Dear URI Engineering Community:

As we enter the home stretch of another busy and exciting semester, and head toward the holiday season, it is an appropriate time to pause and give thanks to the many blessings that have been bestowed upon our community.   As Dean of Engineering, I am thankful for (and indebted to) the engineering faculty and staff who work tirelessly to realize our important mission of access, success, research, and workforce development.  I am amazed by the extraordinary accomplishments of our students.  And, I am thankful for (and humbled by) the selfless commitment in time, energy and financial resources of our alumni and friends. 

The strong commitment in service to society by our engineering community continues to grow as codified in our new Strategic Action Plan called Focused on Impact, which we will be formally presenting to the community this Spring.    Our access mission was on full display in October when over 70 URI engineering faculty, staff and students joined forces with the RI National Guard on STEM Innovation Day, which promoted STEM career opportunities by engaging over 500 high school students and 100 college students in interactive, hands-on activities.    Our student success mission continued to be personified by students such as Carrie Ellis who, in addition to being a varsity soccer player and double major with a near perfect GPA, has also spearheaded the creation of a new Engineers without Borders chapter at URI. Our mission in performing impactful research is exemplified by Professors Reza Abiri and Yalda Shahriari who recently received a new NSF Grant to develop a robotic platform to assist in the rehabilitation of patients to regain post-stroke motor skills.   None of this would be possible without the ability to recruit outstanding and passionate faculty and staff, and we were proud to add seven new engineering faculty to our growing team this semester in strategic areas such as coastal resilience, electronics, naval architecture, computer engineering, chemical engineering and systems engineering.

Make no mistake, fulfilling our mission as a public, land-grant research university is hard work.  But, it is honorable work because we know that, if done right, we can change people’s lives and make the world a better place.  And, as we enter the holiday season, we also must recognize that many in our society are struggling – emotionally, financially, and physically – and I encourage all in our community to continue to pitch in, be kind and lend a hand.  

Go Rhody!

Anthony J. Marchese, Ph.D. Dean of Engineering
Vincent and Estelle Murphy Professor of Engineering