Across ITS teams, student employees play a vital role in helping the University of Rhode Island deliver exceptional support and services. As the academic year comes to a close, we’re proud to celebrate the achievements of our graduating student workers from the Service Desk, Networking, Endpoint Support, and beyond. Their contributions have left a lasting mark – and we’re excited to see what’s next for each of them!

photo of anthany pellicone in front of a classroom of adult learners

Anthony Pellicone — Cloud and IT Infrastructure & Innovation
Anthony Pellicone contributed to the rollout of LibreChat and helped modernize core account systems, significantly improving performance and user experience across URI systems.

Read Anthony’s Story

Elizabeth Pauley — Research Computing
Elizabeth Pauley supported students and faculty with statistical tools and data analysis, helping advance research across the URI community while completing her Ph.D.

Read Elizabeth’s Story

Celebrating the Achievements of Our ITS Community Services Graduates — Class of May 2026

ITS Community Services proudly recognizes 27 outstanding student employees graduating in May 2026. Throughout their time with us, these students served on the front lines of IT support, helping ensure the University’s technology environment remained reliable, accessible, and ready for learning.

Excellence in Service

As frontline support specialists, our graduates:

  • Assisted students, faculty, and staff with day-to-day technology needs
  • Helped maintain classroom media and essential IT devices
  • Responded to issues quickly and professionally, keeping campus technology running smoothly

Their work allowed faculty and students to stay focused on what matters most: teaching, learning, research, and student success.

Achievements Beyond the Workplace

In addition to their service in Community Services, these students excelled in their academic programs and co-curricular experiences, including:

  • Hack@URI — showcasing technical skill, collaboration, and creativity
  • Ambassador roles in their majors — helping guide peers and strengthen academic communities
  • Energy Fellows Program — tackling real-world sustainability and energy challenges

These accomplishments reflect their dedication not only to their roles, but also to their growth as scholars, innovators, and leaders.

A Proud Moment

We celebrate their commitment, resilience, and contributions to the university. Their efforts helped create a supportive, efficient, and forward-looking technology environment, and their impact will continue long after graduation.

Congratulations to the ITS Community Services Class of 2026.
Your achievements inspire us, and we look forward to seeing what you accomplish next.

Endpoint Support (3)

photo of Mani Subramani

Manikandan Subramani — Consultant
Manikandan is a Computer Science student with a minor in Cybersecurity, focused on building secure and practical systems. In his role with ITS, he supported endpoint provisioning and device compliance across campus. He also conducted cybersecurity research with CDAC in Bangalore, contributing to work on the IEEE P2989 authentication standard. His experience includes serving as a Teaching Assistant for Network and Systems Security and developing projects across infrastructure, cloud, and applied AI.

David Rodov — Consultant
David worked as an Endpoint Support Technician while pursuing his B.S. in Electrical Engineering, alongside an internship as a Computer Engineer at Software of America. There, he worked on Kubernetes infrastructure, CI/CD pipelines (continuous integration and continuous delivery), and backend development in Go. After graduating, he plans to pursue an engineering role that combines his hardware and software experience.

photo of ryan jensen

Ryan Jensen — Graduate Assistant
Ryan Jensen completed both his undergraduate and graduate cybersecurity degrees in five years, graduating summa cum laude. He was selected for the CyberCorps: Scholarship for Service program and earned CompTIA Security+ and Network+ certifications. Ryan also served as team captain for multiple collegiate cybersecurity competitions and was part of the first URI team to reach the regional rounds of the Northeast Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition (NECCDC) in 2025.

AV (9)

  • Isabella Anelundi — Technician
  • Kairy Gonzalez — Technician
  • Erin O’Neill — Technician
  • Alexis Klein — Technician
  • Drew Larivee — Team Leader
  • Hannah Crupi — Technician
  • Ryan Arruda — Team Leader
  • Matthew Bolduc — Technician
  • Paolo Montelbano — Technician

Service Desk (15)

  • Paul A. Peralta Mordan — Advanced Senior Consultant
    Future plans: pursuing a career in software engineering or a related field
  • Kacper Kurowski — Team Leader
    Kacper earned first place at Hack@URI (Ocean’s Venture track), developed Service Desk training materials, and was named to the Dean’s List every semester. He plans to work with URI’s Department of Sustainability to expand his Living Labs project while continuing to build his skills toward a career in product development.
  • Kevin Jegede — Advanced Senior Consultant
  • Badhan Hasan — Advanced Senior Consultant
  • Megan Hebert — Advanced Senior Consultant
  • Selena Cabral — Senior Consultant
  • Victor Paulino — Senior Consultant
  • Gary Rose-Petruck — Consultant
  • Mehak Malik — Consultant
  • Jordan Melnick — Consultant
  • Snaha Pokharel — Team Leader
  • Jaymond Lei — Team Leader
  • Edwin Hernandez-Zanella — Team Leader
  • Adriana Abby — Team Leader
  • Jason Fopiano — Consultant

Networking (2)

  • Riley Taylor — Team Leader
  • Jacob Pierce — Team Leader

Student Spotlight: Elizabeth Pauley

Elizabeth Pauley has been a valued member of the Research Computing team at URI Information Technology Services, supporting students, faculty, and researchers across the university.

During her time with ITS, Elizabeth played a key role in supporting statistical software tools such as R and SPSS, helping ensure that courses and research projects ran smoothly. She supported large-scale software installations for classes with hundreds of students and provided guidance to those working on theses and dissertations, helping them navigate complex data analysis challenges.

Her work combined technical expertise with a strong commitment to helping others. Elizabeth became a trusted resource for the research community, offering thoughtful, approachable support that helped students and faculty move forward with confidence.

Elizabeth recently completed her Ph.D. in Behavioral Science in Psychology, a significant achievement that reflects the same dedication and rigor she brought to her work at ITS.

Her contributions have had a lasting impact on research and teaching at URI, and we look forward to seeing what she accomplishes next.

Research Computing Team
URI Information Technology Services

photo of anthony pellicone in front of a classroom of adult learners

Anthony Pellicone, a graduating senior in Computer Science, has made a remarkable impact at URI Information Technology Services since joining the team in fall 2024. In just a few semesters, his contributions have touched nearly every corner of ITS, from flagship platform deployments to foundational infrastructure improvements.
Anthony played a central role in the initial rollout of LibreChat, URI’s generative AI chat platform, and has continued to support its growth through ongoing updates and operational maintenance. The platform now serves nearly 1,000 users and processes more than 5,000 messages per week, reflecting both its value to the URI community and the reliability of the work behind it.

One of his most significant technical contributions was co-authoring a complete rewrite of the process that synchronizes user accounts from PeopleSoft into downstream systems, including Active Directory, Google, Single Sign-On, and Brightspace. The previous process took up to 12 hours to run, could only execute once per day, and left users waiting as long as 48 hours to see changes take effect. The new system completes in minutes. Launched in January 2025, this improvement translates to an estimated 120,000 fewer hours of cumulative end-user waiting per year.

What sets Anthony apart is not only the scale of his technical work, but how he approaches it. He is known for his professionalism, clear communication, and genuine approachability—equally at ease debugging complex systems and explaining them to non-technical colleagues. He also supported users navigating generative AI tools and co-led a workshop for the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI), where he answered questions on cybersecurity and password management in the age of AI.

“My work with ITS at URI has exposed me to a variety of opportunities and interesting projects. Collaborating with supervisors and receiving feedback has given me invaluable insight into what it means to be an effective team member and make meaningful contributions. The freedom to experiment with different technologies, explore modern tools, and research best practices has greatly improved my problem-solving skills and my ability to adapt to new challenges.”
Anthony Pellicone


After graduating in May, Anthony will continue at URI through the Cybersecurity ABM program. ITS wishes him well and looks forward to seeing what he accomplishes next.

Chi Shen
Primary Supervisor, Associate Director of Cloud and IT Infrastructure

Karen Lokey
Associate Director of Innovation

We’re proud to recognize the dedication and service of our ITS team members who reached major career milestones this year. Thank you for everything you bring to the University of Rhode Island—your contributions make a lasting impact.

45 Years

  • Theresa Wild — Service Desk, Community Services

15 Years

  • John Ahern – Enterprise Applications
  • David Simeone – Enterprise Applications

10 Years

  • Tim Klatt – Telecommunications, Community Services
  • Chi Shen – Cloud and IT Infrastructure

5 Years

  • Michelle Rogers – Teaching and Learning Services

Congratulations to all!

Madhu successfully defends his PhD dissertation!

We’re thrilled to report that the former long-time member of the AI Lab, Madhukara Kekulandara, has successfully passed his PhD dissertation defense!

Congratulations, Dr. Madhu Kekulandara!

Indrani Mandal and Gaurav Khanna from the IACR along with CIO Gabriele Fariello were invited to present at the State House for a meeting of the Senate Committee on AI and Emerging Tech. The topics where:

  • AI demos, Q&A [Indrani Mandal, 30 minutes]
  • URI plans on AI workforce development programs [Indrani Mandal, 5 minutes]
  • HPC Infrastructure [Gaurav Khanna, 10 minutes]
  • AI@URI [Video]

A full recording of the session is available here: https://capitoltvri.cablecast.tv/show/11713

An Audio-Technica case study spotlights how URI’s ITS team modernized audiovisual systems in over 150 learning spaces—improving hybrid learning experiences and supporting more flexible, connected classrooms.

The story highlights our collaborative approach to campus-wide AV design, led by ITS in partnership with faculty, facilities, and academic leadership.

Read the full article