University community invited to Night at the Newport Gulls

Members of the University community are invited to join alumni, parents and friends for Salve Regina’s Night at the Newport Gulls on Monday, July 22. This annual event celebrates the longtime partnership between the University and the Newport Gulls and highlights local students and graduates who learn, lead and make a difference.

Opening ceremonies begin at 6:15 p.m. and the game starts at 6:35 p.m. as the Gulls take on the Ocean State Waves at historic Cardines Field.

Several members of the Salve Regina community will participate in the evening’s festivities. Dr. Kelli J. Armstrong, Salve Regina’s eighth president who officially began her duties at the beginning of this month, will throw out the first pitch along with her husband and sons. Also throwing out the first pitch is Angela Augusta ’19, who was diagnosed with Hodgkin lymphoma shortly after graduation.

Zara Hendrickson, daughter of Kristine Hendrickson, associate vice president for university relations and chief communications officer, will deliver the game ball to the starting pitcher. Social work major Cierra Vincente ’20 will sing the national anthem, and children of Salve Regina faculty and staff will appear during the opening ceremonies as baseball buddies. Read More

Making Progress in Puerto Rico

Designer Karla López Rivera 04 FD is among the residents of Puerto Rico who are working to pull the US territory out of a crippling, long-term recession. Even before Hurricane Maria hit in September 2017 and left the island literally powerless to rebuild, local businesses were navigating a debt crisis that caused many to close up shop.

But now Puerto Rican startups are on the rise, and Isleñas (Islander), the socially responsible footwear company López launched after returning to the island in 2018, is among them.

“Maria really pushed the decision for me to move back,” López says. “I’d been away for 14 years [but] I had those feelings of urgency to come back and help.”Read More

Providence College science research helps save the life of a woman in England

A 17-year-old woman from England was cured of a life-threatening, drug-resistant infection after being treated with a virus scooped from the soil at Providence College, isolated and purified by students in a laboratory, and genetically modified by a professor on sabbatical.

It was a worldwide medical breakthrough — the first successful use of a genetically modified virus to treat a drug-resistant infection — and was made possible, in part, by the work of Dr. Kathleen A. Cornely, professor of chemistry, and the students she co-taught in a class with Rev. Nicanor Austriaco, O.P., professor of biology and of theology.

“It was exciting to be part of this phage therapy project and wonderful to know that the patient is doing well,” Cornely said. “We offered the research course at PC in the hope that we might find a phage that could one day treat tuberculosis. To have success so quickly is just amazing.”

Dr. Kathleen A. Cornely, professor of chemistry, teaching in her laboratory. At right is Colby Agostino '22, one of her phage researchers. At left is Jared DiBella '22.
Dr. Kathleen A. Cornely, professor of chemistry, teaching in her laboratory. At right is Colby Agostino ’22, one of her phage researchers. At left is Jared DiBella ’22.

In late 2017, Isabelle Holdaway, who lives in Kent, England, and has cystic fibrosis, was dying from an infection after a double lung transplant. Her mother appealed to her doctor at Great Ormond Street Hospital in London to try an approach she read about on the internet — the use of phages, bacteria-killing viruses, to treat drug-resistant infections.

The physician turned to the University of Pittsburgh, where Dr. Graham Hatfull maintains a collection of 15,000 mycobacterial phages, the largest in the world — a collection that includes ZoeJ, a phage collected from soil under a tree near Harkins Hall in September 2012 by R. Seth Pinches ’16. Read More

JWU Launches Rhode Island’s First Entry-Level Occupational Therapy Doctorate Program

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — June 17, 2019 – Johnson & Wales University (JWU) is expanding its presence and influence in the health arena by offering the first entry-level Occupational Therapy Doctorate (OTD) program in Rhode Island. The university welcomed its first student cohort to campus on June 10 to begin the full-time, 36-month program.

“As Johnson & Wales University explored a larger presence in the healthcare market, the institution heard directly from industry of the growing need for more occupational therapists,” said Ann Burkhardt, founding director, Occupational Therapy Doctorate Program, College of Health & Wellness. “With input from industry leaders, we designed a program with diversity of access to inter-professional partners, a broader view of health and wellness as it affects quality of life, and real life experiences to push the borders of practice to be more inclusive. Our graduates will have the knowledge, skills, and experience to propose, design, develop and grow practices to better meet the needs of people across the lifespan and to change care delivery for the shifting demographic of consumers of care.”