, just part of an unbelievable 566-yard passing attack. Mark Brockwell led the Ram defense that held the Huskies scoreless the rest of the way, after allowing six UConn TDs in the first half. Quite an accomplishment! That outstanding campaign gained yours truly another first. It marked the first and only time in my career as URI’s sports information director and broadcaster that the media wanted to interview me following a game, even before players and coaches. They wanted to know about records—and there were plenty of them after that historic contest. I have often thought that gridiron contest was the most exciting of the more than 400 I covered in my career—and there were many others that stood out over the years. The 1984-85 era resulted in the two NCAA playoff appearances, a combined 20-6 won-lost record, and 103 football marks set or tied. It also produced six All-Americans, two named All-East, 15 AllNew England, 17 All-Conference, nine Coach-ofthe-Year honors for Griffin, and six athletes who later played professionally. Heady stuff! In 2005, both the ’84 and ‘85 squads (with some duplication) and their coaches were inducted en masse into the URI Athletic Hall of Fame, the only teams in any sport at Kingston to be so honored. Several players from that era, and Griffin, have also been inducted as individuals. Time does go by, doesn’t it? —Jim Norman ‘57
Editor in Chief
Art Director
Pippa Jack Kim Robertson
Contributing Editors
Barbara Caron Shane Donaldson ’99 Dave Lavallee ’79, M.P.A. ’87 Todd McLeish
Contributing Designers
Johnson Ma Bo Pickard Verna Thurber
Photographer Digital Media
Nora Lewis Mena Hall
Editorial Board Kelly Mahoney ’03, Executive Director, External Relations and Communications Linda A. Acciardo ’77, Director, URI Communications and Marketing Tracey A. Manni, Director of Communications, URI Foundation URI Alumni Angela Cardinal, Executive Assistant Relations Staff Robert Ferrell ’07, Assistant Director Alexis Giordano, Program Assistant Karen LaPointe ’77, M.B.A. ’84, Associate Director Kate Maccarone ’08, Assistant Director Nicole Maranhas, Associate Web/Print Editor Darthula Mathews ’13, Program Assistant Mary Ann Mazzone, Office Assistant Cassandra Meyer-Ogren ’04, Assistant Director Amy Paulsen, Web/Print Editor Samantha Rodrigues ’11, Program Assistant Karen Sechio ’99, Assistant Director Samantha Stevens M.S. '15, Specialist Alumni Association Executive Board
Susan R. Johnson ’82, President Louise H. Thorson M.B.A.’82, Past President Daniel G. Lowney ’75, Vice President Thomas F. Shevlin ’68, Vice President Patrick J. Cronin ’91, Treasurer
Alumni Association Councilors-at-Large
Laurel L. Bowerman ’77, M.B.A. ’84 Matthew T. Finan ’11 Colleen Gouveia M.B.A.’98 Mackenzie Hofman ’12 John J. Palumbo ’76 Gregory S. Perry ’88 Perry A. Raso ’02, M.S. ’06 Karen E. Regine ’81 Christos S. Xenophontos ’84, M.S.’85
Alumni Association Representatives Arts & Sciences Business Administration Feinstein Continuing Education Engineering Environment and Life Sciences Human Science & Services Nursing Graduate School of Oceanography Pharmacy URI Foundation Faculty Senate Student Senate Student Alumni Association
Kathleen O’Donnell-White ’90 Jordan D. Kanter ’99, M.S.’00 Bianca S. Rodriguez-Slater ’10 Anthony J. Rafanelli ’78, M.S.’85, Ph.D. ’95 Catherine Weaver ’82, B.L.A.’96 Christine S. Pelton ’84 Silifat “Laitan” Mustapha ’97 Veronica M. Berounsky Ph.D. ’90 Henrique “Henry” Pedro ’76 Lorne Adrain ’76 Andrea L. Yates ’94, Ph.D.’06 Amanda Rode ’16 Hannah Zawia ’18
The URI Alumni Association informs and engages current and future alumni as committed partners of the University, its mission and traditions.
UNIVERSITY OF RHODE ISLAND 3
PRESIDENT’SVIEW URI is thinking big about health.
Paula Grammas (middle), an international leader in the study of Alzheimer’s disease, was appointed the inaugural executive director of the University of Rhode Island’s George & Anne Ryan Institute for Neuroscience. Joining in the announcement at the State House were Gov. Gina Raimondo and retired CVS CEO Thomas Ryan, whose gift of $15 million established the Institute.
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As the year draws to a close and we look ahead to the next, this issue of QuadAngles offers insight into our past as well as a glimpse into our future. If you like historical journeys with an anthropological twist, read about the Paleo-Indian villages that occupied what is now the Atlantic Ocean. Interested in occupations that we never dreamed of at the turn of the century? Check out what our URI entrepreneurs are doing—we’ve got videographers, coffee roasters, and even an organizer of parties for brides-to-be. The variety and breadth of URI’s activities is not at all accidental. In fact, it is a defining characteristic of our state’s only public research institution. It is a characteristic that inspires us, every day, to draw new connections between established disciplines, connections that result in innovative solutions to entrenched challenges. In 2013, we announced a remarkable initiative in this context. The George & Anne Ryan Institute for Neuroscience, established with a historic gift from Thomas ’75 and Cathy Ryan, has brought together faculty from dozens of disciplines to teach and conduct research on neurodegenerative diseases and disorders. In November, we announced the Institute’s first director and the Thomas M. Ryan Professor of Neuroscience, Paula Grammas, who comes to us from the Garrison Institute on Aging at Texas Tech University. A leader in the study of Alzheimer’s disease, Dr. Grammas is the perfect person to build the Ryan Institute into an internationally recognized neuroscience center. And now, as 2016 beckons, I am happy to say a few words about the latest in a string of initiatives bolstering our strengths in the health sciences. The Academic Health Collaborative will spark
health-related disciplines, including medicine, pharmacy, nursing, kinesiology and nutrition, psychology, statistics, computer science, and biomedical engineering, to work together in new ways. Every one of our transformational goals for the 21st century—creating a 24/7 learning environment, maximizing the impact of our research and scholarship, expanding our global reach, and becoming an institution that reflects the diversity of our state—fits perfectly with this idea. The Collaborative also represents an opportunity for incredible economic growth in Rhode Island, as we work with health care partners statewide to develop new intellectual property related to the diagnosis, treatment and cure of disease, new medical devices, new treatment regimens, and new ways to approach population health. Emerging public health challenges like the aging of the entire northern hemisphere, the threats of infectious disease, and the effects of climate change are just the types of issues the Collaborative will address on a local and a global scale. I’m personally excited about the Collaborative because of my own extensive career working in biomedical research. With support from the National Institutes of Health, I explored basic science that underlies drug development and the roles of particular proteins, enzymes, and metabolic pathways in health and disease. It’s an area that is critically important for the future of everyone on the planet. The entire URI community—including our alumni, of course—are in the habit of thinking big about the next thing we can do to make a difference in the world. The Ryan Institute and the Academic Health Collaborative are two great examples of where this dynamic thinking leads us.
David M. Dooley President, University of Rhode Island
PHOTOS: JOE GIBLIN; NORA LEWIS
5-MINUTEEXPERT
The Mystery of Mood
A writer pushes the boundaries of how we convey this fundamental, yet poorly understood, side of life.
BY PIPPA JACK Mary Cappello is no stranger to awards, but few come in this form: a residential fellowship in the heart of one of Europe’s biggest cities, as this year’s Holtzbrink Fellow at the American Academy in Berlin. It is, in fact, a rare gift: the right place, and time, for exploration. Cappello won’t be wasting it. A URI professor of English, Cappello has been widely published and won numerous honors, including Guggenheim and Fulbright fellowships. In Berlin, Cappello is completing her fifth book, Life Breaks In: A Mood Almanack, which she describes as a collection of lyric essays and experimental prose on the subject of mood. It is due out in fall 2016 from the University of Chicago Press. The American Academy bills itself as “determinedly nonmonastic; our fellows become involved in Berlin’s cultural, social, and intellectual scene.” Still, Cappello wasn’t entirely prepared: “One of the things that I keep discovering here in Berlin is that every question I’ve been formulating over the years in my attic study in Providence has an entire institute devoted to it,” she writes via email. “Our days at the Academy are filled with surprises, because we never quite know who might show up for dinner… Several
weeks ago, I found myself unexpectedly seated across from Norman Lear.” Cappello’s fellow Fellows in Berlin include a novelist, a visual artist and filmmaker, several historians, two anthropologists, a philosopher of science, and a Marxist cultural theorist. And then there is Berlin itself, a city Cappello describes as “perpetually in transition, and one in which every brick and street corner is riddled with an intractable history. The villa where the Academy stands is directly across the lake from another villa in which Hitler formulated the terms of the Final Solution. That villa stands very near to that of the great painter, Max Liebermann, who, we could say, was lucky to have died just before the outbreak of the war. Both houses are now museums.” Amid it all, Cappello remains focused on one of humanity’s most elusive yet all-encompassing experiences, as in this excerpt, from the chapter “Mood Modulations” in Life Breaks In: “We speak of an illness needing to ‘take its course,’ by which we mean that it is both out of our control and sure to pass; we, however reluctantly, allow the illness its own
PHOTO: ANNETTE HORNISCHER FOR THE AMERICAN ACADEMY IN BERLIN
movement, and rest assured that it will arrive at a statistically predictable petering out. But mood doesn’t work this way. Moods don’t follow a chartable path or career. We can’t grant them seven stages or 12 steps. A fever ‘comes on’; an illness is something we ‘contract.’ A mood, on the other hand, ‘comes over us,’ like a cloud or a mantel thrown over the soul. ‘What’s come over you?’ we ask, when we mean what mood are you submitting to, to the detriment of yourself and others? What change of mood or alteration is possessing you? On a brighter note, what are you allowing yourself to become?” •
Further Reading Night Bloom (1999) Awkward: A Detour (2007) Called Back: My Reply to Cancer, My Return to Life (2009) Swallow: Foreign Bodies, Their Ingestion, Inspiration, and the Curious Doctor Who Extracted Them (2011) And look for Cappello’s writing in: Salmagundi, Hotel Amerika, Southwest Review, Cabinet Magazine, Georgia Review, The New York Times, Salon, and NPR.
URI.EDU/QUADANGLES
UNIVERSITY OF RHODE ISLAND 5
NEWS&VIEWS Green-Listed
Making Bubbles, and Friends, in Tanzania Bubbles are a staple of a kid’s life in America, but in Tanzania, one of the poorest countries in the world, they are rare. That changed when University of Rhode Island students came to town. Last summer, a remote village in the East African country hosted a Bubblefest, thanks to URI students on a 10-day trip to teach children who are poor or orphaned. The bubbles were a hit, as well as the books (Froggie Gets Dressed), the markers, the pencils, the paper, the soccer balls, the singing, the dancing, and the hugs. Charles Starkey, a senior from Long Island, is ready to go back. “Africa changed my life,’’ he says. “It was a pretty powerful experience.’’ URI kinesiology lecturer Karie Lee Orendorff, of North Kingstown, created the trip three years ago after falling in love with Tanzania, best known as the home of Mount Kilimanjaro—the highest peak in Africa— and the national park where Jane Goodall studied chimpanzee behavior. Sixteen URI students, some going abroad for the first time, taught math, reading, writing and physical education to children aged 3 to 12 at the Maasai Joy Children’s Centre in Arusha in the country’s Ekenywa Valley region.
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The Maasai are an indigenous African ethnic group of semi-nomadic herdsmen. They speak Maa, part of the Nilo-Saharan language, and are taught in Swahili and English. Many of the families are poor, at least by American standards. They live in huts made from cow dung, mud and straw, and cook in holes dug in the ground. Besides teaching lessons, the URI students built a playground and two classrooms—a much-needed addition since some classes were held in chicken coops with cardboard walls. The landscape was stunning: mountains, fields of sunflowers, winding roads. People walked everywhere; cars were scarce. Starkey turned his cell phone off in Amsterdam, with no regrets. Tanzania, the students say, will make them more compassionate physical education teachers. The trip also gave them a greater appreciation for what they have in America. “Now I want to help people who don’t have as much,’’ says Starkey. “It’s a good feeling. Everyone wants to go to Europe. I want to see the kids again. I want to go back to Africa.’’
The Princeton Review has once more named URI among the nation’s “greenest” colleges. Its Guide to 353 Green Colleges: 2015 Edition profiles colleges with exceptional commitments to sustainability based on their academic offerings and career prep, as well as campus policies, initiatives, and activities. “The University is rooted in principles of sustainability,” said Marsha Garcia, URI’s campus sustainability officer. “It began as an agricultural program more than 100 years ago and that remains the foundation of how the University operates today.” The guide noted URI’s sustainability committee, buildings certified for Leadership in Environmental Engineering and Design, sustainability-focused degrees and plethora of transportation alternatives. “Among nearly 10,000 teens who participated in our 2015 College Hopes & Worries Survey, 61 percent told us that having information about a school’s commitment to the environment would influence their decision,” said Robert Franek, The Princeton Review’s senior vice president and publisher. “We strongly recommend the schools in this guide to environmentally-minded students.”
PHOTOS: URI, TEACHING IN TANZANIA’S FACEBOOK; ISTOCKPHOTO.COM
Imaging the Brain University of Rhode Island engineering professor Walt Besio has been awarded a $6 million grant from the National Science Foundation to lead an interdisciplinary consortium of scientists to create brain imaging and modulation technologies that can provide insight into the nervous system and how it functions in both health and disease. “We’re going to create a portable integrated system to get electrical and neurovascular activity from the brain. The system will allow researchers to conduct experiments that until now have not been easy to do,” said Besio, who invented a patented tripolar concentric ring electrode sensor for detecting brain signals that will be the basis of the new research. Besio will collaborate with colleagues from institutions in Kentucky and Oklahoma to develop innovative tools to image, sense and record brain function and deliver stimuli to the brain to treat neurological diseases like epilepsy, stroke and Parkinson’s disease. The URI scientists will focus on development of the hardware for the new system, while the Kentucky and Oklahoma teams will create algorithms and explore applications. “By the time we develop the instrumentation, we will be able to do research that nobody else can do,” Besio said.
The Graveyard in Providence Harbor
In Case of Emergency, Look for the Robot URI engineering professor Haibo He has been awarded a three-year, $282,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to develop a system of intelligent robots that can help direct or lead people to appropriate exits if an emergency evacuation is necessary. He, a professor of electrical engineering, and a colleague at Stevens Institute of Technology were awarded the grant through President Barack Obama’s National Robotics Initiative, which called for the development of “co-robots” that can work alongside people to extend or augment human capabilities. “Our goal is to help evacuate people from malls, student dormitories, auditoriums or other indoor environments where an emergency has happened, like a fire,” He said. “We want to design an intelligent robot with control algorithms to guide people under those situations.” He says stampeding crowds can be one of the most harmful collective human behaviors, often causing greater harm than the event that triggered the stampede. So his first step will be to study human behavior in emergencies, with the help of URI Psychology Professor Charles Collyer. The next step will be to design mathematical algorithms to control how the robot will interact with humans. “Our ultimate goal is to control the robot, and in this way indirectly control human behavior,” says He.
What began as an analysis of marine debris in Providence Harbor for a proposed cleanup has uncovered what appears to be Rhode Island’s largest “ship graveyard.” David Robinson, a marine archaeologist at the University of Rhode Island Graduate School of Oceanography, has determined that 26 wrecks in total are spread across a 33-acre area of Green Jacket Shoal off East Providence. Despite their age, many of the wrecks are relatively intact. Through this study, which was funded by Rhode Island Sea Grant, Robinson has also identified, with the assistance of Providence steamboat historian William H. Ewen Jr., the remains of two iconic Rhode Island paddle-wheel steamships, the Mount Hope and the Bay Queen. More information: rhodeislandseagrant@gmail.com
PHOTOS: JOE GIBLIN; STEAMSHIP HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA; MICHAEL SALERNO
UNIVERSITY OF RHODE ISLAND 7
NEWS&VIEWS Get your Transcript Faster In September, the Office of Enrollment Services launched a new, free process for alumni requesting official transcripts. Students who attended in 1983 and after should make requests through e-Campus at web.uri.edu/ecampus. Alumni without an e-Campus account may create one. Once logged in, navigate to Self Service, then Academic Records, then Request Official Transcript. Students who attended prior to 1983 should use the legacy transcript request form available at web.uri.edu/enrollment/ transcript.
Getting Serious About Laughter Sophie Scott was 6 years old when she first remembers hearing her parents laugh—not soft chuckles, but the kind of belly laughs that left them breathless. “I didn’t know what they were laughing at,’’ says Scott. “But I wanted in.’’ Scott got her wish. The little girl from Blackburn, England, grew up to become a neuroscientist and one of the world’s
leading researchers on laughter as deputy director of the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience at University College, London. She also makes people laugh as—no joke—a standup comedian. Scott visited URI in late October as part of the annual Honors Colloquium, which this year focused on the power of humor.
You’re a scientist. Why do you like being in front of a large audience cracking jokes—aren’t you terrified? It is terrifying, but it’s also absolutely delightful if—IF—people laugh. Fake laughter is contrived, but we all do it. Why? It’s an extremely important social cue. Most of the time when we laugh it’s a bit fake, or controlled. But even such posed laughter is a very useful way of managing interactions. Does laughter makes us healthier? It’s critical to many aspects of social and emotional health, and it’s interesting to know how the perception and production of laughter can be affected by things that change our mental health. Do babies who laugh grow up to be adults who laugh? If so, what can parents do to make their infants smile? The short answer is we don’t really know, but we do know that if baby rats are tickled a lot, they laugh more when they are adults. Babies laugh during interactions like tickling or play, so that’s a good place to start. Do rats really laugh? They make a very specific chirping sound when they are playing with each other, and when they are tickled or when they anticipate being tickled. So it doesn’t sound much like laughter to humans, but you find it in the same kinds of behaviors.
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Calling 8th Graders: Gandhi Essay Contest Global leaders are often called upon to broker peace between warring countries— but how about recruiting middle schoolers? That’s what URI hopes to accomplish with its 6th annual Gandhi Essay Contest, sponsored by the Center for Nonviolence and Peace Studies. Eighth-grade students throughout the state are invited to submit essays about their interpretation of the Gandhi quote, “An eye for an eye will only make the whole world blind.’’ For more information, call 401-874-2875 or visit uri.edu/nonviolence.
Building the Tree of Life URI biologist Christopher Lane, associate professor of biological sciences, has been awarded a $ 2.5 million grant from the National Science Foundation to study the genetics of three groups of parasites and single-celled organisms, work that will help scientists complete a detailed tree of life of earth’s living organisms. The grant is part of NSF’s Genealogy of Life program, which is examining the evolutionary patterns and processes of life on earth. “There are lots of areas of the tree of life that we know very little about,” said Lane, who joined the URI faculty in 2008 and studies marine biodiversity and comparative genomics. “We don’t know a lot about what’s at the base of the tree of life, for instance, and what major groups belong together.” The three groups he is studying “are responsible for an enormous amount of ecosystem functioning that we don’t appreciate or fully recognize,” Lane added. “Many are having huge impacts on food webs, both marine and terrestrial, and we know very little about what they do and who they are.”
R.I. Sea Grant Communications Director Monica Allard Cox, URI President David M. Dooley, and author Sarah Schumann.
Shellfish, Past and Future The book Rhode Island’s Shellfish: An Ecological History captures the way shellfish, from the iconic quahog to the humble periwinkle, have been an integral part of Rhode Island’s past and present. And it has done something else: won praise as an innovative way of using the humanities to inform public policy, and the future of shellfish management. Written by Sarah Schumann, the compendium examines the significance of shellfish from pre-Colonial days to today in terms of sustenance, employment, recreation, ecological importance, and artistic inspiration. Numerous shellfishermen, growers, shellfishing families, dealers, artists, scientists, and others contributed stories and photographs. This fall, the Rhode Island Council for the Humanities honored Schumann, together with the Coastal Institute at URI, Rhode Island Sea Grant and the Coastal
PHOTOS: TWITTER.COM/SOPHIESCOTT; ISTOCKPHOTOS.COM; COURTESY RHODE ISLAND SEA GRANT
Resources Center at the URI Graduate School of Oceanography, with an Innovation in the Humanities Award. The book is a “powerful use of the humanities to connect cross-sector stakeholders including the R.I. Department of Environmental Management and Coastal Resources Management Council, URI, and Roger Williams University, in the process of designing Rhode Island’s Shellfish Management Plan,” remarked Elizabeth Francis, executive director of the Rhode Island Council for the Humanities. “The honorees not only looked at shellfish as an economic, environmental, and culinary resource for our state. They also brought to light the enduring importance of shellfish as a cultural resource, interwoven with Rhode Island’s identity and history.” To request a copy of the free book, contact rhodeislandseagrant@gmail.com or call 401.874.6800.
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PRESSBOX Athletes Against Domestic Violence The Rhode Island Coalition Against Domestic Violence, Learfield Sports’ Rhody Sports Properties and student athletes from Rhode Island teamed up in September to create television and radio public service announcements that aired throughout the state this fall. Athletes from each of Rhode Island’s teams were filmed and photographed as part of an awareness campaign encouraging the idea of speaking out against domestic violence. “I hope this commercial creates a clear message that helps people understand that anyone can get involved,” says Manny Vadis ’16, a senior on the women’s track and field team. Vadis added that she hopes people, especially those in the URI community, will continue to do the right thing, not just when they are under the spotlight. Junior distance runner Alex McGrainer ’17 from the men’s track and field team is hopeful that the announcement will bring more awareness about the message and gather more people to support victims of domestic violence. “I’ve definitely seen a change in my friends and the kids I hang out with,” he said.
McGrainer said that through the URi-STANDers program, and other experiences at URI, he has seen a ripple effect that he believes is turning studentathletes into “all-around better people.” The television commercial and radio PSA began airing across the state at the start of October. As part of the campaign, photos of Rhody student-athletes were plastered on RIPTA buses throughout the state. Rhody Sports Properties, which secured the Rhode Island Coalition Against Domestic Violence partnership on behalf of Rhode Island Athletics, is a property of Learfield Sports. Learfield manages multimedia rights and sponsorship for nearly 120 collegiate properties and sponsors the Learfield Sports Directors’ Cup with award co-founders NACDA and USA Today. The R.I. Coalition Against Domestic Violence is an organization dedicated to ending domestic violence through gathering support, seeking justice for victims, and creating awareness. If you or anyone you know is in need of help, their 24-hour helpline can be reached at 1.800.494.8100. —Dani Gariglio ’17
Help for Sidelined Athletes In the fall of 2012, Cate Seman ’16 was two weeks into her collegiate career when she suffered an ankle injury that knocked her out of action. The time on the sidelines away from her teammates got Seman thinking about what she would do without sports in her life. That is where the senior captain’s idea for Rallying Athletes’ Minds, or RAM, was born. Working with academic advisor and learning specialist Brittney Cross, Seman developed a wellness and development program that focuses in two areas: First, helping student-athletes transition to life when sports are over after graduation, and second, helping athletes deal with not being able to play while sick or injured. “On the injury side, we’re hoping to prevent some of the things that happen to athletes when they can’t compete, like depression, eating disorders and academic decline,” Seman says. “We also want to make sure athletes have a better understanding of what to do after their athletic careers 10
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are over. There really is nothing like that in place here.” Cross added that she is hopeful they will receive a grant from the NCAA to help launch and sustain the program. “This is something student-athletes don’t realize they need until they need it,” Cross says. “It was extremely exciting when Cate came to me with this idea, especially someone as enthusiastic and passionate as she is.” Seman plans on staying at the University after graduation to help run the program. “When the idea came to me, I was like a lot of athletes,” Seman said. “When I finished my four years I had no idea what I was going to do without athletics. There needs to be a better system in place to help injured athletes and athletes who will graduate to figure out career paths—something as seemingly simple as how to do a resume, that sort of thing. I hope this will provide that here.”
COURTESY URI SPORTS INFORMATION
Casey a National Finalist for Senior Men’s soccer co-captain Mike Casey ’15, M.B.A. ’16, was one of 30 NCAA Division I student-athletes nationally named as a candidate for the 2015 Senior CLASS Award, announced by the organization in September. To be eligible for the award, a studentathlete must be classified as an NCAA Division I senior and have notable achievements in four areas of excellence: community, classroom, character and competition. An acronym for Celebrating Loyalty and Achievement for Staying in School, the Senior CLASS Award focuses on the total student-athlete and encourages students to use their platform in athletics to make a positive impact as leaders in their communities. Casey completed his undergraduate studies in the spring of 2015, earning a bachelor’s degree in finance and graduating magna cum laude with a 3.52 cumulative GPA. He is currently enrolled in graduate school and is on pace to obtain his M.B.A. in the summer of 2016. A seven-time member
Donohoe Coaches Team USA Para-Rowing For the second straight year, Rhode Island women’s rowing head coach Shelagh Donohoe gained international experience as part of the U.S. National Team.
CLASS Award
of the Atlantic 10 Commissioner’s Honor Roll, he received URI’s College of Business Administration Student-Athlete Award for exhibiting excellence both on the field and in the classroom. He also was selected to travel to New York City to attend the threeday Global Asset Management Education Forum as a student participant during the spring of 2015. Now in his third year as a team captain, Casey missed the 2013 season with an ACL injury, but returned in 2014 and—while battling through a back injury that caused him to miss six games—helped lead Rhode
Donohoe and Ellen Minzner coached Team USA’s 2015 World Para-Rowing LTA 4+ team at the World Championships on Lake Aiguebelette in France in early September. The LTA stands for legs, trunks and arms and the athletes in the competition have the ability to use these sections of their body. As para-athletes, they have certain physical disabilities and visual impairments that create challenges. A year ago, Donohoe coached the U.S. Para-Rowing LTA mixed double boat at the 2014 World Championships in Amsterdam. “I wanted to stay involved,” Donohoe said of coaching with Team USA again. “It has made me a smarter coach and taught me to be more flexible in the approaches I take in communicating with athletes.”
Island to a 13-5-3 record, as well as the A-10 regular season title and URI’s first national ranking in nearly a decade. Outside of the team setting, Casey has been active in URI’s Peer Advocacy Program, working with students and oncampus leaders to increase awareness regarding partner violence, stalking, sexual abuse and harassment. Casey has been involved in a variety of community outreach activities as a two-year member of URI’s StudentAthlete Advisory Committee, including spending time reading to students at nearby elementary schools. To give back to the game of soccer, he has volunteered his time coaching at numerous youth camps and clinics over the last five years, while also serving as an assistant coach for his local U15/U16 club soccer teams. The Senior CLASS Award winner will be announced during the 2015 NCAA Men’s College Cup® championship in December.
Over the summer, Donohoe coached four rowers and a coxswain three days a week on the Charles River in Boston. It was a mixed team, with two men and two women, each with different physical limitations. Ricky Vandergrift, an 18-year-old high school student from Bethel, Ohio, was born without a fibula in his left leg, had his leg amputated below the knee at 18 months old and now has a prosthetic leg. Zachary Burns, another 18-year-old high school student from Ann Arbor, Mich. was born with a club foot on his left leg that restricts his ankle flexibility. Dani Hansen, a 21-year-old from Patterson, Calif., who rows for the University of Washington, has Erb’s Palsy, a condition that leads to paralysis in her arm. The fourth rower
was Jaclyn Smith, a 22-year-old from Williston, N.Y., who rowed for Sacred Heart. She has a condition called ocular albinism. She is legally blind and her eyes are sensitive to light. “When coaching adaptive rowing, it forces you to think outside the box,” Donohoe said. “These are all tremendous athletes, but they each face different challenges. Just the fact that it’s a mixed boat with men and women forces us to take a different look at how to best set them up, seat-wise.” For Donohoe, going to Aiguebelette also was a chance to visit a piece of her past. She and her team spent a month on the Lake while training for the 1992 Barcelona Games, where Donohoe won a silver medal for the United States.
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The Real World of ONLINE EDUCATION It may surprise you to see what online courses and 24/7 learning really look like. Here, a window into the increasingly inviting— and ever-evolving—world of virtual education. BY BETHANY VACCARO ’06 It’s no secret that the internet has changed the way the world works. It opens up opportunities, makes information accessible like never before, and also presents new challenges in forging real connections between people, even while making those connections more available than ever. These challenges are part of the education world as well, where an entire class of dedicated professionals works to ensure that nothing is lost in the translation from the face-to-face classroom to the digital world. Over the past several years, URI has seen its offerings in online education grow substantially. The spring 2015 semester showed record enrollment in online courses, with over 2,500 students, largely undergraduates, taking an online course. The University offers online courses in over 20 undergraduate and graduate subjects, with new offerings continually in development. Currently, the typical online student at URI is not whom you might expect: a nontraditional student or working adult. The majority of students in online classes are 18–22-year-old residential students, looking to harness the flexibility of online learning to graduate more quickly or ease up a full schedule.
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Marc DiFalco ’15 tells a common story: “During my final semester, I needed to take five high-level business courses to finish my degree, and I also needed one more general elective in order to graduate on time. Taking an online course made this easier for me, as I was able to do it in the evening when I had some down time. It helped me graduate on time.” He was surprised at how much interaction he was able to have with other students, through discussion boards that allowed them to debate topics and hear from all members of the class, instead of just one or two students at a time. “I got a lot out of hearing so many different views, and overall, the online class was a great experience. It definitely helped toward my degree progress.”
This flexibility is also a game changer for students who are juggling other responsibilities with their course work. Carlita Alves ’17 is a mother of four working towards a communications degree parttime while she raises her family. So far, she’s been able to complete nine courses online, saving herself the commute from Providence to Kingston and the time away from her family. “Having the ability to take classes online and be home with my family has been a huge advantage,” she says. “I was able to have my new baby and continue with my course work without skipping a beat.”
PHOTO: NORA LEWIS; ILLUSTRATION: ISTOCK.COM
Carlita Alves ’17 at home in Providence, R.I.
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While convenience and efficiency may be the biggest sell to those considering online education, the backbone of success for students is the investment URI has made in ensuring that its online offerings are quality education. The Office of Online Education exists to pave the way for both faculty and students. “We want to create the highest quality educational experience,” says Diane Goldsmith, director of the Office for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning. “We want these courses to be highly interactive, to be engaging for our students and intellectually stimulating.” The office works to ensure this by offering multiple faculty development and training opportunities, as well as providing resources for students to Clockwise from top left: adapt to the virtual environment. Kathleen Torrens, “Being trained in how to teach online Joannah Portman-Daley and understanding that there’s a differand Diane Goldsmith. ent pedagogy attached to online teaching makes it a better experience for everyone,” says Kathleen Torrens, one of the assistant directors of online education. “We offer basic competency trainings in the tools that are available to teach online, as well as two online pedagogy courses for faculty to take. They get to be students in an online class and have a firsthand experience of what it’s like.” Courses for faculty focus on topics like blended teaching, which is a combination of face-to-face instruction and online work; how to engage with students virtually and foster their investment in the class; and, of course, the nuts
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and bolts of successful course design for the virtual world. In addition to trying out online education firsthand, faculty are able to consult individually with assistant director Joannah Portman-Daley, an instructional design specialist, as they design their courses. She is also one of the six peer mentors at URI who are qualified to implement the best practices rubric of Quality Matters, a national nonprofit organization dedicated to quality online education. “We are able to review an online course and be that other pair of eyes to look at it,” she says. “The rubric looks at course design, things like how easy it is to navigate the course, if it’s accessible, if the assessments are aligned with the course objectives and outcomes.” The peer mentors review a course to ensure that it meets these national standards. If it doesn’t, they provide recommendations to improve the design. The faculty is then able to revise the online course until it meets standards by at least 85 percent. Rachel DiCioccio, associate professor of communication studies, has been teaching online since 2009 and was quick to take advantage of the training the University offered. “The online context changes the way you need to think about instruction. You can’t just upload the notes from your faceto-face class and expect to teach students in the same way,” she says. Through the training she received, DiCioccio was able to utilize the tools available to create a course that fostered student interaction and
engagement, surprising even herself at how invested students become when they have the opportunity to be more selfdirected or feel less inhibited to speak openly than they might in a face-to-face class. She credits assistance from the Office of Online Education in helping her create an open and inviting virtual atmosphere. “The mentoring I received was really the most important aspect,” she adds. “I still go back to them for support.” So far, over 245 faculty have completed training in online pedagogy. URI is pressing forward in developing more options for students and expanding offerings to provide more postbaccalaureate opportunities. Several new programs have been launched over the past year or are in the works for the near future. Each one seeks to target an audience in need of a stellar educational experience in a fast-paced world. Find out more about online education at URI at uri.edu/learningonline. •
Rachel DiCioccio
PHOTOS: NORA LEWIS
Check out some of the exciting new programs at URI—available worldwide through your computer screen. Nursing: R.N. to B.S. program For a nurse holding an R.N. credential, going back to school to receive a full bachelor of science degree is a necessary step for career advancement. However, finding the time for this is not always easy. To meet this need, the College of Nursing has developed a fully online R.N. to B.S. program that aims to bridge the gap between necessity and practicality. Following the lead of similar programs around the country, the R.N. to B.S. program will offer accelerated 7-week courses, allowing an R.N. to receive a bachelor’s degree in as little as a year and a half. Diane Gerzevitz had the challenging job of translating a hands-on nursing course in physical assessment to a completely online format. “We’re teaching students to do a complete physical examination on someone,” she describes, “things like taking a blood pressure, listening to lungs, and assessing the throat.” To do this virtually, the department has partnered with Shadow Health, a company that provides a virtual simulation of the medical environment. “The program has avatars who talk to you, move their heads and bodies and act like real people. You can do everything you need to for an exam virtually, such as put your hands on their chest wall.” So students are able to interact with their patients, examine them, and update their electronic medical records, just like in the real world. Graduate School of Library and Information Studies Library and Information Studies has pioneered online education at URI. “Due to high demand for online courses from working students, our graduate school now offers most courses in an online format,” says Valerie Karno, department chairperson. Courses are available in an asynchronous format, meaning students may log in at different times and contribute posts to discussion boards and other course features, or with synchronous virtual weekly or biweekly meeting times. The department is in the process of making the entire degree available online. “Students still benefit from a very interactive course experience, meeting each other and working through ideas with their professors in virtual discussion rooms online at night or on the weekends as they advance their careers by gaining an M.L.I.S. degree,” says Karno.
Computer Science: Cyber Security Online programs are not new to the computer science department. It already offers online graduate certificates in digital forensics and in cyber security. Over the past year, it also created an online professional science masters in cyber security. “This degree combines a science education with some professional and business experiences as well,” explains program coordinator Lisa DiPippo. “Most people who get a graduate degree in science go to work in a business. This program will help them understand how the technical skills they are learning work inside of an organization. For instance, as part of the program, they can intern for an organization doing a real cyber security project in a real business environment.” The hands-on program uses a virtual environment to mimic the real challenges they will be dealing with in the workforce, such as setting firewall rules and responding to attacks on a system. “They can experience how to respond to a real attack,” DiPippo explains, “without worrying about infecting their own computer.” Environment and Life Sciences: Dietetics The first fully online master’s degree program to launch at URI was in dietetics through the Department of Nutrition and Food Sciences. It’s a 14-month, non-thesis M.S. program for students enrolled in dietetic internship programs. The degree was developed in collaboration with the Sodexo dietetics internships to ensure that the courses will complement internship rotations. “The master’s credential will be required for registered dieticians in upcoming years,” explains Jenn Arts, one of the developers of the program. “We needed to come up with an innovative way to meet the needs of the students and to keep pace with the times.” Putting the program online allows for both of these things. Students will gain real-world experience at their internship sites and also benefit from sharing these experiences through online discussion forums, group case studies, and presentations. “The program design allows students to apply what they learn in class to different practice settings. It’s really the ideal combination to prepare students for their future employment.”
uri.edu/learningonline
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Villages Beneath the Sea It’s wet and blustery work uncovering the secrets of the Paleolithic villages that succumbed to sea-level rise at the end of the last ice age. Long commemorated in Narragansett tribal history, the ancient coastal settlers are now studied by underwater archaeologists, providing a glimpse into our distant past—and a model for future research. BY JOHANNA KNAPSCHAEFER
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It’s 9:15 a.m. on June 23. Beneath a bright but hazy sky, the winds are whipping above rough surf when two vans and a yellow box truck arrive at West Beach on Block Island, a 10-square-mile lump of morainal deposits off the southern coast of Rhode Island. The team of 10 researchers wastes no time unloading diving gear, the Lego-like pieces that will make up the research vessel, and eight-foot-long plastic tubes for collecting core soil samples. “The weather’s iffy today, but the water visibility is good, so we should be able to do some diving and coring up at the pond,” says David Robinson ’90, marine archaeologist at URI’s Graduate School of Oceanography, raising his voice above the pounding surf at the tailgate briefing. “Safety is everything, so be very careful carrying gear down the beach. It’s easy to twist an ankle on the cobbles.” The team—including three researchers from the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, two URI student members of the Narragansett Indian tribe, and three other URI students—have come for their first full day of fieldwork. They’re here in search of old land forms beneath the present-day coastal waters, markers that they hope will lead them to ancient Narragansett relics. Robinson and the divers are studying the history of human habitation, while URI professor of marine geology John King and his team are studying environmental factors that could have affected native people living in this area. The aim is to shed light on how the earliest Native Americans lived during the Paleo-Indian period, a span of time that ran between 12,000 and 10,000 years ago and encompassed massive
ecological change. The final glacial episodes of the late Pleistocene period had tied up vast quantities of water in ice sheets, making sea level at the beginning of the Paleo-Indian much lower than it is now. What is now the continental shelf was an open and grassy plain. But then, roughly 11,000 years ago, the ice melted and the seas rose. “Block Island is a unique site because increased coastal erosion from modifications to
the breakwater at New Harbor has exposed a previously buried submerged paleocultural landscape,” King says. “We can study the landscape here without time-consuming excavations.” No one knows how long it took for the waters to rise, although tribal memories provide clues. “More than 15,000 years ago, Narragansett tribal ancestors lived out where the ocean is now, but had to suddenly abandon their homes when the ocean rose overnight.” That was the oral history told by the late Ella Sekatau, a Narragansett elder medicine woman, according to Doug Harris, preservationist for ceremonial landscapes for the Charlestown-based Narragansett Indian Tribal Historic Preservation Office
PHOTOS: DAVID ROBINSON; JOHANNA KNAPSCHAEFER; MELANIE DAMOUR; TIM DENCKER
in Charlestown, R.I. Harris presented it at the first stakeholder’s meeting of the Rhode Island Ocean Special Area Management Plan in 2010. While oral history does not provide specific details of how the Narragansett ancestors lived 15,000 years ago, it reveals that tribal people hunted large animals including deer, elk, moose, bison and bear, in addition to rodents and other smaller animals. “And it is safe to conclude they were harvesting fish and sea mammals available along the coast,” Harris says. The Block Island fieldwork is part of a $2 million project, funded by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, titled, “Developing Protocols for Reconstructing Submerged Paleocultural Landscapes and
Clockwise from top: unloading the research vessel; Paleo-Indian flake tools; members of the research team assemble the vessel with eight-foot-long plastic tubes for collecting core soil samples. At left, ancient tree stumps uncovered at moon-low low tide off the shore of Block Island.
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Identifying Ancient Native American Archaeological Sites in Submerged Environments.” King, Robinson and Harris are jointly leading the project, making it the first marine archaeology fieldwork in the nation to involve an American Indian tribe as a full research partner. In five study areas— including Block Island, Narragansett Bay and Greenwich Bay—the team is developing standardized best practices for identifying ancient Native American submerged cultural resources. This will assist the federal government,
U.S. states and tribal communities in evaluating proposed offshore wind-energy projects during development on the Outer Continental Shelf. Now in its second year, the four-year project has created a unique intersection between the oral history of the Narragansett Indian Tribe—the state’s only federally recognized tribe—and scientific research at URI. “This project is of great significance for the Narragansett Tribe because it verifies our oral history,” Harris reflects. “It will help us protect that which is presumed to be out there, based on oral history—and scientific reality.” After the tailgate briefing, everyone pitches in to haul the gear and supplies to the two fieldwork locations north of West Beach. As the divers 18 QUADANGLES WINTER 2015
gather up their gear, Robinson looks up at the opaque sky. “Make sure we have the emergency oxygen kit—we’ve got bad storms coming,” he shouts. I grab a large cooler full of lunch fixings and begin lugging it down to the shore, moving from one cobblestone to the next, trying to keep my balance. My role is to report about the team’s research, but there is much work to be done before the fieldwork can begin, so I pitch in. Behind me two students are carrying the research vessel, which is basically a raft constructed
of six interlocking pieces. “Let’s turn it longways so we’re not walking backwards,” one of them commands as they struggle to keep their footing in the sand. As I near a bend in the shoreline, Robinson approaches me from the opposite direction. “Now is a good time to see the stump, before the tide comes in,” he hollers before disappearing down the beach. Stump? While scanning the beach, a huge driftwood log about 50 feet ahead comes into view, but I’m not sure that’s what he means. Then Chali Machado ’18, an anthropology student at URI and one of the divers, approaches, and I ask her to explain. “He must mean the old stumps you can see near the shore,” she says. “I’ll show you.”
Above, John King and team collecting a core sample of mud and sediment from a kettle pond that was probably part of the Paleolithic landscape. Far left, URI undergraduate and scientific diver Chali Machado examines the submerged remains of an ancient tree. Left, David Robinson examines one of several pieces of quartz chipping debris from ancient Native American stone tool manufacture found at the underwater site.
As we walk, she tells me a little about her involvement with the project and what it means for her Narragansett Tribe. Both she and her brother, Norman Machado ’18, are undergraduate students of cultural anthropology at URI and Native American partners in the project. They have conducted similar archaeology research on land in Charlestown, R.I. “We want to bridge the gap between science and oral history,” Machado says, her long black dreads blowing in the wind. In her work for URI and the Narragansett Tribe’s Historic Preservation Office,
she says she considers herself an advocate for her tribe and feels a responsibility to help educate Native Americans about the importance of land preservation. “A lot of elders and tribal people don’t trust science,” she explains. “Native Americans bring knowledge that gives a more holistic view of how to interpret our findings,” says marine archaeologist Robinson. “And their spiritual and cultural connection adds powerful relevance to the project. We are combining science as one lens with the tribal view of the past, for a more complete explanation of how the first Narragansetts lived.” Pointing toward the water where foot-high waves are
crashing on the shore, I see a shiny brown tree stump jutting about a foot and a half out of the water. Behind it someone has built a cairn out of sandpolished rocks to mark the location. “When the tide is lower, you can see three of them,” Machado explains. The visible stump, Robinson says, has been radiocarbondated at 300 years old. The oldest of the trio, further away from the shore, is 800 years old. “The tree stumps stand in their original growth position— the roots extend down into the soil and sedimentation,” Robinson says. “Trees don’t grow in the ocean, so this tells us the landscape was once very different here.” Driven by Wind Energy The uptick in offshore wind farm development, especially in the Northeast, has piqued interest in submerged landscapes on the continental shelf. “Best practices for offshore wind developers conducting surveys would be useful to avoid or mitigate damage or destruction of ancient Native American archaeological sites listed on the National Register,” says Jeffrey Grybowski, chief executive officer of Deepwater Wind, Providence, R.I. The firm’s 30-megawatt, fiveturbine Block Island Wind Pilot Project—the nation’s first offshore wind test farm—is now under construction three miles southeast of Block Island. It is one of three projects to win federal development rights for wind farms in the area between Martha’s Vineyard and Block Island; the largest is still in the planning phase but could be much bigger, at up to 200 turbines. Rhode Island is ahead of its coastal sister states in getting ready for the influx of offshore power generation. Three prior studies, all conducted within the past eight
years, have created a wealth of accumulated data: the Rhode Island Sea Grant Map, which mapped 95 percent of the Narragansett Bay system; the Special Area Management Plan, which mapped the seafloor and the ecology of a 1,467-squaremile area of ocean around Rhode Island especially to create a tool for managing offshore renewable energy development; and geological coring studies completed by Deepwater Wind in 2011. Robinson and his coresearchers
and have adjusted their weight belts. “Let’s get in and get oriented to the landscape,” Robinson says. The team is using GPS to map the extent of different types of soil on the ocean floor: peat, loess—the wind-blown sediment blown off glaciers when they recede—and any subsoils trapped beneath them. “As sea level rose, the shoreline receded, leaving a layer of peat on the soil,” Robinson explains. “We want to see how far they go offshore. But when the sea level
David Robinson collects a sample for radiocarbon dating from the outermost tree-stump exposed at low tide.
hope their project will help fill in the gaps. “With the advent of digital technology and applications for ocean surveys, we have the ability to work with digital data to reconstruct old landforms in ways we never could before,” Robinson says. “This is our best opportunity to understand how sea-level rise has impacted paleolandscapes.” By 10:30 a.m. on this blustery morning, Robinson, two research divers from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, and Chali Machado are on the beach preparing for their dive. They check their valves, hoses, and gauges, before laying out their wetsuits to slide into them. By 11 a.m. they are fully suited
rises and things go underwater, powerful waves and currents destroy most of the land surface, so finding undisturbed areas is challenging.” Once the divers disappear underwater, I walk another quarter of a mile up the beach. The North Lighthouse is visible in the distance. On the way I pass Norman Machado and Doug Jones, a tribal liaison representative at the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, both clad in wetsuits and walking through whitecapped water that approaches their chests. They are floating a raft laden with coring tubes and rods up to the shore near Wash Pond, a small freshwater kettle pond—likely formed by a retreating glacier—that King
says could be 15,000 to 16,000 years old. Once the team arrives with the coring equipment and the last of six rafts, it is well past noon and the weather has become uncomfortably hot. The team finishes inserting rods into the coring tubes and assembling the rafts to create one large interconnected barge. “Has anyone checked the phone for radar lately?” King asks, his face mostly hidden beneath his safari hat. “Looks like the weather is all pretty far north of us,” replies Casey Hearn ’17, a URI oceanography doctoral student. “I don’t see any imminent threat,” King says before floating out to measure the depth of the pond at 7.5 feet. Cricket song rings through the blades of the tall Phragmites grass around the pond. After filling one tube with pond water, the team lifts it onto the raft and places it into position before sinking it down through a hole in the deck. Next, Hearn climbs a ladder to attach an extension to the coring rod, then inserts a horizontal bar for leverage. Three of them grab the horizontal rod and push with all their might to suck up 10 liters of pond floor. King takes a quick read of the “layer cake sample,” which includes fossil vegetation at the top, a layer of mud, then a layer of sand at the bottom. “The sand indicates a big storm with an overwash event,” King explains. “I think we’ll get a good radiometric date and match it up with the hurricanes. There were big hurricanes in 1938 and 1954.” As the work draws to a close, Narragansett preservationist Harris pauses for a moment to think about his tribe’s future. “By being part of the scientific process, the Narragansett tribal project partners will receive training,” he says, “and be on the cutting edge of marine archaeological research in 10 to 15 years.” • UNIVERSITY OF RHODE ISLAND 19
Paths Less Taken
Meet seven alumni who have forged unusual career paths by following their fire and, in some cases, leaving their day jobs in the dust. With the new year approaching, we hope you find inspiration in these tales of entrepreneurial courage, purpose-driven professions and midcareer switch-ups. BY NICOLE MARANHAS, ELIZABETH RAU, ELLEN LIBERMAN AND PIPPA JACK
In the Swim
George “Hopper” McDonough hosts six trips a year to the British Virgin Islands, Hawaii, and the Turkish Coast.
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On vacations, George “Hopper” McDonough ’93 could never completely take it easy. “I would find it hard to relax unless I was doing something active,” he says. As a former member of the URI swim team, he was in the British Virgin Islands in 2007 to assist a writer for Outside Magazine in swimming the full length of the island chain over the course of the week. They alternated between staying at resorts and sleeping on beaches—one night, he took shelter from the rain under a fish crate with a hole in it. “I fell asleep with my finger in the hole to keep the water from dripping on my head,” he says. “I realized that there had to be a better way to do this.” Eight years later, the Bath, Maine-based SwimVacation
hosts six trips a year to the British Virgin Islands, Hawaii, and the Turkish Coast. The leaking fish crate got an upgrade: The British Virgin Islands and Turkish Coast trips are based on sailing yachts. Travelers to Kona, Hawaii, meanwhile, stay in a luxe oceanfront home with a private chef and masseuse. McDonough organizes two guided ocean swims per day, varied among the coral reefs and beaches, and hosts optional swim clinics for those who want to improve their technique. “Swimmers tend to be like other swimmers,” says McDonough. “Everyone is laidback; it’s not a super intense sport, so we get groups of people who have a lot in common.” Beyond the low-
impact health benefits of swimming, the ocean is famously therapeutic— McDonough notes that the trips are often life changing, remembering the day one group swam with pods of dolphins, or the night tripgoers watched a meteor shower from the bow of the boat. “I’ve seen people transform out in the water,” he says. “The ocean is very big, and it tends to be a cathartic place. It draws something out in people.” He knows this from experience: During that fateful night under the fish crate on his island-chain swim, he was a landscape architect who had been contemplating a career change. As he recalls, “I wrote my business plan on the flight home.” •
Caption here about what this building is and why they droned it.
An aerial shot of the Temple to Music in Roger Williams Park, Providence, R.I.
Sky’s the Limit
In a way, it began with picking up trash on a movie set. Chris Walsh ’05 had been taking a break from his work in communications when he was offered a job helping out on a film crew. Bored and curious, he treated it as an opportunity: “You always try to do your job well, even if it’s just picking up trash,” he says. The interim gig led to more work on film sets; soon he was on the construction crew for Martin Scorsese’s Shutter Island and working his way into special effects, where he met Judson Bell, a 20-year film industry veteran. “We handled smoke, rain, snow,
wind, high explosives, robotics, hydraulics— anything that wasn’t computer-generated,” Walsh says. “We started getting asked for interesting ways to mount cameras for unique shots; shortly after that, we discovered software for flying drones.” As Bell and Walsh continued working together (they were special effects coordinator and technician respectively on the blockbuster Ted), they discussed ideas for potential projects, eventually teaming up with Walsh’s longtime friend Thomas Webb to form Elevated Perspective Media in Rhode Island. Using state-of-the-art drones (Bell has built his own customized systems as well), the trio shoots video and photography for the film and television industry—for
PHOTOS: HEATHER PERRY FOR SWIMVACATION; TOM WEBB FOR ELEVATED PERSPECTIVE MEDIA
starters. “We try to provide any type of solution,” says Walsh. “You can do overhead captures for 3D mapping, or things like inspections for commercial construction or bridges, where you don’t want to put people at risk.” Some state police departments have expressed interest in working with drones for search-and-rescue operations in the future. “It comes down to the same basic equipment and understanding how to use it,” Walsh says. With their combined expertise—Webb has a background in art and photography, in addition to handling the business and legal aspects of their work—Elevated Perspective Media has quickly distinguished itself in the field, becoming one of the first and only commercial drone operators to receive FAA exemption. Recently, they have filmed work
Chris Walsh shoots video and photography for the film and television industry.
for NBC and the Travel Channel, as well as reteaming for Ted 2, filmed in Massachusetts. “We get some pretty interesting and fun calls,” says Walsh. “Drones really do have a use almost anywhere. There’s such an opportunity if you have a good crew and it’s done in a safe way.”• UNIVERSITY OF RHODE ISLAND
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Video Vocation Since childhood, the arts and sciences have been twin leitmotifs in the life of Ayla Fox ’11. And just as she graduated URI with a double major in film media and wildlife conservation biology, she twisted the two strands together. Today, Fox’s Shed Light Productions counts Sailors for the Sea, The Nature Conservancy, NOAA, Sea Grant, Coastal Institute, Coastal Resources Center and Metcalf Institute for Marine Environmental Reporting among its clients—all seeking to use film to communicate their messages about climate change, coastal resiliency and other environmental topics. “I enjoy working with organizations that have a specific message they want to get across, with research and a company narrative,” she says. “I ask myself: is it really working? Is it getting to the audience? What does this do to help the call to action?” Fox, 27, honed her filmmaking skills on SEARCHDOG, a documentary released this year featuring Rhode Island State Police Sergeant Matthew Zarella’s work rehabilitating abandoned dogs to become search and rescue police canines. In 2010, Mary Healy Jamiel, associate professor of
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film at URI’s Harrington School of Communication and Media, invited Fox to do some camera work on the production. Fox’s contributions to the project— searching archival footage, logging film, strategizing and helping with Jamiel’s Kickstarter campaign—diversified and grew until she earned an associate producer credit. When Fox graduated, Jamiel referred her to Judith Swift, director of the Coastal Institute, to produce a film on climate change for its Waves of Change website. For a while, Fox worked as a freelance science communicator, but to continue as a vendor to the University, she would have to form a company. She named it Shed Light to brand her specialty—
Waders are an essential piece of business equipment for Ayla Fox, here shown shooting footage for an environmentally themed movie at Napatree Point Conservation Area in Westerly, R.I.
making science understandable and meaningful to a more general audience. “I’m trying to shed light on why it matters to the target audience,” she says. “A lot of the time, the science and data would be confusing to a person in a different industry. If we craft stories around these data, we have a better chance of getting across the importance of it, especially if you are trying to get a behavior change. People connect with people. They don’t connect with data points.” The daughter of Rhode Island entrepreneurs—her father owns Fox Construction, her mother is co-owner of the popular Charlestown ice cream shop, Holy Cow—Fox knew she
would need to know a lot more than visual storytelling. “I had to learn as I went— about taxes, about banking, about QuickBooks, managing clients, managing projects,” she recalls. “It was all new to me.” Fox works out of her Wyoming, R.I. home, bringing in sub-contractors as needed to help with tasks like sound mixing or writing. For about three years, she worked for her family’s businesses while juggling assignments for Shed Light. Her company is now a full-time enterprise and she credits URI with teaching her the fundamentals of her craft and with getting her business going. “I’ve probably developed a deeper, richer relationship with URI since I graduated,” she reflects. “It’s a different relationship: much more hands-on, with real stakes, real people and real deliverables. URI has taught me a tremendous amount, and it continues.” •
PHOTOS COURTESY: AYLA FOX; JANICE SASSI; JUDITH SWIFT; GREGORY BRUNSON JR.
Gregory Brunson Jr. ’08 loved snowstorms as a kid. The sledding was great, but it was really the dollar signs that kicked off his winter blanket. He’d race out the door of his Middletown, R.I. house to shovel. He liked putting money in his pocket and being his own boss or, as he puts it, “a budding businessman.’’ Fast forward to 2015: As founder and co-owner of Newport Bachelorette, Brunson organizes prewedding fests for the bride-to-be and her friends. He has to pinch himself: “I can’t believe I’m a young,
successful entrepreneur. I’m very thankful. I’ve been through so much.’’ A decade or so ago, the 29-year-old was a homeless high school senior on the verge of dropping out. A friend provided shelter and advice, directing him to the Talent Development Program at URI, where tutoring, mentoring and kind words guided him to a bachelor’s degree in communication studies. After a stint as an intern at Atlantic Records in New York, he moved back home, this time to Newport, R.I., working four jobs—cook, car washer, title
specialist and bouncer—to pay the rent. The bouncer job would prove to be the most lucrative. At the clubs, bachelorettes partying before the big day would grill him about where to go next. “A light bulb went off,’’ he says. “I realized there’s a market there. If I organized everything, that would free them up to have fun.’’ He teamed up with a friend, Jabreche Taylor, and a few months later they closed their first deal. His company takes on those stressful details, from booking hotels to ensuring that the
Starting with Parties
ladies don’t have to wait in line at Newport’s hot spots. Bachelorettes can dine in a fine restaurant or partake in more adventurous packages: a dance class that requires heels; a facial on sea-whipped Ocean Drive; a trip to Newport Vineyards for a touch of the grape. Everyone gets a goodie bag with inappropriate items and a last-hurrah T-shirt: “Becky’s last sail before the veil!’’ Two years ago, Brunson’s father, a retired Navy officer working as a merchant marine, died of a stroke at 51 on a ship in the middle of the Indian Ocean. Brunson flew to Dubai to bring him home. When he was a kid, his father would say, first softly then as loudly as a drill sergeant: “Are you a follower or a leader?’’ The little boy knew, even back then, what he was. “I can’t wait,’’ says Brunson, “for my future.’’ •
Gregory Brunson is founder and co-owner of Newport Bachelorette, which taps into a well-established market for destination parties.
[PHOTO CREDIT FOR BRUNSON]
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Volcanic Barista Jimmy Lappin ’84 spent decades as a computer engineer designing microchips. Now he’s a bean counter, and loving it. As founder of Vanuatu Coffee Roasters in Providence, R.I., he’s the grower and sole importer of a rare coffee from a tiny jungle island tucked away in the South Pacific. From his café on Federal Hill in Providence, he tantalizes customers with cups of joe that blend chocolate, ginger and nuts. “Plus, it has a good boost in the caffeine,’’ says Lappin. “It’s definitely catching on.’’ That’s an understatement. PAIR, an online food and wine magazine, singled out Vanuatu as one of the hottest cafés in Providence, and Town and Country recently gave the shop a five-star review: “This coffee shop offers up a brew that can’t be found anywhere else in the U.S.’’ The locals are indulging too, with lots of door rattling on Monday, the only day the café is closed. One of Lappin’s specialties is the best-selling Rhody, an iced coffee whose ingredients shall remain a secret. Math was his first love. After graduating from Providence Country Day, Lappin studied math and computer engineering at URI, landing in Silicon Valley to work for Steve Jobs and high-tech companies. The money was excellent, but the hours were long. “I burned out,’’ says Lappin. One day, he flipped on the TV to the reality show “Survivor,’’ where the host was standing at the edge of a volcano on Tanna, one of 82
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islands in the Republic of Vanuatu, a string of islands between Australia and Fiji. “Wow,’’ thought Lappin, a world traveler, mostly to exotic countries. “I’m going there.’’ Off he went. After a hard night partying with islanders and the psychotropic kava root, Lappin awoke with a vicious hangover. His lifesaver: coffee with no bitterness, thanks to Mount Yasur, an active volcano on Tanna that spews soilnourishing ash. Lappin was so impressed he bought the company—well, sort of. He moved back to his hometown of Rumford, R.I. from San Francisco and launched a social venture with the INIK Co-op and Tanna coffee farmers that benefits everyone: the farmers make enough money to support their families, young people stay on the island to work instead of leaving for jobs in Australia, and Lappin gets to introduce his one-of-a-kind coffee to America. “We have a great product, we have a great backstory, we have great clients—and we’re helping people,’’ says Lappin, 52, who runs the business with his sister, Martha Soderlund. “Life presents us with a lot of opportunities. You just have to know when to grab one.’’ Bags of coffee are available at the shop, or you can order online. And of course, adventurous souls can travel 8,585 miles to Tanna to find out for themselves what all the fuss is about. A word of advice from Lappin: Don’t be afraid to wear a grass skirt. •
Brooke Thomas ‘87 knows that auditions can be nerve-racking. After earning her B.F.A. in theater, she was working in New York City as an actress and waitress, brainstorming how she could parlay her experience into a steadier gig. “I loved acting, but I was frustrated by the unpredictability,” she says. “I wanted something that wasn’t up in the air all the time.” She took an internship at a casting agency, working her way up to the role of casting director at several well-known companies. But after nearly 18 years in the industry, she became increasingly eager to run the show. “I felt like I was part of a machine,” she says, recalling
Casting Call
the high-pressure focus on generating new business. “I was starting to lose what I loved about casting, which was working with actors and taking risks on fun and interesting projects.” In 2012, she opened the Brooke Thomas Casting agency in New York, where she books actors for commercial work with companies such as Huggies,
Pizza Hut, and Red Lobster, in addition to roles in film and television. Her combined experience as a casting director and performer, along with having worked in regional theater—she is a former member of the ImprovBoston comedy troupe— gives her an insightful edge into finding and coaching new talent. “Auditioning is a tense situation—actors want jobs, and they’re hard to get,” she says. “I enjoy putting them at ease and helping them give their best performance.” For the past 14 years, she has also run a wellknown series of monthly “Brooke and Mary” auditioning workshops with longtime associate (and fellow URI alumna) Mary Egan Callahan ‘95, where she regularly helps students book new work—such as the role of the baby voiceover in an E-Trade spot that was voted among the top Super Bowl ads of 2012. Other former students have included actor and comedian Ed Helms (best known for The Daily Show and The Office) and Parks and Recreation actress Aubrey Plaza. “The workshops are a great way to give back and find new talent,” she says. Alongside her casting agency, she founded castingloop.com to keep actors updated on casting notices, classes, and industry news. Perhaps it’s her training in improvisation that allows her to balance multiple roles (she is also a mother, living with her high school sweetheart), but she lives by the advice she gives her actors. “It’s scary for anybody to take that leap and believe in yourself,” she says. “You think, ‘What if I fail?’ But everything is always changing. You can always pick yourself up.” Maybe there is one thing that doesn’t change. “When I get to call someone and say you booked the job, that’s the best part of what I do,” she says. “It’s a great moment.” •
Eating to Compete - #NHLBruins team up with Sports Nutritionist Julie Nicoletti for 2015-16: bbru.in/1NvkSbx
Nutrition Play On a long car ride from the Grand Canyon to Los Angeles during a family vacation, Julie and Andy Nicoletti ’93 were talking about how they wanted to spend their eventual retirement. A pharmacist at the time, Julie knew her answer. “I thought a flower shop or the front desk at a gym,” she says. “I wanted to be somewhere where people are glad to see you.” The opportunity arose earlier than expected while Julie was working with her trainer, who mentioned he was thinking of hiring a nutritionist to consult with his clients. The idea struck a chord with the couple, who proposed that Julie could earn her credentials while working as a pharmacist. “He loved the idea,” says Andy. “She went back to school and became certified, and we launched Kinetic Fuel in 2008.” The trainer was Brian McDonough, a Massachusetts strength and conditioning coach, well-known for his work with some of the most elite athletes in the NFL, NHL, and college sports. Through wordof-mouth referrals from McDonough and his clients, Kinetic Fuel took off. Julie now works as the nutritionist for the Boston Bruins—as well as the Boston Cannons lacrosse team,
PHOTOS COURTESY: JIMMY LAPPIN; BROOKE THOMAS; JULIE NICOLETTI
student athletes such as URI football captain Tyler Catalina, and numerous non-pro triathletes and corporate clients—providing customized nutrition plans and guidance. While some players are looking to reduce injury or fuel recovery, others want to maximize their performance or change their body composition. “We talk about their goals, lifestyle, and schedule, and write a plan,” says Julie. Her comprehensive programs take into account every detail, from the long bus rides of a pro lacrosse team to the culture shock of a Czech hockey player unfamiliar with American foods. “I’ll ask them to text me pictures in real time of what they’re eating, so I can coach them around their choices,” says Julie, who also draws from her pharmacy background to accommodate for special health issues or medications. Non-athletes respond equally well to her goaloriented approach, with skyhigh participation rates in her corporate wellness programs. “Julie is great at creating fun challenges and initiatives to get people working together,” says Andy. “She is very strong at understanding what the client is looking for from a nutritional perspective.”
Julie and Andy Nicoletti met while undergrads at URI.
The couple, who met in college and recently celebrated their 20th anniversary by competing in an IronMan, attribute their success to teamwork and commitment. While Andy praises his wife’s expertise and positivity, Julie credits her husband (“he’s the idea person”) for his business acumen. “I truly believe any business can be successful if you’re passionate and willing to work for it,” says Andy. The same perseverance goes for nutrition. “Much of the challenge is confusion or lack of time,” says Julie. “They may not always have time to pack a healthy lunch or know how to reduce stress. It’s rewarding to come up with creative solutions to common issues.” •
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Thought Leadership
It’s personal. A pioneering Alzheimer’s researcher takes the helm of URI’s new George & Anne Ryan Institute for Neuroscience, ready to marshal the state’s burgeoning scientific forces into an organized army. Her mission: to battle the poorly understood causes of neurological decay that have touched so many lives—including hers. BY TODD MCLEISH AND PIPPA JACK
The whole time that beta-amyloid research—into the protein that forms plaques in the brains of Alzheimer’s sufferers—has been grabbing all the headlines and research dollars, Paula Grammas has been quietly working on a different angle. Actually, to say that Grammas does anything quietly isn’t quite right. She’s a petite New Yorker with a pronounced Far Rockaway accent who does not, to be clear, talk loudly—but who talks so confidently, concisely, candidly, and incredibly quickly, that it takes concentration to keep up. She commands attention. So no one would ever mistake her for a wallflower—or for her seamstress mother, who immigrated to the U.S. in the 1950s with Grammas’ father, both without a high school diploma, a penny or a word of English. “I wish I had one ounce of the courage my parents had,” Grammas reflects.
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But then, it takes courage to keep working on an idea—that blood vessels play a role in neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s—when the rest of the research community is taking a different tack. It was something Grammas ran up against again and again in her early career. “I’d go to conferences where everyone was either presenting on amyloid or on tau, another abnormal protein. When I would get up to talk about vascular disorders, everyone would be like, ‘Sit down, little girl.’” But that wasn’t Grammas’ style. An only child, she lost her father, who ran a diner in Long Island, to heart disease when he was only 55. Then, as Grammas was pursuing her Ph.D. in Detroit, it was suddenly clear that her mother, just back from a trip home to Greece to visit with her sister, would need to move in. Grammas had picked her up at the airport and been dismayed to discover she couldn’t walk. “When the neurologist put all the pieces together and realized she had ALS, I didn’t tell her right away,” Grammas remembers. “What was there to say? It’s just grim with grim. She became a prisoner in her own body.” Grammas trained as an experimental pathologist, a field that allowed her to study in many disciplines despite the silos that ruled the academic world of the 1970s and 80s, when biochemists stuck to biochemistry, and cell biologists to physiology. Pathology integrated it all, an insight that is practically gospel in today’s research environment. But at the time, it gave Grammas an unusual edge, and she made full professor at 40. Since then, at universities in Michigan, Oklahoma and Texas, she has been an investigator for $24 million in research grants from the National Institutes of Health, published 141 peerreviewed papers, won presti-
PHOTO: NORA LEWIS
gious awards for her Alzheimer’s research as well as undergraduate teaching, and led neuroscience and aging centers. But back when she took her first faculty position, her mother was just coming to live with her (she would hang on for only two more years, refusing a breathing machine to extend her life). Grammas was low woman on the totem pole at Wayne State, having to scale back on research to balance teaching responsibilities. But then, as now, she made adversity work for her. “They gave me the lectures nobody wanted: aging and nutrition,”
the symptoms only—they slow the synaptic communication deficits that occur early in the disease, but do nothing to halt the underlying decay of neurons. As Grammas points out, Alzheimer’s, like many diseases, seems increasingly likely to be caused by a confluence of factors, which makes it play out in different ways in different people. “It’s complicated,” she says, “which is why I would never presume to say Alzheimer’s, or anything else, is because of one thing. That’s also why it’s so important that everyone come together—and never dismiss a single lead.”
Brain Health • With more than 600 types of neurological disorders, the World Health Organization estimates that one in three Americans will suffer from a neurological disorder. • Alzheimer’s disease alone costs the United States as much as $200 billion per year. • Grammas’ tip: “What’s good for the heart is good for the brain.” • In particular, high cholesterol in mid-life correlates with dementia in late life, so staying heart-healthy in middle age is the best bet researchers currently have for avoiding later neurodegeneration. But Grammas warns, “There are no guarantees.” she remembers. “I didn’t know anything about them, and I had to come up to speed. It was fate.” Indeed, those two areas ended up being a kind of prescription for her work since, a wide-ranging exploration into how blood vessels, inflammation, and diet play a role in Alzheimer’s, diabetes, AIDS and atherosclerosis. There’s been no new treatment approved for Alzheimer’s since 2002 despite the millions the NIH has granted to amyloid and tau research. And all the treatments now available treat
But research isn’t the only, or even the most important, factor in Grammas coming to URI. It’s an exciting time for brain research, here as everywhere, with Obama’s brain mapping project announced in 2013 and brain imaging technology growing by leaps and bounds. The fact that URI brought its neuroscience programs together under one multidisciplinary umbrella in 2011 is a plus; so is its push to hire more faculty. But Grammas, with her personal sense of urgency and hard-won skepti-
cism of accepted wisdom, says what really attracted her was the collaborative atmosphere at URI and across the state. “Between Lifespan, Care New England, Brown University and the VA—to have so many entities play nice is unheard of,” she says. “My take on this is, I don’t want us to reinvent the wheel or compete in areas where other institutions in the state already have expertise. We can do this together.” She is grateful for the leadership of donors like former CVS Health chair Thomas M. Ryan ’75 and his wife Cathy, who gave URI $15 million to establish The George & Anne Ryan Institute for Neuroscience, which will focus its research, teaching and outreach on neurodegenerative disorders. It’s personal for the Ryans, too—the institute memorializes Tom’s father, who died in 2004 from a stroke and resulting Alzheimer’s, and his late mother, whose health declined while caring for her husband. Ryan says he’s looking forward to seeing Grammas in action. “Her demonstrated ability to collaborate across multiple organizations and bring in a variety of perspectives is critical,” he reflects. “I believe we will position Rhode Island as a primary destination for research, therapies and treatments.” Grammas acknowledges that expectations are high, but seems anything but daunted— except, perhaps, at the prospect of once more enduring Northeast winters after years in Texas. But when it comes to the Institute, she’s ready. “Neuroscience is probably the area of biology that we know least about, so there’s the most potential for groundbreaking discoveries,” Grammas says. “Where we were with the cardiovascular system in the 1960s, is where we’re at with the nervous system now. And think about how far we’ve come.” •
UNIVERSITY OF RHODE ISLAND 27
10 distinguished th
Tenth Annual
achievement awards gala
Saturday, October 17, marked the Tenth Annual Distinguished Achievement Awards and Gala in Newport, when the University honored the alumni, corporations, and friends of URI who have brought distinction to themselves and the University through their professional achievements, outstanding leadership, and community service. VIDEO | URI.EDU/QUADANGLES
10
QUADANGLES SUMMER 2015
LEWIS PHOTO: NORA
. ’82, fa Omar, Ph.D .A. ’90, Mosta .M M avadjian ’88 r, ie vz irr Ze G iral Robert P. entative John m es Ad pr ar Re Re th al 8, on ’7 ’78, CVS He David Berger cille Deysher Left to right: , Cynthia Mar ey ol Do . M d vi President Da
2015 DISTINGUISHED ACHIEVEMENT AWARDS RECIPIENTS PRESIDENT’S AWARDS
RISING STAR AWARD
David Bergeron ’78, Senior Fellow, Center for American Progress
Presented by the Graduate School
Cynthia Marcille Deysher ’78, Principal, Deysher Advisory Services Rear Admiral Robert P. Girrier, M.M.A. ’90, Director, Unmanned Warfare Systems, United States Navy Mostafa Omar, Ph.D. ’82, President, PhytoCeuticals, Inc.
Robinson W. Fulweiler, M.S. ’03, Ph.D. ’07, Associate Professor, Departments of Earth and Environment, and Biology, Boston University
ATHLETIC DIRECTOR’S AWARD Anthony J. Rose Jr., Hon. ’91, Chairman, Technical Industries, Inc.
CVS Health (Corporate Award)
DEANS’ AWARDS Alan Shawn Feinstein College of Continuing Education Elaine A. Coderre ’89, Former Representative, District 60, Rhode Island House of Representatives College of Arts and Sciences Kathy O’Donnell-White ’90, Senior Vice President and Head of Public Affairs, Citizens Financial Group, Inc. Robert Vincent ’75, Senior Vice President of Human Resources and Public Affairs, International Game Technology, PLC College of Business Administration William Eigen ’90, Managing Director, Founder and Chief Investment Officer, Absolute Return Fixed Income, J.P. Morgan Asset Management Deborah Imondi ’83, M.B.A. ’86, Executive Director, Rhode Island 4-H Club Foundation, Inc. College of Engineering Brent Cunningham ’96, Managing Director, Jefferies LLC Bill Jasper ’75, M.S. ’77, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Unifi, Inc. College of the Environment and Life Sciences Aram Calhoun, M.S. ’89, Professor of Wetland Ecology, University of Maine
John Grant III, M.S. ’86, Senior Geologist, Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum College of Human Science and Services Susan Corning ’75, Veterinary Advisor, World Organisation for Animal Health Steven Watterson ’79, Assistant Head Coach, Strength and Conditioning, Tennessee Titans College of Nursing Mary (Beth) Mancini, M.S. ’82, Professor and Senior Associate Dean for Education Innovation, University of Texas at Arlington College of Nursing and Health Innovation Anne Manton, Ph.D. ’95, Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner, Cape Cod Hospital; and Editor-in-Chief, Journal of Emergency Nursing College of Pharmacy Matt Leonard ’88, Executive Vice President, Pharmaceutical Contracting, Purchasing & Network Administration, CVS Health Richard V. Piacentini ’77, Executive Director, Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens Graduate School of Oceanography Barclay P. Collins, M.S. ’74, Ph.D. ’78, General Manager, Anadarko Petroleum Corporation
UNIVERSITY OF RHODE ISLAND
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The Search for RHODY is On! Where on the Quad is Rhody the Ram?! Go to alumni.uri.edu/membership to find out where we’ve hidden your favorite mascot. While you’re there, you’ll also find plenty of great reasons to join the Alumni Association. Don’t hide your Rhody Pride. Join the Alumni Association today! 30
Holiday Season Bonus: Your Alumni Association membership card gets you a big 20% discount at the URI Bookstore, the Rams Zone Gift Shop, and at ramszone.uri.edu. Buy great URI gear for less! Can’t think of the perfect gift for your favorite Rhody friend? Try a gift membership to the Alumni Association.
Find out more I alumni.uri.edu/membership QUADANGLES WINTER 2015
ILLUSTRATION: JORDAN TOWLE ’18
CLASSACTS ’51
’67
Alec Voight of Milford, Conn., writes: “I had my 92nd birthday this July and am very grateful for continued good health. I have to watch my steps but am still active with my love of boating and gardening. I was part of the first wave of veterans to attend University. The school, student body and the frats have changed since we became part of fraternity life (Sigma Chi). I met my life’s partner, Pat Joslin ‘54, and had many wonderful friendships from Sigma Chi that followed me down life’s path to this day. All these events have captured a lifetime of memories that I carry with me to this day. I am very proud to be part of the legacy of URI.”
Bob Perlow of Narragansett, R.I., presented “Tales from Hollywood” at the Courthouse Center for the Arts in South Kingstown. Perlow will discuss his time as a crowd warm-up guy on hit shows such as Married with Children, Taxi, and Two and a Half Men. He also spoke about his 15-year stint as the opening warm-up comic for The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.
’55 Stuart C. Fitelson of Seattle, Wash., who is known as Seattle Stu and is a self-described “freak of nature” due to his long-term athletic performances, writes: “Check seattlestu.com. On November 17, 2015, I will be playing four sports in younger leagues.” His website says that he has been playing league baseball, hockey, and basketball on senior championship teams in Seattle for the past 17 years. He is also an active tennis player and track competitor and wins medals in the NW Senior Games.
’64 Colonel Richard Ferro and his wife Cecelia (Amman) Ferro ’66 of Newport, R.I., write: “Now living in Newport, where we plan to stay after years of Air Force and beyond moves here and there. Enjoying many URI events, in particular football and basketball. Recently met several TKE fraternity members for dinner in Narragansett. It’s great to be close enough to recapture so many fond memories.” Emma Packer Conroy and John Conroy of Memphis, Tenn., recently celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary with a party for around 100 friends and family. John is retired, the couple reports, and they are living in Memphis and enjoying life with their grandchildren.
STAYED CONNECTED URI Alumni Association @URIAlumniAssoc @URIAlum | #URIAlum flickr.com/urialumni
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KEEP US UP TO DATE ON YOUR NEWS! Submit your class note at alumni.uri.edu/note
’68 President David M. Dooley welcomed ROTC graduates General Leon LaPorte, COL John Petrella, COL Milt McKenna, and COL Bill Babcock at the military appreciation football game on Saturday, September 19, 2015.
ROTC 1968 graduates General Leon Laporte, Col John Petrella, Col Milt Mckenna and Col Bill Babcock with President David M. Dooley (center) Hannah Gwendolyn Vogel with big sister Vada
’70 Robert Warren Blazer writes: “I wrote a book about discoveries I made about human beings and their relationship to life. It was published in 2014. It is called Our World Market. It is a breakthrough in our understanding of how we are naturally designed to contribute to each other. My company, which I founded 38 years ago, is called Dekalb Farmers Market. It is based in the Atlanta area. It is the highest volume, highest quality, highest rated, multicultural fresh food market in this country. The book has a website, www.ourworldmarket. com. After graduating Mechanical Engineering at URI, I was accepted at the Wharton School for an MBA degree. This is the result of “ thinking big” and not giving up on the dream for life to work for us the way our hearts would have it.
’72 Douglas Schram of Newark, Ohio, writes that after obtaining his doctorate at Kansas City College of Osteopathic Medicine in 1976, he spent 37 years devoted to both emergency medicine and family practice. “I have retired from active practice,” he writes, “and devote many hours to helping those with special needs. Rebecca and I travel frequently to visit the boys; one a family physician, the other a professional athlete. I remain attached to the many fine memories I have as an undergraduate at this fine university!”
’74 Edward Balkovic, Ph.D., of Milford, Mass., has been elected to the Science Advisory Board (SAB) of the Parenteral Drug Association. The SAB is composed of a diverse group of experts drawn from industry, regulatory agencies and academia who
Emma and John Conroy ’64 Steve Alves ’02
Joseph O’Neil ’75
provide guidance and set strategic direction for the PDA on technical topics associated with pharmaceutical manufacturing and quality. Ed is a microbiologist at Genzyme, a Sanofi company, and also an adjunct associate professor in URI’s Department of Cell and Molecular Biology. He teaches in the Graduate Program for Clinical Lab Sciences in the areas of clinical microbiology and virology, emerging infectious diseases, bioterrorism, and vaccine development.
’76
’75
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Joseph O’Neil of Wayne, Pa., was just elected president of the International Association of Defense Counsel (IADC). The IADC is the preeminent invitation-only global legal organization for attorneys who represent corporate and insurance interests. Founded in 1920, the IADC’s members hail from five continents, 40 countries and all 50 U.S. states. The core purposes of the IADC are to enhance the development of skills, promote professionalism and facilitate camaraderie among its members, their clients, as well as the broader civil justice community. Joseph E. O’Neil is a shareholder in the Litigation Practice Group in the
Philadelphia office of Lavin O’Neil Cedrone & DiSipio. He has more than 30 years of courtroom experience as a trial lawyer defending major corporations in complex litigation. Howard Glassman, M.C.P., of Tallahassee, Fla., joined Gannett Fleming as director of planning services. Glassman brings tremendous experience gained during a dynamic 38-year career in Florida planning. Christina Allen of Lexington Park, Minn., writes: “I have illustrated children’s books and written one. The first book won the national Indie Award for Excellence in children’s books. The second one that I illustrated just won the gold national Mom’s Choice Book Award! (It is very unusual to win two national awards for my first two books.) I have (very) recently started my own micro-publishing house, Corn Crib Publishing (to gain more control of the finished look). I have successfully published the hardcover version of my first book, A Micro-Chip On My Shoulder, and the e-book of it. I am currently working on illustrating and UNIVERSITY OF RHODE ISLAND
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Eli Moger ’10’s wedding party
’89 Gregory Gould, M.B.A ’99, of Cranston, R.I., recently joined Webster Bank’s Specialty Banking Division as vice president, commercial loan officer for SBA Lending. Gould previously worked for the U.S. Small Business Administration. Sara Hiebner of North Kingstown, R.I., is the vice president of commercial lending for West Warwick based Centreville Bank and has been appointed to the Fort Adams Trust in Newport, R.I., board of directors. Lois A. Wims, Ph.D., of Worcester, Mass., joined Worcester State University this summer as its new provost and vice president for academic affairs.
Damian Puerini ’08
Howard Glassman ’76
Timothy St. Pierre ’13 and Alexandra Gerand ’13
Tracy Ballott ’95
publishing my third book, A Farmer’s Alphabet, as a softcover, hardcover, and e-book. On another topic, a filmmaker recently made a full-length documentary film about our organic sustainable farm called The Dinner. I know sustainable farming is a big interest for this current generation. My husband says we are so out of fashion, we are back in fashion!”
is the vice president of clinical education at Enclara Pharmacia and COO of Turn-Key Health. Through her 30 years of health care experience, she has led and contributed to projects to improve end-of-life care through state-supported initiatives and media events.
Martha W. Murphy of Narragansett, R.I., has co-authored The Low-Glycal Diet with Harvard and MIT graduate Jeffrey Dunham, M.D., which will be published by Page Street Books/ Macmillan in January 2016. The LowGlycal Diet app has been downloaded more than 100,000 times.
Michele B. Kaufman, Pharm. D., CGP, is the recipient of the 2015 New York-Presbyterian Hospital Excellence in Pharmacy, Pharmacy Employee Award for Lower Manhattan Hospital. This award recognizes a pharmacist who consistently demonstrates excellence in pharmacy practice and professionalism at work and in the community. It is given to someone who is recognized by their colleagues as someone who fosters team spirit and collaborative working relationships with other disciplines, shares knowledge, and makes a positive difference for patients. She was awarded a plaque by the apothecaryin-chief of the New York-Presbyterian Health System, Karol Wollenberg, during a ceremony and luncheon at Lower Manhattan Hospital on June 31, 2015.
’81 Jim Farrell of Palm Coast, Fla., writes: “I just published my second novel, The Extraordinary Banana Tree, about the fall of Saigon. The novel is not a war story. It is a love story in the time of war. It is the tale of the developing romance between Cheryl Flynn, assistant chief of intelligence for DAO in Vietnam, and Billy Dobson, manager of flight operations for Air America. The story opens with Cheryl boarding the first flight of Gerry Ford’s Operation Babylift out of Saigon on April 4, 1975. The plane crashed 13 miles south of Saigon. Does Cheryl survive? Does anyone survive?”
’82 Terri Maxwell of New Hope, Pa., is scheduled to present at several leading industry events this fall in Louisiana, Ohio, and California. She
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’87 John Flaherty of North Smithfield, R.I., has been promoted to deputy director at Grow Smart R.I. In addition to new duties helping to manage the organization, he will continue to oversee communications, media relations and manage a portfolio of policy research and advocacy related to transportation and urban revitalization.
’95 Tracy Levine Ballot of Roswell, Ga., has been named director of advancement and external affairs for St. Martin’s Episcopal School in Brookhaven. In her new role, Ballot will be responsible for planning and directing all development, marketing, communications and external affairs efforts in pursuit of the school’s strategic priorities.
’98 Misty Martin was recently named to the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin’s “40 Illinois Attorneys Under 40 to Watch” list, one of 40 selected from more than 1,200 nominations. Martin was selected because of her dedicated involvement with her clients in catastrophic personal injury or bet-the-company products liability cases over more than 10 years in practice. Notably, she was a member of the team that obtained a landmark civil rights settlement of $22.5 million from the City of Chicago, the largest amount paid to a single plaintiff in the city’s history.
’01 Tim Desmond is publishing his first book with W. W. Norton, SelfCompassion in Psychotherapy: Mindfulness-Based Practices for Healing and Transformation. Its Amazon write-up begins: “This lucidly written guide intergrates traditional Buddhist teachings and mindfulness with cutting-edge science from several distinct fields—including neurobiology, cognitive neuroscience, psychotherapy outcome research, and positive psychology to explain how clinicians can help clients develop
a more loving, kind, and forgiving attitude through self-compassion.” Desmond is currently living in New Hampshire at a mindfulness retreat center that he co-founded called Morning Sun Mindfulness Center. He works as a therapist and travels around the U.S. lecturing about mindfulness and self-compassion.
’02 Steve Alves, Ph.D., of Brockton, Mass., is a Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist (CRNA) and has been named the 2015 Program Director of the Year by the American Association of Nurse Anesthetists (AANA). Alves is the program administrator for Northeastern University in Boston, Mass. Michael L. Garcia of Hope Valley, R.I., has been promoted to the position of principal for the accounting firm of Sansiveri, Kimball & Co, L.L.P. Mike has 12 years of audit and accounting experience. He is responsible for the review and implementation of new technology in the audit and accounting area. Mike provides auditing, accounting, and consulting services to the firm’s clients in diverse industries, including manufacturing, distribution, and professional services.
’05 Tim Licitra became the new executive vice president of the Illuminating Engineering Society of North America in October. The Shrewsbury, N.J., resident, who graduated from URI in marketing and went on to get an M.B.A from Rutgers, is now responsible for the overall management of the oldest and largest educational and scientific society in North America devoted to lighting. He comes to the society from Market Technicians Association, Inc., where he served in a variety of capacities for a decade, most recently as executive director and CEO.
’06 Jeffrey Vermillion of Lincoln, R.I., has been promoted to officer of the Global Markets Securities Finance Settlement Operations at State Street Bank in Boston. His duties include the oversight of the offshore cost center, daily reconciliation and implementation of controls on daily processes. Danielle (Towne) Oaks and husband Nathaniel Oaks are in the middle of their year-long trip around the world. Having traveled through South
Jackson Kurowski
Charlotte Cocuzzi
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Jackson David Read
CLOSEUP
John Grant ’86 The Curiosity Chronicles No science is more earthy than geology, but its pursuit has taken John Grant III to Mars. Not in person, of course. But as one of the scientists involved in the day-to-day operations of NASA’s Mars rovers, he’s as close as anyone can currently get. The whole thing started when Grant was doing graduate studies under the late, great URI geology professor Jon Boothroyd, who was famous for his work in coastal and environmental geology but “happened to be doing a small project on Mars” that year. It caught Grant’s attention, and since then, Grant has been focused on space. That doesn’t mean Grant stopped studying the earth—deserts and sand dunes, river deposits and meteor craters all give insight into how meteor impacts and seasonal seeps of water have affected Mars’ surface. But his research means he’s also focused on the rovers as they explore and drill samples—or, in this photo, as Curiosity poses for a selfie at the “Buckskin” rock target on the 1,065th Martian day (or sol) of the rover’s mission. Perhaps it’s fitting that Grant’s favorite book is Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles, with its haunting tales of a decaying culture on Mars. After all, now that we know there is water on Mars, Grant wonders: “The big thing is that on earth, everywhere you find water, you find life. Does that hold true for Mars?” —Pippa Jack
PHOTO ILLUSTRATION. CURIOSITY SELFIE BY NASA/JPL-CALTECH/MSSS. JOHN GRANT BY NORA LEWIS.
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HOMECOMING IS Homecoming
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WHERE THE HEART IS Full Spread
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PHOTOS: NORA LEWIS, MICHAEL SALERNO
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Rhody Gift Guide
Put a Little Rhody on Your Holiday Shopping List! ALUMNI ASSOCIATION MEMBERSHIP where to buy: alumni.uri.edu/membership When you give someone a membership to the Alumni Association, it’s a gift that keeps on giving: your recipient will get amazing discounts and perks, and URI students will benefit from Alumni Association scholarships.
CENTURY WALK BRICK where to buy: alumni.uri.edu/centurywalk Make a statement that will last forever with a brick on the URI Quad. We’ll inscribe the brick with your personalized message.
AT A GIFT TH ETIME! LASTS A LIF tion: or for more informa k or 401.874.2218 To order a brick urywal u/alumni/cent advance.uri.ed
the heart on the Quad— bricks are placed s to graduates and Century Walk permanent tribute your gift to include of campus—as alize affiliation, You can person ity, club, athletic friends of URI. sorority, fratern name, class year, gful to you. meanin g anythin or
RHODY MERCH where to buy: ramszone.uri.edu At the Rams Zone online gift shop, the possibilities for URI-branded items are endless, from the adorable—URI baby blankets!—to the elegant, like a Vineyard Vines bow tie.
America, they are currently in eastern Europe and will travel on to Southeast Asia and New Zealand before returning to the states. You can follow their journey at oaksandcompass.com.
’08 Damian Puerini, M.S. ’12, of Cranston, R.I., has earned the Certified Public Accountant designation. Damian is a senior accountant at Sansiveri, Kimball & Co., L.L.P, where he provides audit, accounting, and consulting services to a wide variety of the firm’s clients.
’09 Dmitriy Chernyy of Long Island, N.Y., recently joined law firm Goldberg Segalla in their Garden City, N.Y., office. Dmitriy was previously an associate at McGivney & Kluger in Syracuse. At Goldberg Segalla, Mr. Chernyy’s practice focuses on defending clients in a wide range of liability claims, with a particular emphasis on product liability, medical malpractice, and negligence cases.
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’14 Joseph Ryan of Greenville, R.I., writes: “I am an associate adjuster with Amica Mutual Insurance Company, working out of the Westborough, Massachusetts, office.”
WEDDINGS Stephanie T. Boisvert ’01 to Richard A. Canal, on July 3, 2015. Jacob Feiner ’07 to Clare Orenstein, on May 30, 2015. Adam Grossi ’08 to Kayla DiChiro, on October 11, 2014. Jeffrey Langlois ’08 to Beth-Ann Coletta, on July 26, 2014. Eli Moger ’10 to Jen Lonardo ‘07, on June 13, 2015. Kristie Moltz ’10 to Oliver Palmer ’10, on October 4, 2015. Matthew Palin ’12 to Renee Gendreau on July 25, 2015. Alexandra Gerand ’13 to Timothy St. Pierre ’13, on August 23, 2014.
Arielle Lineberry ’13 to Joseph Santarpio ’13, on July 18, 2015. Kimberly Manchester ’13 to John C. Massaroco, on April 18, 2015.
BIRTHS Damian Latimore ’94 and Anais Latimore, a son, George Isaac Latimore, on August 28, 2015. Trisha Molloy ’03 adopted a son, James Malik Molloy, 2 years old, on September 18, 2015. Mathew Dias ’04 and Kayla Dias ‘05, a son, Mathew Dias Jr., on October 15, 2014 Matthew D. Cocuzzi ’05 and Ashleigh (Evans) Cocuzzi ’05, a daughter, Charlotte Cocuzzi, on July 29, 2015. Jonathan Kurowski ’06 and Maria Kurowski ’07, a son, Jackson Kurowski, on January 28, 2015. Daniel Read ’07 and Rebecca Read ’07, a son, Jackson David Read, on March 20, 2015.
Jennifer R. LaShomb Vogel ’07 and Luke Vogel ’05, a daughter, Hannah Gwendolyn, on May 22, 2015
IN MEMORIAM Leo X. McCusker ’42 of Providence, R.I., on July 27, 2015. Barbara A. Ryan ’42 of Barrington, R.I., on July 18, 2015. Donald S. Campbell ’43 of Stratford, Conn. on July 21, 2015. Carl H. Beckman ’47 of Wakefield, R.I., on April 15, 2015. Judith Prunier ’47 of Oxford, Mass., on July 21, 2015. Leila W. Werner ’47 of Newton, Mass., on September 16, 2015. Ernest M. Socha ’50 of East Providence R.I., on August 6, 2015. Edward J. Hole ’52 of Middletown, R.I., on August 25, 2015. Robert C. Hackett ’53 of Brookfield, N.H., on September 13, 2015.
CLOSEUP
Katy Krassner ’90 Social Butterfly “I had a cell phone as big as my face,” jokes social media strategist Katy Krassner ‘90, reflecting on her early career at the Left Bank Organization, a music management company whose roster of clients such as Meatloaf, the Cranberries, Clint Black, and John Mellencamp inspired her daily awe: “All these people I would watch on MTV were real people,” she says. When the company closed its New York offices, Krassner’s solo career in publicity took off—but she never lost touch with one client from those days: Duran Duran. Twenty-something years later, she now directs the band’s online content, managing social media pages and DuranDuran.com, where she interacts with fans (her “Ask Katy” column of fan mail responses was compiled into a book) and shares the latest news—in September, the band released the long-awaited album Paper Gods to universal acclaim. “I always wanted to work with musicians,” she says. “I was that kid. I loved music.” After graduating from URI with a major in communications, Krassner took a job at an accounting firm (“I wanted to make sure it was something I could quit”) before landing her first gig at the College Music Journal and eventually the Left Bank job that would launch her career. “I was so single-focused and passionate,” she says. “I can’t stress the importance of interning, working your ass off, and being true to yourself.” And, she adds, “My relationship with Duran Duran has definitely been one of the best experiences of my life.” —Nicole Maranhas
PHOTOS: COURTESY KATY KRASSNER ’90
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Bradford H. Chapman ’55 of Crofton, M.d, on July 10, 2015. Gordon B. Fiddes ’56 of Pittsfield, Mass., on August 3, 2015. William A. Smith ’56 of Middletown, R.I., on August 14, 2015. Leslie F. Thompson ’57 of Wakefield, R.I., on September 5, 2015. Paul G. Jacome ’59 of Lincoln, R.I., on August 15, 2015. Lucinda Peckham ’60 of Little Compton, R.I., on September 6, 2015. Elton H. Cohen ’62 of Hoover, Ala., on August 28, 2015.
How to Build a Better Network Your career is evolving – is your professional network? • As a new professional, focus on building your network through making initial connections with work partners around you, maintaining your new working relationships, and learning all that you can. • As an experienced professional, your networking strategy should focus on advancing your network through cultivating relationships, engaging new contacts, and sharing professional knowledge. The URI Alumni Association provides all URI alumni with assistance from our two career advisors. In partnership with URI’s Center for Career and Experiential Education, the advisors are dedicated to working with alumni who are conducting a job search or considering a career change.
Nathaniel D. Robinson ’63 of Brentwood, Tenn., on August 30, 2015. Anthony Lepizzera ’66 of Cranston, R.I., on June 19, 2015. David A. McDonnell ’66 of Louisville, Ky., on June 9, 2015. Thomas F. Rylands ’66 of North Charleston, S.C., on July 10, 2015. Fred Stern ’66 of Las Cruces, N.M., on June 21, 2015. Barbara J. Gremour ’67 of Greenbelt, Md., on July 6, 2015. Carol E. Ducy ’68 of Myrtle Beach, S.C., on August 16, 2015. Edward W. McCaffrey ’68 of Greenville, R.I., on July 28, 2015. Peter J. Turcotte ’69 of Providence, R.I., on September 12, 2015. Judith C. Walo ’69 of Hyannis, Mass., on July 5, 2015. Dorothy P. Stevens, M.L.S ’70 of Greenville, R.I., on June 28, 2015.
Richard W. Gariepy ’78 of Stoddard, N.H., on July 26, 2015. Dennis J. Huntley ’78 of Wakefield, R.I., on September 9, 2015. Joseph M. Martins ’80 of Newport, R.I., on August 21, 2015. Robert F. Fura ’81 of North Smithfield, R.I., on August 22, 2015. Joanne Hologgitas, Ph.D ’82, of Newport, R.I., on September 14, 2015. Susan W. Morrison ’83 of North Kingstown, R.I., on August 24, 2015. Rowena Stewart, Hon. ’83, of Jacksonville, Fla., on September 19, 2015. Amanda Muriel Anne Putnam ’84 of Alexandria, Va., on September 5, 2015. M. Clifton Robinson IV ’85 of West Newbury, Mass., on March 24, 2015. Anita I. Boutin ’86 of Biddeford, Maine, on July 27, 2015. Mortimer C. Robinson IV ’86 of Buttonwood, Mass., on March 24, 2015. Kim Mastrangelo ’89 of Rochester, N.Y., on August 12, 2014. Carl Slack ’90 of Jackson, N.H., on April 8, 2015. Daniel O’Rourke ’93 of Killeen, Texas, on September 13, 2015. Stanislav E. Antons ’97 of Barrington, R.I., on July 2, 2015. Robert F. McIntrye ’00 of Seattle, Wash., on July 10, 2015.
FACULTY AND STAFF IN MEMORIAM
Sandra L. Spinney ’71 of Bronxville, N.Y., on August 1, 2015.
Karen Schroeder, Associate Professor Emerita of Human Development and Family Studies, of North Kingstown, R.I., on September 14, 2015.
Ralf Bowersox ’72 of New Bethlehem, Pa., on June 7, 2015. Garret T. Bush III, M.S. ’72, Ph.D ’81, of Waterford, Conn., on June 16, 2015. Elliot Feit, M.D. ’72, of Dunwoody, Ga., on August 29, 2015.
Karen Rubano: krubano@uri.edu Lisa Kuosmanen: lkuosmanen@uri.edu
Robert Hay ’72 of Cranston, R.I., on August 23, 2015.
QUADANGLES WINTER 2015
Stephen C. Segerson ’76 of Sarasota, Fla., on August 31, 2015.
Robert W. Taylor, M.B.A ’70 of Ancramdale, N.Y., on August 27, 2015.
Alumni may call Alumni Career Services at 401.874.9404 or email our Alumni Career Advisors:
Read More | alumni.uri.edu/careerservices
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Henry A. Muller ’62 of Woodville, R.I., on August 20, 2015.
Joseph A. DePasquale Sr. ’76 of Summerfield, Fla., on September 4, 2015.
Denise A. Filion ’72 of Bristol, R.I., on January 1, 2015.
Dorothy E. Potter ’71 of Warwick, R.I., on September 24, 2015. Thomas J. Regan ’75 of New City, N.Y., on January 31, 2014.
Leon Goodman, Professor Emeritus of Chemistry, of Wakefield, R.I., on Sept. 24, 2015. Jon C. Boothroyd, Research Faculty Emeritus of Geosciences, of South Kingstown, R.I., on Oct. 15, 2015. Timothy Hennessey, Professor Emeritus of Political Science and Marine Affairs, of Wakefield, R.I., on Oct. 8, 2015. Helen M. Leeming ’87 of North Kingstown, R.I., on Oct. 7, 2015
PHOTOS: THIS PAGE: ISTOCKPHOTO; OPPOSITE PAGE, BOTTOM RIGHT: LOUIS W. CHEN ‘07
ALUMNISCENE
October 1, 2015 Alumni of Color Network New Graduate Celebration
August 7, 2015 URI Night with the PawSox “What I enjoyed most about that PawSox game was that it helped me reconnect with old friends from URI, make new friends with fellow alumni, and brought back fond memories of a great school and a great time in my life. My wife, Tracey, and our twins, Nicholas and Caroline, had a blast at the game!” —Mark Bruni ’89
“My experience was unique, refreshing, and invigorating because I got to see people doing great things from different fields of study. I definitely plan to get involved in the ACN locally by going to events and supporting the cause.” —Kevin Pajaro ’15
September 19, 2015 Northern California Lobster Bake September 29, 2015 A Convivial Evening of Networking in London “It was so great to connect with fellow URI alumni in London at this networking event. It was a piece of home away from home for me!” —Kathleen Meringolo ’85
“The 20th (and final) Northern California Lobster Bake was a steaming success. We have a great crew of alumni and friends, and we’ll have a lobster event in September 2016. That one will be catered!” —Gregg Friedman ’89
If you attended a URI alumni event and would like to share a photo and a reminiscence, we’d love to hear from you! Please write to us at alumni@uri.edu.
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Richard Beaupre ’62 with Winnie Brownell, Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences
What’s in a name?
The 2015 White House Christmas ornament honors the administration of Calvin Coolidge, who served as the thirtieth president of the United States from 1923 to 1929.
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When it opens in the fall of 2016, URI’s new Center for Chemical and Forensic Sciences building will bear the name of entrepreneur, URI alumnus and benefactor, Richard E. Beaupre ’62. Governor Gina Raimondo signed a bill making the naming official at the end of the last session of the Rhode Island General Assembly. The founder and chief executive officer of the ChemArt Company, Beaupre is being honored for his commitment to the University and his long history of supporting URI. Donating nearly $4 million in the past decade, including a recent $2.5 million gift, he has a strong commitment to supporting students and faculty involved in the arts, as well as providing scholarship support to parents of young children who are struggling financially. He was a scholarship recipient as a student at URI more than 50 years ago, and Beaupre has never forgotten what URI did for him. He pursued his degree while married with young children at home. The challenges were often overwhelming but the support he received made all the difference. “When I was in my senior year at URI, I was in tough shape, financially—I had no money. URI helped me out and I never forgot that. I paid back URI in spades and it was a great honor for me to do that.”
Beaupre took his URI chemistry degree and went on to establish new photoetching technology and his multimillion-dollar ChemArt is the recognized world leader in this technology. Well-known for the unique metal ornaments it designs and manufactures, ChemArt was commissioned, in 1981, to create the official White House tree ornament. The company has entered the ornament design competition every year since. It employs up to 150 workers at its Lincoln, R.I. facility, and all products are made in the U.S.A. URI President David Dooley said, “Dick clearly understands that to move Rhode Island forward, we need the latest in scientific facilities to prepare our students, to provide faculty with the very best research tools and to lay a foundation for economic development in Rhode Island. As the founder of one of Rhode Island’s important design and manufacturing companies, Dick understands what the University and the state as a whole need to thrive in the 21st century. We are deeply grateful to Dick for his support of URI.” • —Tracey Manni
PHOTOS: JOE GIBLIN; COURTESY CHEMART; NORA LEWIS
Give the gift of opportunity Your gift this holiday season will support the dreams of University of Rhode Island students by helping them afford the cost of their education, by providing support for otherwise unattainable opportunities and by showing them that you care about their success. To take advantage of current year tax deductions, give online at urifoundation.org/giveonline by December 31, or mail your gift to the URI Foundation at P.O. Box 1700, Kingston, RI 02881.
Wilfredo Tangui ’17 Providence, R.I.
Make Your Gift to URI This Holiday Season urifoundation.org To learn more, contact us at 401.874.7900 or urifoundation@uri.edu. UNIVERSITY OF RHODE ISLAND
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Alumni Center 73 Upper College Road Kingston, RI 02881 USA
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ALUMNI ASSOCIATION
Big Chill Weekend 2016 March 3– 5
IT’S ALL ABOUT SCHOLARSHIPS. alumni.uri.edu/bigchill