URI PRESS: Science & Outreach Collaborations for Sustainable Seafood event brings together members of seafood industry, researchers

January 24, 2024
From left to right are Rebecca Brown, scarecrow developer and professor and chair of plant sciences and entomology, of the URI College of Environmental and Life Sciences (CELS); Azure Cygler, PRESS project manager, a sustainable fisheries and aquaculture specialist of the URI Coastal Resources Center (CRC) and Rhode Island Sea Grant (Sea Grant); PRESS lead Marta Gomez-Chiarri, professor of aquaculture/fisheries in URI CELS; and Kassandra Florez, community affairs coordinator for U.S. Sen. Jack Reed. URI photos by Nora Lewis.

A University effort to fund science-and-outreach projects addressing real-life issues challenging Rhode Island seafood industries drew dozens to a recent event that provided the community the opportunity to engage with URI PRESS (Partnership for Research Excellence in Sustainable Seafood) teams over a celebratory lunch.

“This new program is piloting something exciting,” said PRESS lead Marta Gomez-Chiarri, professor of aquaculture/fisheries in the URI College of Environmental and Life Sciences (CELS), at the event held at the URI Narragansett Bay Campus, at the Coastal Institute. “It’s seeding and testing science solutions while pairing it with tailored outreach so the community can be as involved as possible.”

More than 60 attendees took in presentations and browsed displays provided by PRESS team members. Azure Cygler, PRESS project manager, a sustainable fisheries and aquaculture specialist of the URI Coastal Resources Center (CRC) and Rhode Island Sea Grant (Sea Grant), said PRESS projects are interdisciplinary and reflect the collective strengths of academia, industry, and extension. “Through these projects, we have a wealth of expertise and perspectives for solving real-time industry problems.”

Left to right are: Kassandra Florez, community affairs coordinator for U.S. Sen. Jack Reed; PRESS lead Marta Gomez-Chiarri, professor of aquaculture/fisheries in the URI College of Environmental and Life Sciences (CELS); Azure Cygler, PRESS project manager, a sustainable fisheries and aquaculture specialist of the URI Coastal Resources Center (CRC) and Rhode Island Sea Grant (Sea Grant); Rebecca Brown, scarecrow developer and professor and chair of plant sciences and entomology, in CELS; and David Brown, a URI computer science lecturer also on the scarecrow project

At the event, for example, Rebecca Brown, professor and chair of plant sciences and entomology, in CELS, demonstrated a device, a laser scarecrow, being tested to keep birds away from shellfish growing on marine farms. A neighboring table featured Hiro Uchida, professor of Environmental and Natural Resource Economics at CELS, who explained a project that incorporates traditional Japanese methods – ikejime — into dispatching and preparing fish for sale and consumption. And at another table, several fishermen, including David Bethoney, director of the Commercial Fisheries Research Foundation (CFRF), introduced attendees to “jigging” – squid harvest equipment that is used world over and is now being tested here.

PRESS proposals are reviewed by an interdisciplinary advisory board and funding is distributed rapidly to respond to urgent issues. The program is managed by CELS with connection to URI GSO, via the CRC, and is administrated by Sea Grant. PRESS is funded by a $1 million, four-year grant secured from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, with U.S. Sen. Jack Reed leading the effort to secure the funding.

Learn more about URI PRESS and its funded projects.

Sue Kennedy, public information and communications specialist for URI’s Coastal Resources Center, wrote this story.