The COVID-19 pandemic is an unprecedented event in modern society. It has prompted an unparalleled experiment on our families, societies, politics, and economy. URI social scientists have already begun to weigh in on current effects and future implications.

For Mary Lind ’22 reporting for The Good Five Cent Cigar, URI’s student newspaper, COVID-19 has thrust her and her fellow staffers into campus history, as they spend the remaining weeks of their spring semester chronicling its effect on the university.

While an undergraduate physics major, Torrie Sutherland ’20 researched radio astrophysics and created images of active galactic nuclei jets to study the polarization of the light that is being ejected from black holes. She was also the trombone section leader in URI’s Marching Band and twice performed in the Newport Jazz Festival.

Our Social Science Institute for Research, Education, and Policy’s Public Policy Lab engages students and faculty in policy and program analysis and evaluation for government and community-based organizations in the state of Rhode Island.