Sensors and Instrumentation

Expanding what we can detect in the world

Advancing technology in sensors and instrumentation is work that keeps people safe and informed about the world around us. We rely on sensors to measure the health of physical materials, the status of environmental conditions, the composition of biological matter, or the density of traffic along a highway.

Otto Gregory developed a bomb-‘sniffing’ sensor capable of detecting explosives at airports or subways. He also leads a team designing sensors to measure the temperature, pressure, and strain inside jet engines. Work is underway at the University to design smart sensors that monitor fuel cells or detect chemical leaks or terrorist attacks. Civil engineers are spearheading sensors to better monitor traffic conditions and electrical engineers are finding ways to turn fiber optic cables into millions of tiny sensors.

As an engineer, you don’t want to work on something that is not going to benefit mankind.
Professor Otto Gregory

Research here will also keep us healthy. We are building tiny fluorescent spectrometry sensors to detect biomarkers in blood–the first step toward diagnosing disease. Researchers are developing sensors to detect electrical signals in the body to better understand conditions such as sleep apnea and cardiac disease. Kunal Mankodiya’s Wearable Biosensing Lab is creating wearable systems that can track important patient metrics such as heart rate vital signs, physical activity, falling, walking, or other movement difficulties in their daily life.

  • Researchers Developing High-Tech Armband for Opioid-Use Disorder - According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nearly 280,000 people in the U.S. died from overdoses involving prescription opioids from 1999 to 2021. In 2021, overdoses involving opioids—including prescription opioids, heroin, and synthetic opioids such as fentanyl—killed more than 80,000 people, 10 times the number of those killed in 1999.
  • Student Led Team Receives Artificial Intelligence Award - A URI graduate student’s paper was recently awarded “Best Student Paper Finalist” for the 2023 Advanced Intelligent Mechatronics conference. Emadodin Jandaghi and Xiaotian Chen’s work was overseen by Associate Professor and Advisor Chengzhi Yuan. As the name suggests, soft robotics involves using flexible materials in an increasingly wide variety of uses, from medical applications to […]
  • COE Welcomes New Faculty - Mehrshad Amini, Assistant Professor, CVE/OCE Dr. Mehrshad Amini will join the University of Rhode Island in Fall 2023 as an Assistant Professor with a joint appointment in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and the Department of Ocean Engineering. He completed his Ph.D. in Civil and Environmental Engineering at Pennsylvania State University in 2021. […]
  • Offshore wind turbines not cause of whale strandings, deaths, says URI ocean engineering professor - James Miller, University of Rhode Island professor of ocean engineering and department chair, answered several questions recently about whether wind turbines have an effect on whale safety and health.

Faculty

Robert Haas Endowed Professor

Electrical, Computer and Biomedical Engineering

401.874.5645
haibohe@uri.edu

Professor and Department Chair

Ocean Engineering

401.874.6540
miller@uri.edu

Assistant Professor

Electrical, Computer and Biomedical Engineering

401.874.4102
reza_abiri@uri.edu

Assistant Professor

Electrical, Computer and Biomedical Engineering

401.874.2752
kadhikari@uri.edu

Professor

Electrical, Computer & Biomedical Engineering

401.874.4738
besio@uri.edu

Distinguished Engineering Professor

Chemical Engineering

401.874.2085
ogregory@uri.edu

Associate Professor and Graduate Director

Ocean Engineering

401.874.6028
slicht@uri.edu

Assistant Professor

Mechanical, Industrial and Systems Engineering

401.874.4249
yanglin@uri.edu

Associate Professor

Electrical, Computer and Biomedical Engineering

401.874.5661
kunalm@uri.edu

Associate Professor

Ocean Engineering

401.874.6035
brennanphillips@uri.edu

Professor Research

Ocean Engineering

401.874.6591
gpotty@uri.edu

Professor

Ocean Engineering (limited) and Oceanography

401.874.6115
croman2@uri.edu

Simon Ostrach Professor

Mechanical, Industrial and Systems Engineering

401.874.2283
shuklaa@uri.edu

Associate Professor

Ocean Engineering

401.874.6879
loravu@uri.edu

Professor

Electrical, Computer and Biomedical Engineering

401.874.2874
tao_wei@uri.edu

Distinguished Engineering Professor

Electrical, Computer and Biomedical Engineering

401.874.5880
qyang@uri.edu

Associate Professor and Graduate Director

Mechanical, Industrial and Systems Engineering

401.874.9067
cyuan@uri.edu