LUZZI

WESTERLY — Louis Luzzi, the retired long-serving dean of the University of Rhode Island’s College of Pharmacy, died at the Veterans Administration Medical Center, Providence, on Friday. He was 74.

Through his work at the university and his early research into developing drug-delivery systems and micro-encapsulation, Luzzi made a name for himself in the medical world in Rhode Island and beyond, according to his wife of 54 years.

Luzzi was the second dean at the College of Pharmacy and served for more than 20 years, retiring in 2001 after a long career that built relationships with the Rhode Island hospitals and pharmacies — where his students worked — and generated millions of dollars in donations to the college. He was a consultant to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, served on the Rhode Island Cancer Council, and was awarded the Rhode Island Governor’s Science and Technology Award, Joyce Luzzi said.

When Luzzi retired as dean, he returned to the faculty as the first person to hold the Ernest Mario Distinguished Chair in Pharmaceuticals. He retired from URI four years ago, Mrs. Luzzi said.

Luzzi had also been a medical corpsman in the Coast Guard, worked at Abbott Laboratories and taught at colleges in other states, but he returned to Westerly, where he was born and raised and met his wife, and to the University of Rhode Island, where he earned three degrees. “He was really a Rhode Islander at heart,” Mrs. Luzzi said.

He is survived by his wife and their two daughters, and a granddaughter — all graduates of the University of Rhode Island.

Funeral arrangements were not available yesterday.