URI opens new center for terrorism research

KINGSTON – School officials and local dignitaries last week unveiled the Center of Excellence in Explosives, Detection, Mitigation, Response and Characterization at the University of Rhode Island.
The university is touting the center, which is slated to bring $5.15 million to URI in the next three years, as a means to bolster its reputation as a world leader in the field of terrorism research. In a news release, URI said that the governments of Israel and the United Kingdom and domestic agencies such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), U.S. Department of Defense and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) currently rely on URI expertise.
URI researchers will be working with 21 graduate students at the outset, and by next summer they hops to have two Rhode Island elementary or secondary schoolteachers working in the laboratories of each of the URI researchers. •