Earlier this month, Dennis Nixon was named director of the Rhode Island Sea Grant, one of 32 programs that make up the National Sea Grant College Program, which is administered by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Nixon spends much of his life near the ocean. As a longtime Jamestown resident, Nixon is never more than minutes away from Narragansett Bay. As associate dean of the University of Rhode Island’s Graduate School of Oceanography, he is just as close to the waves when he’s in his office. Nixon has been teaching at the University of Rhode Island for 37 years.