Biological and Environmental Sciences
Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems
Research
Animal science
Faculty: Maria Hoffman, Katherine Petersson, Becky Sartini
Researchers in Animal Science focus on the sustainable production of animals with an emphasis on the areas of reproduction, nutrition, and health management. Examples of research topics include: improvement of reproductive efficiency of livestock; the effect of maternal programming on the growth, development and function of the pancreas; the impact of maternal parasite burden on offspring; identification of sustainable alternatives for the management of gastrointestinal parasites in sheep and goats; and the impact of high maternal milk production and incidence of mastitis on calf health.
Integrated sustainable agriculture and food systems
Faculty: Natural scientists from all areas in SAFS collaborating with social scientists, including: Carlos Garcia-Quijano, Emi Uchida, Hiro Uchida, Richard Sheridan, Melva Treviño Peña, John Taylor, Patrick Baur
Meeting the challenges of sustainably producing food in the face of a growing population and global change without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs requires an integrated understanding of both the natural and human-driven systems involved in the production and consumption of food. This interdisciplinary program builds upon URI’s unique set of expertise in agriculture, aquaculture, fisheries, nutrition and food science, community planning and design, engineering, environmental management and policy, resource economics, business, environmental anthropology, sociology, and global development. Faculty teams with contributors from both the natural and social sciences use a broad array of approaches to help achieve the sustainable production, management, consumption, and utilization of plants and animals to help in the development of healthy communities. Projects emphasize the integration of different systems (soil, microbes, plants, animals, and humans) and different disciplines (molecular, cellular and organismal biology, ecology, economics, policy, anthropology, and sociology).
Sustainable aquaculture
Faculty: Terence Bradley, Marta Gomez-Chiarri, Austin Humphries, Michael Rice, Coleen Suckling
Our research focuses on the sustainable management of marine resources, with an emphasis on the production of species providing food and sustenance to humans. Faculty use a variety of approaches and disciplines, from genomics to ecosystem-science, to address major challenges in the harvesting and culture of marine species across a variety of coastal ecosystems, both local and global. Examples of areas of research include: determining species tolerance to future environmental conditions; identifying new prospective production species and associated sustainable cultivation methods; the design of novel methods to manage infectious diseases affecting wild and cultured aquatic species; and the study of the scientific components of ecosystem-based fisheries management (habitat, trophic interactions, climate variation, and human dimensions). Our programs benefit from a wide range of state-of-the-art facilities at URI and train students in applying both traditional and novel technologies in ensuring food security while minimizing environmental impacts.
Nutrition and food sciences
Faculty: Sarah Amin, Geoffrey Greene, Ingrid Lofgren, Kathleen Melanson, Brietta Oaks, Alison Tovar, Maya Vadiveloo
We conduct research across several areas within nutrition and food sciences including community-based research, eating behaviors, diet and chronic diseases, lipid metabolism, obesity and cardiovascular disease, and food safety. Examples of research projects span from investigating the basic molecular mechanisms regulating the physiology and virulence of bacterial food-borne pathogens to the impact of “green eating” behaviors on obesity and nutrition interventions to decrease chronic disease risk.
SAFS Specialization Group Coordinator, Professor
Fisheries, Animal and Veterinary Sciences
401.874.2951
kpetersson@uri.edu