Skip to main content

University of Puerto Rico Closed After Hurricane Maria

The pause on campus operations, which could last a month, is just one example of the hurricane’s devastation.

Written byAshley P. Taylor
| 3 min read

Register for free to listen to this article
Listen with Speechify
0:00
3:00

FLICKR, PUERTO RICO NATIONAL GUARDUpdate (September 30): Ciencia Puerto Rico, an organization that supports Puerto Rican scientists, is coordinating efforts to aid researchers affected by Hurricane Maria. Scientists can register to offer assistance. The American Society for Cell Biology also has a database of aid offers to those affected by recent hurricanes in the U.S., and a Thomas Jefferson University neuroscientist, Tim Mosca, launched an online list of investigators willing to help. The American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology is giving $2,000 grants to students and researchers affected by Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria.

The University of Puerto Rico’s 11 campuses are closed due to the devastation after Hurricane Maria, The Chronicle of Higher Education reports.

“The whole island is without power right now, and the destruction has been catastrophic,” university communications director Joseph Martinez Huarneck, tells the Chronicle. Internet, television, radio, and cell-phone service are unstable, Huarneck adds.

Photos of the campus posted on Twitter show fallen trees littering the quads and pathways.

The university could be closed for a month, the dean of students at the Río Piedras campus Gloria Díaz Urbina tells El Vocero.

The category 4 hurricane made landfall on Wednesday (September 20) and has devastated the island. Crops are razed; pharmaceutical plants are shut down; medical facilities are in bad shape.

“We need to ...

Interested in reading more?

Become a Member of

The Scientist Logo
Receive full access to more than 35 years of archives, as well as TS Digest, digital editions of The Scientist, feature stories, and much more!
Already a member?
Add The Scientist as a preferred source on Google

Add The Scientist as a preferred Google source to see more of our trusted coverage.

Meet the Author

Related Topics

Related articles background image
August 2026 Digest cover
August 2026

Epic Fail: Sea-Monkeys Sabotage Fieldwork

When Barry Hicks set out to photograph thrombolites, thousands of unexpected visitors photobombed his underwater images.

View this Issue
Advancing Respiratory Immunity Through Tissue-Resident Memory T Cell Research

Advancing Respiratory Immunity Through Tissue-Resident Memory T Cell Research

Miltenyi
Overcoming Immunotherapy Resistance in Liver Cancer

Overcoming Immunotherapy Resistance in Liver Cancer

Axion Biosystems
Optimizing NGS Library Preparation for Reliable Sequencing Data

Optimizing NGS Library Preparation for Reliable Sequencing Data

Covaris
Using TCR Repertoire Sequencing to Advance Immunology Research

Using TCR Repertoire Sequencing to Advance Immunology Research

Miltenyi

Products

Sino Biological Logo

Sino Biological Launches SuperNuclease ® Pro with Free Trial Program

Sino Biological Logo

Sino Biological Launches Precisely Characterized Full-Length p-Tau217 Protein to Advance Next-Generation Alzheimer’s Biomarker Assay Development

A photo of a scientist placing the Resipher device on a 96-well plate.

Resipher: Continuous Live-Cell Mitochondrial Respiration Monitoring in 96-Well Plates

Lucid Scientific logo
Conceptual image of ice and frost.

The VAULT100 PRO: Inside the most advanced Stirling Ultracold ULT freezer ever built.

Stirling Ultracold logo