Welcome to the Institute for AI & Computational Research (IACR) at the University of Rhode Island — a collaboratively supported effort by central IT Services (ITS), the Vice President for Research’s Office, the Provost’s Office, and faculty contributions through research grants.
The Institute’s mission is to support, promote and grow high-level interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary computational research — artificial intelligence (AI), data science (Data), high-performance computing (HPC), and quantum computing (Quantum) — across URI campuses, in the region, and beyond. The computational work of over 150 faculty researchers is supported by this Institute. A quick snapshot of IACR resources is available here: IACR at-a-glance.
The IACR has an internal advisory group of key URI faculty members: Drs. Chris Kincaid (Oceanography); Ying Zhang (Life Sciences), Jason Dwyer (Associate Dean, College of A&S), Chris Hemme (INBRE Bioinformatics Core Coordinator, College of Pharmacy) and Drew Zhang (Alfred J. Verrecchia Endowed Chair in Artificial Intelligence and Business Analytics) and is led by Gaurav Khanna (Asst. Vice President for Research Computing). The Institute partners closely with the Massachusetts High-Performance Computing Center (MGHPCC). IACR was formerly known as the URI Center for Computational Research.
Email us at iacr-group@uri.edu with questions, comments, suggestions — anything!
News
US launches the Genesis Mission - https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/11/launching-the-genesis-mission/ The White House issued a new Executive Order launching the “Genesis Mission,” a large-scale national effort led by the Department of Energy to accelerate AI-enabled scientific discovery. New Website: https://genesis.energy.gov/
AI Lab — Fall ’25 Report - A detailed AI Lab — Fall ’25 Report is available here: https://web.uri.edu/iacr/ai-lab-projects-fall-25/
Faculty Spotlight: Manshu Yang (Psychology) - Dr. Yang is an Associate Professor of Quantitative Health Psychology in the Department of Psychology at the University of Rhode Island and co-director of the Behavioral Science Ph. D. program. Her research interests focus on the development and adaptation of quantitative methods and analysis tools (1) to handle missing data, especially for longitudinal studies and […]
Faculty Spotlight: Rachel Schwartz (Biology) - Decoding the Tree of Life: How Research Computing Enables Large-Scale Genomics at URI At the University of Rhode Island, the push to answer fundamental questions about evolutionary history increasingly relies on massive computational power. For Dr. Rachel Schwartz, an Associate Professor who runs a “dry lab” focused on computational evolutionary genetics, access to URI’s research […]
Open opportunities - Here are some potentially interesting opportunities for IACR students. The Microsoft one is also open to faculty. 1. SIParCS Summer Internships: Summer Internships in Parallel Computational Science (SIParCS) applications are open with a deadline of January 20, 2026. This year undergraduate and graduate students have the opportunity to work with technical projects ranging in topics from machine learning, […]