I am the Principal Investigator and Project Director for the recently awarded NSF EPSCoR Track 1 award to create the Rhode Island Consortium for Coastal Ecology Assessment, Innovation, and Modeling (RI C-AIM). Coastal issues drive our consortium. In addition to broad interests relating to research, workforce development, and education pertinent to RI C-AIM, I am personally interested in research related to oil spill mitigation, environmental sensor development for coastal ecosystems, and emerging pollutants plaguing coastal waters including fluorinated compounds, nanomaterials, and microplastics.