URI Unveils Ocean Robotics Laboratory With An Underwater Ribbon Cutting Ceremony

The University of Rhode Island (URI) celebrated the opening of its new Ocean Robotics Laboratory on June 25, 2026, through an underwater ribbon-cutting ceremony inside the facility’s new test tank.

URI undergraduate student Elliot Roman and PhD candidate Jake Bonney piloted the university’s remotely operated vehicle (ROV), named Rhody, to cut the ribbon.

Several rubber ducks were dropped into the 20-foot-wide, 30-foot-long pool to the applause of hundreds of attendees.

Dignitaries at the event included Rhode Island Governor Dan McKee, House Speaker Emeritus K. Joseph Shekarchi, and URI President Marc Parlange.

The launch of the laboratory marks a crucial achievement in the ongoing, multi-phase $300 million revitalisation of the Narragansett Bay Campus.

Funding for the infrastructure was backed by residents through two bond referenda totalling $145 million.

The new two-story facility boasts a 5,000-square-foot staging area, 8 primary labs, and 8 secondary labs designed to scale up or down based on project demands.

It also features a 10-ton crane and two 800-square-foot fabrication shops.

This enables researchers to focus not just on research and development, but on deploying complex sensing instruments and marine robots to survive in the deep ocean before they are taken out to the sea.

State leaders and URI officials emphasised that the facility will act as an incubator for the regional “blue economy.”

Reports indicicate that there are 60,000 available jobs in the ocean-dependent economic sector, hence the lab would establish a direct conduit between top academic minds and private industry, ensuring that talent remain local to the region.