Roger Williams University has launched the second year of its Blue Fellows Program, expanding the marine research fellowship from seven to 10 students and adding a new research partner in Maine.
The program, run through the university’s Center for Economic and Environmental Development, pairs undergraduates with faculty researchers and industry partners working on ocean-based projects in marine science, biotechnology and sustainable aquaculture. It is supported by a gift from marine conservationist and philanthropist Elizabeth Moore and by funding from RWU’s High School Marine Biology Camp.
“The Blue Fellows Program is workforce training for the rapidly expanding blue economy,” said Koty Sharp, director of CEED and an associate professor of marine biology. She said fellows spend the summer immersed in hands-on applied research, learning laboratory and field skills useful across a range of careers.
This year’s cohort will work on projects spanning aquaculture, blue biotechnology, marine animal disease diagnostics, microbial pharmaceuticals, and shark and fisheries science. Fellows are mentored by faculty and staff in the lab and the field and receive training in scientific communication, with some designing business plans and exploring how research discoveries can become commercial products.
The program added a new partner this year, the Bigelow Laboratory Provasoli-Guillard National Center for Marine Algae and Microbiota in East Boothbay, Maine, where two fellows will culture algae and microbes to produce commercially valuable biomaterials. Other fellows will work with CEED’s shellfish hatchery and aquaculture farm, its aquatic diagnostic and coral microbial ecology labs, the Atlantic Shark Institute monitoring biodiversity in Block Island Sound, and the Gulf Shellfish Institute in Florida.
The Blue Fellows Program is part of RWU’s Blue Solutions Institute, which connects CEED’s marine biotechnology work with entrepreneurship programming in the university’s Gabelli School of Business. Launched in 2025, the program was created to link classroom education with applied research training and strengthen Rhode Island’s blue economy workforce.
