Research at RWU

RWU Faculty, staff, and students are deeply engaged with research at the cutting edge of biology and marine science and technology as well as legal and policy issues around marine affairs. Many of these activities are externally sponsored through research grants from government agencies and departments, private foundations, and corporations.  The science and policy have impact on local, regional, and national interests in sustainability, economics, and society.

As a cross-cutting research area, sustainability and environmental research is conducted throughout the University in its schools, centers, and University college.  Faculty and students work on problems across a range of disciplines including architecture, engineering, construction management, business, law, politics, and culture.  These efforts continue to grow to meet the important needs of our ecology and environment in the 21st century.

Opportunities for innovation and technology research are becoming increasingly available at RWU.  There is an entrepreneurial spirit throughout the University to solve problems using innovative solutions to technical problems, social needs, or educational challenges.  Projects include open educational resources, cybersecurity programs, maker spaces, and virtual learning.

At RWU, research in the area of law and justice studies ranges from civil liberties, constitutional law, national security, international trade, indigenous people’s law, interviewing and interrogation, smart policing initiatives, and reducing gun violence through integrated evidence sharing. Undergraduate and graduate students work with Faculty investigators on these projects, several funded externally including the Department of Justice and state and local police agencies.

Faculty, students, and staff across disciplines at RWU are engaged in public humanities and arts projects that make underrepresented stories and groups in our region, our country, and around the globe. These investigations have inclusive narratives that include the spoken, the written, the visual, the theatrical, and the embodied. Projects have ranged from “Hidden Truths: Stories of Race and Place Lecture Series” to “Providence Truth and Reconciliation Process” to “Rhode Island Slave History Medallion Project Research.”