CityState : Q & A l by Lauren Clem
Paula Bontempi
The dean of URI ’ s Graduate School of Oceanography talks climate change , the Blue Economy and UFOs .
As a young doctoral student at the University of Rhode Island , Paula Bontempi never imagined her passion for the sea would launch a career among the stars . After a brief turn in academia , the professional oceanographer embarked on a two-decade career at NASA , where she oversaw scientific research using satellites and became acting deputy director of the Earth Science Division . In 2020 , Bontempi returned to her alma mater , this time to serve as dean of URI ’ s Graduate School of Oceanography . With an overhaul supported by $ 145 million worth of bonds underway at the Bay Campus and a regional class research vessel due to arrive next year , Bontempi sat down with Rhode Island Monthly to discuss her Hollywood-worthy past and the changing forces shaping URI ’ s future .
Where did your passion for oceanography begin ? The story goes that I was probably five when I turned to my parents . We were watching some game show like “ Let ’ s Make a Deal ” one night , and I said that I wanted to be an oceanographer . I remember my mom being really angry and making this stern face and my father was elated . Right before I defended my dissertation , I was talking to my parents about it and my father was like , ‘ Well , you know my whole family on both sides as far back as we can go in Italy are all commercial fishermen .’ My dad explained they were in Italy , they emigrated , they lost a lot of people at sea and his mother was like , ‘ You ’ re all going to America where you can be safe and not be commercial fishermen and find jobs and a livelihood .’ And my mom was just upset because she had lived through the Great Depression as the youngest of six and she wanted us to find careers where we could take care of ourselves and she wouldn ’ t have to worry . And of course , the irony is my mother is still alive at ninety-four years old and still worries about everything and still is disbelieving that you can make a living as an oceanographer .
What does an oceanographer do at NASA ? NASA has an Earth Science Division that uses the unique vantage point of space and Earth-observing satellites to look at different properties of the Earth . And we can look at the atmosphere and the ocean and the land and other geophysical processes , and we can look at ice , and volcanoes , and all sorts of amazing things . They can get a glimpse of the entire globe every two days for some of those properties , which becomes very important in understanding our Earth system and how it functions and how it ’ s changing . My field is actually called satellite remote sensing , which is the remote observation of the Earth , and then optical oceanography , or how light travels through the atmosphere and into the ocean and what happens to it and what you can use it to detail .
Tell us about the Bay Campus revitalization that ’ s underway . [ Our phase one bond ] passed [ in 2018 ] and allowed us to start down the pathway of doing our new pier . That is now complete , which enabled us to bid for and win the operation of a brand-new research vessel which will be coming online in 2025 . The pier is ready and the bids are out right now for the second part , which is a new building called the Ocean Robotics Laboratory . That will be a place where there ’ ll be office space for people who have a foot in oceanography and a foot in ocean engineering . There will be a test tank in the middle and fabrication spaces there . That ’ ll be where the faculty , students and staff come in and build new sensors , new sampling platforms , new robots and autonomous vehicles . They can test it in the test tank , and then they can test it in the Narragansett Bay , which is like our natural test laboratory out back . I ’ m excited about that because that will bring in industry and technology partners in the state . Phase two will be more renovation of existing buildings and new buildings that will revitalize a lot of the laboratory and classroom infrastructure that was built in the fifties and sixties and literally appears like a fallout shelter because that ’ s what it was built for .
What was the campus originally ? The campus history goes back to the Revolutionary War . In World War I and World War II , there were a lot of bunkers built on campus , because it ’ s such a strategic position , and you can go right up the Narragansett Bay into Provi-
This interview has been edited for length and clarity .
26 RHODE ISLAND MONTHLY l JANUARY 2024 PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF URI / ALEX DECICCIO