University of Rhode Island Professor James Miller and his former student Matthew Zimmerman ’01 found themselves at the White House in June. Their Warwick, R.I., company, FarSounder, was presented with the 2015 Tibbetts Award by the U.S. Small Business Administration, honoring its innovation in ship safety for their invention of a forward-looking sonar system. The system can detect obstacles in the water—whales, reefs, shipping containers, icebergs and more—as far as a half mile away.

With contracts from the Department of Homeland Security, FarSounder also recently developed an underwater threat detection system for protecting ports and ships from approaching divers and underwater vehicles.