麻豆传媒

Professor, Department of Pharmacology, University of Colorado School of Medicine, Aurora, CO.

Research has focused on neural mechanisms of adaptation to alcohol, including tolerance and dependence.  Identified a  role of peptide hormones and brain growth factors to modify alcohol tolerance.  

Discovered that one subtype of glutamate receptor, the NMDA receptor, is very sensitive to alcohol, and that increases in NMDA receptor function are involved in alcohol dependence.  This work has led to many further studies by others that focus on the role of the brain  glutamate systems in addiction to alcohol and other drugs.  

Currently focus on systems genetic analysis, using "big data" to understand the genetic contribution to alcohol-related and other complex behaviors.

Kenneth J. Sher, Ph.D., is a nationally renowned scholar, researcher, and mentor whose work has greatly advanced our understanding of the etiology and course of alcohol use disorder (AUD), particularly as it relates to personality traits and their evolution. Dr. Sher has been at the forefront of research on personality, alcohol misuse among college students, and the behavioral pharmacology of alcohol. He is also a highly regarded expert in longitudinal research methodology. Over the course of his career, Dr. Sher has studied a wide range of topics contributing substantially to our understanding of the development of alcohol and other substance misuse. He has examined risk mechanisms that influence AUD onset and progression, premorbid predictors of future AUD (e.g., cognitive mechanisms and individual differences in the psychopharmacological responses to alcohol), and the involvement of family history of alcoholism in multiple etiological pathways to AUDs. 

His diverse research interests include: personality, as well as developmental changes in personality, as predictors of alcohol misuse and AUD; gene-environment interactions in the development of AUD; and predictors and consequences of binge drinking and alcohol misuse among college students (including 21st birthday drinking and other extreme drinking occasions). Dr. Sher has also investigated the phenomenon of 鈥渕aturing out鈥� of alcohol problems, demonstrating that maturing out is associated with differences in age-related personality changes that are accompanied by decreased impulsivity and neuroticism and is not merely a consequence of constrained opportunity occasioned by the assumption of adult roles. 

Dr. Sher had led two major ongoing longitudinal cohort studies that have followed individuals beginning in their freshman year of college and into mid-life. In addition to the development of AUD, this research tracks drug use and comorbid psychiatric disorders. A particularly innovative aspect of this work is the incorporation of genotyping which may provide key information on individual differences in susceptibility to AUD. 

In addition to using traditional survey approaches, Dr. Sher鈥檚 research employs event-based data to capture the momentary moods, motivational states, and cues that precede drinking events. This work is critical to understanding transient influences on drinking behavior and related consequences on a given occasion. 

A major focus of his current work is the critical evaluation of existing diagnostic approaches and development of empirically-based criteria and algorithms for AUD diagnosis. This research holds promise for improving AUD diagnosis in clinical practice, and advancing research on the causes and correlates of AUD.

Dr. Sher has been continually funded by NIAAA for more than 30 years. He has had more than 250 papers published in peer-reviewed journals and he has authored and edited several books. 

Dr. Sher earned his undergraduate degree from Antioch College, his Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Indiana University, and completed clinical internship training at Brown University. He is the Curators鈥� Distinguished Professor of Psychological Sciences at the University of Missouri, where he directs a pre and postdoctoral training program in alcohol research.

Tom Greenfield, PhD, is Scientific Director of the Public Health Institute鈥檚 Alcohol Research Group, in Emeryville California, which involves 15 multi-disciplinary research scientists bringing a broad range of expertise to bear on alcohol, other drug and mental health problems.  Since 1995 Greenfield led and now co-lead the bi-decadal National Alcohol Surveys (NASs) conducted by the NIAAA-funded National Alcohol Research Center, that he directed from 1999 to 2015 (P50 AA005595, Years 20-35). Over time, the NAS has incorporated measures and interview modalities that he helped refine in a series of methodological studies.  Greenfield trained as a clinical psychologist, afterwards adding epidemiological and health services expertise in part through postdoctoral years at the UCSF Department of Psychiatry.  Educated at Caltech, MIT and the University of Michigan, he has authored or coauthored over 250 peer-reviewed articles, chapters, books and monographs.  Many are on health effects of alcohol and alcohol policy, often in collaboration with senior colleagues, early career scientists, and postdoctoral fellows.  In addition to participating in many national and international projects, Dr. Greenfield has led numerous R-mechanism National Institutes of Health projects on such topics as alcohol policy evaluation, health disparities and alcohol-related mortality, alcohol intake measurement, and comparative cross-national studies.  He currently leads two team-based Alcohol's Harms to Others R01 grants funded by NIAAA. One, together with his ARG colleague Dr. Katherine Karriker-Jaffe, examines ways that secondhand drinking can victimize partners, families, children, coworkers, and communities, using metrics such as the damage to mental health, health quality of life, and a family鈥檚 finances.  A second is a similar multinational collaboration involving standardized questionnaires in over 30 countries that surveyed victims and perpetrators of alcohol鈥檚 harms, and involves multiple PIs and 15 international co-investigators.  Both grants are examining in depth state and national policies, contextual, and protective influences, and ways to best reduce the toll of alcohol鈥檚 harms to communities.  

Selected recent publications:
Wilsnack, S.C., Greenfield, T.K., Bloomfield, K.A., (in press). The GENAHTO Project (Gender and Alcohol's Harm to Others): design and methods for a multinational study of alcohol's harm to persons other than the drinker. International Journal of Alcohol & Drug Research.
Greenfield, T. K. & Martinez, P. (2017) Alcohol as a risk factor for chronic disease: raising awareness and policy options. In: Giesbrecht, N. & Bosma, L. (Eds.), Preventing Alcohol-Related Problems: Evidence and Community-based Initiatives (pp 33-50). Washington, DC: APHA Press.
Greenfield, T.K., Ye, Y., Lown, E.A., Cherpitel, C.J., Zemore, S., & Borges, G. (2017) Alcohol use patterns and DSM-5 alcohol use disorder on both sides of the US-Mexico border. Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research 41:769-778. [DOI: 10.1111/acer.13356] PMICD: PMC5378627 
Greenfield, T.K., Karriker-Jaffe, K.J., Kerr, W.C., Ye, Y., & Kaplan, L.M. (2016) Those harmed by others鈥� drinking are more depressed and distressed, Drug and Alcohol Review, 35(1):22-29 [doi: 10.1111/dar.12324]. PMCID: PMC4775452
Greenfield, T.K., Bond J., Kerr W.C. (2014) Biomonitoring for improving alcohol consumption surveys: the new gold standard? Alcohol Research: Current Reviews 36(1): 39-44. PMCID: PMC4432857
Greenfield, T. K. (2013) [Editorial] Alcohol (and other drugs) in public health research. American Journal of Public Health 103(4):582.

I have almost 40 years of experience in the field of alcoholism research, with much of my work focusing on the molecular sites and mechanisms of alcohol action in brain. My group has extensive experience with mouse behavioral models of alcohol consumption and dependence and was involved in some of the initial studies of the neuroimmune basis of alcohol dependence. Profiling brain gene expression is key to understanding addiction, and we were among the first to study the human brain transcriptome. We have implemented microRNA profiling and next-generation sequencing to extend our studies of molecular remodeling by alcohol in human and mouse brain. We study the genetic overlap in human alcoholics and animal models of alcohol dependence and examine the neurobiological systems involved. My research encompasses the fields of genomics, behavior, systems biology, and bioinformatics. Overall, my work has combined functional, structural, behavioral, and genomic approaches to define sites of alcohol action. Currently, I am Associate Director of the Waggoner Center for Alcohol and Addiction Research at The University of Texas at Austin and previously served as Director for 20 years. I am also the Consortium Director for the Integrative Neuroscience Initiative on Alcoholism (INIA)-Neuroimmune, where our goal is to identify and test candidate drugs that may be repurposed to treat alcohol use disorders. 

Chang's work focuses on the therapy resistance of cancer stem cells, which has led to several publications and international presentations. Her clinical research aims to evaluate novel biologic agents in breast cancer patients. Chang has worked in the field of tumor-initiating cells for more than 10 years. After her discovery that tumor-initiating cells are chemo-resistant, and that targeting the EGFR/HER2 pathway can decrease this subpopulation, Chang played a key role in demonstrating some of the limitations and mechanisms of tumor-initiating cells. Her work is now focused on the mechanisms that regulate TICs, as well as initiating and planning clinical trials that target this critical tumor initiating subpopulation. She is also interested in characterizing the cross-talk between these different pathways that may lead to mechanisms of resistance, and has identified some of the chief regulatory pathways involved in TIC self-renewal. She is a world-renown clinical investigator, credited as one of the first to describe intrinsic chemo-resistance of tumor-initiating cells.

Dr. Mielcarek believes that individualizing treatment according to the patient's needs and philosophy, combined with incorporating up-to-date research knowledge, are key ingredients for excellent patient care.
Clinical Expertise

    Blood stem cell and bone marrow transplantation for hematologic malignancies
    Graft-versus-Host Disease (GVHD)

Title

    Medical Director, Adult Blood and Marrow Transplant Program, Seattle Cancer Care Alliance
    Member, Clinical Research Division, Fred Hutch
    Professor of Medicine, Department of Medical Oncology, University of Washington

Education and Training

    MD: Freie Universit盲t Berlin, 1986
    PhD: Freie Universit盲t Berlin, 1987
    Residency: Freie Universit盲t Berlin, Internal Medicine, 1987-1993
    Research Fellowship: Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, 1994-1999
    Residency: University of Washington, Internal Medicine, 1999-2000
    Fellowship: University of Washington, Medical Oncology, 2000-2003

James Hendler is the Director of the Future of Computing Institute; Tetherless World Professor of Computer, Web and Cognitive Sciences; and Director of the RPI-IBM Artificial Intelligence Research Collaboration. 

Hendler is a data scientist with specific interests in open government and scientific data, data science for healthcare, AI and machine learning, semantic data integration, and the use of data in government. One of the originators of the Semantic Web, he has authored over 450 books, technical papers, and articles in the areas of Open Data, the Semantic Web, artificial intelligence, and data policy and governance. He is also the former Chief Scientist of the Information Systems Office at the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and was awarded a US Air Force Exceptional Civilian Service Medal in 2002. He is the first computer scientist ever to have served on the Board of Reviewing editors for Science. In 2010, Hendler was selected as an 鈥淚nternet Web Expert鈥� by the US government and helped in the development and launch of the US data.gov open data website. In 2013, he was appointed as the Open Data Advisor to New York State and in 2015 appointed a member of the US Homeland Security Science and Technology Advisory Committee. In 2016, became a member of the National Academies Board on Research Data and Information, in 2017 a member of the Director鈥檚 Advisory Committee of the National Security Directorate of PNNL, and in 2021 became chair of the ACM鈥檚 global Technology Policy Council. Hendler is a Fellow of the US National Academy of Public Administration, the AAAI, AAAS, ACM, BCS and IEEE.

Andrew Mammen, MD, PhD works at the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases as Muscle Disease Unit Leader in the Laboratory of Muscle Stem Cells and Gene Regulation. Prior to his appointment at NIH, he was Associate Professor of Neurology and Medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He co-founded the Johns Hopkins Myositis Center in 2007, where he continues to see myositis patients as an adjunct faculty member. Dr. Mammen and his colleagues at Hopkins discovered a novel form of autoimmune myopathy associated with statin use and autoantibodies recognizing HMG-CoA reductase, the pharmacologic target of statins. In addition to clinical studies involving myositis patients, his current laboratory research interests include defining pathogenic mechanisms in the various forms of autoimmune myopathy and understanding the role of myositis autoantigens in muscle regeneration.

Damion A. Martins, MD, is board-certified in sports medicine and internal medicine, and currently holds positions as the Medical Director of Sports Medicine, Director of the Executive Health and Program Director of the Sports Medicine Fellowship at Atlantic Health System.

Dr. Martins is an accomplished national leader in Sports Medicine with a proven track record in hospital administration. He not only treats thousands of professional and collegiate athletes, but develops the programs that enhance their performance. Dr Martins successfully oversaw a complex Orthopedic service line, consisting of 200+ physicians, covering five hospitals where he doubled both volume and revenue while increasing access and patient satisfaction. He was instrumental in developing Atlantic Health System鈥檚 Sports Cardiology and Sports Performance programs as well as the first Accountable Care Organization (ACO) designated Sports Medicine Center of Excellence. These programs have earned national quality recognition as Top 50 Orthopedic programs by U.S. 麻豆传媒 & World Report, 5 Star by Healthgrades and top 5% nationally for overall Orthopedic services. 

As a recognized leader in the area of sports performance and exercise testing, Dr. Martins lectures extensively in the field of sports medicine. He is consistently recognized as a 鈥淭op Doctor鈥� by Castle Connolly and is renowned for his research in hydration, musculoskeletal injuries and concussions. He is currently involved in a number of active research studies. His expertise has lent itself to the development of cardiovascular training programs widely used in the fitness industry and corporate wellness. He has authored over fifty publications including book chapters on the pre-participation exam and medical conditions that limit sports participation.

Dr. Martins is the director of internal medicine and team physician for the National Football League鈥檚 (NFL) New York Jets where he has served as a medical consultant since 2002, and member of the NFL Team Physician Society. As a former National Hockey League (NHL) Team Physician and member of the NHL Advisory Committee, he was instrumental in the development of the current National Hockey League鈥檚 pre-participation guidelines. His extensive experience on both the professional and collegiate levels also includes administrative medical director for Major League Soccer (MLS) and medical coverage for the U.S. Open Golf Championship, U.S. Open Tennis Championships, New York Islanders, New York Dragons, Hofstra University, and the College of St. Elizabeth. He is currently a medical advisor for New Jersey Interscholastic Athletic Association and Parisi Speed School.

Dr. Martins has dual academic appointments at Mount Sinai School of Medicine as assistant clinical professor in the departments of both medicine and orthopedics. He developed and is currently the program director of the American College of Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) accredited Sports Medicine Fellowship at Atlantic Health.

Dr. Martins graduated from Georgetown University School of Medicine, where he also obtained his Master鈥檚 degree in Exercise Physiology and Biophysics. He completed residency training in internal medicine at Georgetown University Medical Center. He completed his fellowship in sports medicine at the University of Maryland, where he served as fellow team physician for the NFL鈥檚 Baltimore Ravens and University of Maryland鈥檚 Terrapins.

My research is centered on understanding and explaining how people make conservation-related judgments and decisions, and the intersection of such judgments with conservation policy.  I am particularly interested in how people make decisions related to the conservation of wildlife, and the origins of resource-related conflicts, especially those that involve wildlife. Much of my recent work is focused on understanding judgments and behaviors concerning large carnivores.

Natural resources-related values, attitudes, behaviors
Natural resources conflicts
Wildlife management and policy
Human-wildlife conflict

Juergen Hahn, Department Head of Biomedical Engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, is a trailblazer in the use of big data methods to improve the diagnosis and treatment of Autism. His research focuses on the use of machine-learning algorithms to analyze complex biological and biomedical systems. He previously developed a physiological test for autism after discovering patterns with certain metabolites in the blood that can accurately predict diagnosis. He is applying that same approach to other areas of autism research including correlating conditions and assessing the effectiveness of possible medical treatments.

Astrophysicist Patrick Brady at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee yesterday began his duties as spokesperson for the international scientific collaboration that studies gravitational waves using the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO). The spokesperson of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration (LSC) speaks on behalf of the 1,300 scientists in 20 countries who are engaged in gravitational wave research with data from observatories located in Hanford, Washington, and Livingston, Louisiana. Brady, a UWM professor of physics and director of the Leonard E. Parker Center for Gravitation, Cosmology and Astrophysics, is sixth in an elite group of scientists who have served as LSC spokespersons since the LSC formed in the late 1990s. Former spokespersons were Nobel Prize winner Rainer Weiss (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Peter Saulson (Syracuse University), Dave Reitze (Caltech), Gabriela Gonzalez (Louisiana State University) and David Shoemaker (MIT). Brady’s research focuses on the analysis and interpretation of data from the network of gravitational-wave detectors. He served on the executive committee of the LSC from 2004-2006, and has co-chaired the LSC Inspiral Analysis Group and chaired the LSC Data Analysis Software Working Group. He joined the UW-Milwaukee faculty in 1999, after a fellowship at Caltech. In 2010 he was elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society, and he shared in the 2016 Special Breakthrough Prize. Video from 2017: https://www.pbs.org/video/measuring-gravity-waves-with-ligo-vkft6w/

Erica Ollmann Saphire, Ph.D. serves as President and CEO of the La Jolla Institute for Immunology. She is one of the world’s leading experts in pandemic and emerging viruses, such as Ebola, Marburg and Lassa. Dr. Saphire directs the Viral Hemorrhagic Fever Immunotherapeutic Consortium (VIC), an NIH-funded Center of Excellence in Translational Research. The VIC unites 43 previously competing academic, industrial and government labs across five continents to understand which antibodies are most effective in patients and to streamline the research pipeline to provide antibody therapeutics against Ebola, Marburg, Lassa and other viruses. Dr. Saphire's research explains, at the molecular level, how and why viruses like Ebola and Lassa are pathogenic and provides the roadmap for developing antibody-based treatments. Her team has solved the structures of the Ebola, Sudan, Marburg, Bundibugyo and Lassa virus glycoproteins, explained how they remodel these structures as they drive themselves into cells, how their proteins suppress immune function and where human antibodies can defeat these viruses. A recent discovery revealed why neutralizing antibodies had been so difficult to elicit against Lassa virus, and provided not only the templates for the needed vaccine, but the molecule itself: a Lassa surface glycoprotein engineered to remain in the right conformation to inspire the needed antibody response. This molecule is the basis for international vaccine efforts against Lassa.
Dr. Saphire is the recipient of numerous accolades and grants, including the Presidential Early Career Award in Science and Engineering presented by President Obama at the White House; the Gallo Award for Scientific Excellence and Leadership from the Global Virus Network; young investigator awards from the International Congress of Antiviral Research, the American Society for Microbiology, American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, and the MRC Centre for Virus Research in the United Kingdom; the Investigators in the Pathogenesis of Infectious Disease Award from the Burroughs Wellcome Fund, and the Surhain Sidhu award for the most outstanding contribution to the field of diffraction by a person within five years of the Ph.D. Dr. Saphire has been awarded a Fulbright Global Scholar fellowship from the United States Department of State and a Mercator Fellowship from the German research foundation, Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, to develop international collaborations around human health and molecular imaging through cryoelectron microscopy.
Dr. Saphire received a B.A. in biochemistry and cell biology and ecology and evolutionary biology from Rice University in Houston, Texas, and a Ph.D. in molecular biology from Scripps Research. She stayed on at Scripps Research as a Research Associate to conduct postdoctoral research and rose through the ranks to become a Professor in the Department of Immunology and Microbiology. In early 2019, Dr. Saphire joined La Jolla Institute for Immunology to establish a molecular imaging facility for cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) at the Institute. The extremely detailed images produced by cryo-EM reveal precisely how essential mechanisms of the immune system operate.

Douglas Hales is an Associate Dean and Professor of Supply Chain Management at the University of Rhode Island. His primary teaching expertise is Global Supply Chain Management and Lean Six Sigma. His research interests include Global Port Competitiveness and Applied Process Improvement. 

Hales has more than 20 years of operational and supply chain management experience for the U. S. Marine Corps as well as the plastics and construction industries. He can speak to the impact of U. S. imposed tariffs on Chinese goods and U. S. goods in many industries. He can discuss the delay between the tariffs and the arrival of goods being shipped to the U.S. and what consumers can expect, in terms of the timing of price hikes on goods purchased by Americans. He can discuss the 鈥渃old chain,鈥� agricultural goods, electronics and commodities in general that ship by container vessel.

Hales is a special issue co-editor for the Transportation Journal on Seaport Competition for 2018 and 2019, as well as the past Program Chair of the Northeast Decision Sciences Institute. He is also the incoming President of the Northeast Decision Sciences Institute, beginning July 1, 2019.

https://web.uri.edu/business/meet/doug-hales/

An assistant professor in the Department of Politics at Ithaca College鈥檚 School of Humanities and Sciences, Figueroa can discuss U.S. political issues, including presidential leadership, racial, religious and working class politics, U.S.-Puerto Rico policy, and immigration/border politics.

Figueroa鈥檚 academic research focuses on American political development; race, religion and citizenship; Black American politics and political thought; Latino politics and border studies; public leadership; and U.S. Quakers. He is currently finishing a book on Quakers, race and U.S. Empire. His research also focuses on Bayard Rustin, a Black, gay, Quaker labor and civil rights activist of the 1940s through 1980s. He is also working on a project about the everyday 鈥渓ived experiences鈥� of people who study and/or work near the U.S.-Mexico border.

URI Professor Jo毛lle Rollo-Koster: Medieval historian, papacy expert 

Key topics:  French culture, medieval history, the papacy, Game of Thrones

URI Professor Jo毛lle Rollo-Koster is a leading historian on the papacy. A professor of medieval history at URI, she is leading an international team compiling a complete history of the papacy for Cambridge University Press. She is the author of eight books on medieval history and the papacy.

Koster was knighted by the French government with the medal of the Chevalier des Palmes acad茅miques in 2016. A native of France, Koster recently shared her insights on the impact of the 2019 fire at the Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris with numerous media outlets. 

A professor, at URI, Koster incorporates the popular Game of Thrones series into her curriculum. She was featured in a Time.com story (4/25/19), discussing the history of medieval knights after the character Brienne, from Game of Thrones, was knighted 鈥� a true milestone for fans of the hit series.

Jo毛lle Rollo-Koster received her undergraduate degree and master's degree in history from the University of Nice, France. She earned a Ph.D. in History at SUNY Binghamton in 1992.

Select authored publications:
-Raiding Saint Peter: Empty Sees, Violence, and the Initiation of the Great Western Schism (1378), 2008, Brill, ISBN 9789047433118
-The People of Curial Avignon: A Critical Edition of the Liber Divisionis and the Matriculae of Notre Dame la Majour, 2009, Edwin Mellen Press, ISBN 077344680X
-Avignon and Its Papacy, 1309鈥�1417: Popes, Institutions, and Society, 2015, Rowman and Littlefield, ISBN 9781442215320
-Death in Medieval Europe: Death Scripted and Death Choreographed, Routledge, 2016, ISBN 9781138802131

Melanie Brasher is an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Rhode Island. She holds a master's and Ph.D. from Duke University. She is a demographer and expert in population aging whose research includes unintended births and health. She is particularly interested in the impact of economic disparities, social support, and community context on the health and well being of older adults in China. As a grad student at Duke, she was a National Institute on Aging pre-doctoral trainee for social and medical demography of aging. She also served as a visiting scholar at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention in Beijing in 2011, and continues to collaborate with public health researchers on investigations of risk factors and health among elderly Chinese.

Dr. Steve Hodges, a pediatric urologist who practices in Winston-Salem, NC, is a leading expert when it comes to children and issues related to toilet training, bedwetting and constipation. His own published research shows that children trained before age 2 have a much higher risk of having accidents compared to those trained later and are more likely to become habitual holders of their pee and poop, which can lead to issues with constipation. Hodges can discuss how today's today’s modern parents feel societal and financial pressure to toilet train their children before they are developmentally and physically ready. In his opinion, few children are ready to be fully toilet trained before the age of 3. He can discuss how diet affects children's bowel systems: what goes in (food) determines what comes out (poop). A diet full of highly processed foods like crackers, chicken nuggets and hotdogs without lots of vegetables, fruits and fibers often leads to constipation. Hodges can discuss how improper poop or pee posture can affect children's ability to fully eliminate: When it comes to pooping, it’s not enough to have a cute little seat in place because a “squatting” position improves childrens’ ability to fully eliminate. They need to sit on the toilet with their feet on a tall stool, leaning forward, elbows on knees. And, he can address how parents and caregivers should not ASK if their child has to go to the bathroom because they will likely say NO because they don’t want to stop whatever activity they are involved in. Instead, children should be directed to attempt to pee about every two hours and should be encouraged in a way that works for them individually. When children hold their pee at this young age, this actually leads to smaller bladder capacity which can lead to problems like bedwetting.

“I don’t predict a hurricane season. If a hurricane makes landfall near where you live, that is an active season for you,” says URI Professor of Oceanography Isaac Ginis. Yet predicting the severity of a hurricane can mean the difference between life and death, which is why Ginis makes it his business to predict the power of these ferocious storms. He developed a computer model so successful it was adopted by the National Weather Service. As one of the few scientists worldwide to show the role the ocean plays in hurricanes, Ginis essentially proved that ocean temperature is the most important factor in hurricane intensity and power. Ginis’s research efforts have resulted in pioneering advances in modeling of the tropical cyclone-ocean interactions that have led to significant improvements in hurricane intensity forecast skills. His research group has contributed to the development of the Hurricane Weather Research Forecast model used by the U.S. National Hurricane Center and Joint Typhoon Warning Center for operational forecasting of tropical cyclones in all ocean basins. One of his team’s most recent projects, the Rhode Island Coastal Hazards, Analysis, Modeling and Prediction (RI-CHAMP) system, advances storm model capabilities and develops a real-time hazard and impact prediction system for hurricanes and nor'easters in Southern New England. The system provides actionable information to decision makers in helping to prepare for a storm. When it comes to forecasting hurricanes, the focus is usually on more tropical locales. However, Ginis says, “the farther they move to the north, the more complex they become.”

Dr. Donald Anderson is the Director, U.S. National Office for Harmful Algal Blooms and a Senior Scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. His lab studies species of toxic algae responsible for disrupting human and ecosystem health. While some of these organisms create the phenomena commonly known as 鈥渞ed tides,鈥� others can be less visible while still causing illness. From the Caribbean to the Arctic, his team is working
to understand the factors that drive these harmful algal bloom (HAB) events. Lab: https://www2.whoi.edu/site/andersonlab/