GSO’s Rebecca Robinson will serve as an advisor and help to further the Institute’s community-based coastal science mission

July 2023

The URI Coastal Institute announced the appointments of three new Associate Directors who will serve as CI advisors and carry out stipend-supported research activities to further the Institute’s community-based coastal science mission. The new URI appointees are Christopher Baxter, Emily Diamond, and GSO’s Rebecca Robinson, and they will serve three-year terms as Associate Directors.

“It gives me great pleasure to welcome our new associate directors to URI CI,” says URI CI Director Elin Torell. “Part of what makes CI special is our commitment to providing opportunity for new blood, new ideas and interdisciplinary approaches to inform our aims because doing so strengthens our programs.”

Rebecca Robinson, a professor of Oceanography within the URI Graduate School of Oceanography, has expertise in marine geology and geophysics and studies the chemical cycles of nitrogen and carbon in the ocean. Researching these cycles is important, she says, for informing our efforts to protect the ocean’s productivity, address the challenges of climate change, and improve human interactions with the systems. Her laboratory works to “understand the roles and responses of climate and ocean circulation on the oceanic nitrogen and carbon cycles and the feedbacks within them,” as well as “biogeochemical cycling in the modern oceans.” Robinson serves as student instructor and advisor at both the undergraduate and graduate levels.

The appointees are joined by continuing URI CI Associate Director Emi Uchida, a URI professor of Environmental and Natural Resource Economics. The URI CI recently celebrated the efforts of several retiring Associate Directors: Art Gold, a professor emeritus of the URI Department of Natural Resources Science; John King, a professor emeritus of URI GSO; and Charles Roman, National Park Service retiree and professor in residence of URI.