Online Graduate Ceremony • Friday, May 8 Message from the Graduate Dean
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Online Graduate Ceremony • Friday, May 8 Message from the Graduate Dean Dear Graduates, Families, and Friends, ongratulations to the Graduate Class of 2020! Your achievements are significant and praiseworthy and certainly deserve celebration even though we cannot gather together for the Graduate Commencement ceremony. You have spent Ccountless hours in classes, libraries, laboratories, field sites, archives and performance spac- es, to learn and excel in your field of study. With your professors and classmates, you have learned the foundations of your discipline, asked new questions, and looked at problems in ways that others had not previously considered. You have gained technical expertise, created works of art, designed experiments, and contributed to understandings of the human con- dition and the world in which we all live. Yet, this year, more than ever before, we must acknowledge the sacrifices you have made and the challenges that lie before us. This year we have witnessed dramatic changes on our campus, in Massachusetts and around the world as individuals and societies confront this terrible pandemic. I know that I speak on behalf of everyone in the Graduate School when I tell you that we are all thinking of you and your loved ones and we wish you health and strength for the days ahead. As you move on from graduate school, no matter your field of study, I hope that your time at UMass has given you the skills, knowledge and resilience to face what lies ahead. I hope that you are able to find moments of peace and beauty even in this time of uncertainty and strain. Whether your future leads you to work in education, scientific research, public policy, urban design, artistic production, finance, or social service, and no matter where in the world you go, I hope that you can draw on both the knowledge you gained and the relationships you built while you were a graduate student at UMass. I wish you the very best and I look forward to the day when we can celebrate your achievements in person. Contents Sincerely, Award Recipients .........................................1 Doctoral Degree Recipients ....................... 4 Master’s Degree Recipients ...................... 14 Barbara Krauthamer Graduate Certificate Recipients .............. 24 Senior Vice Provost Educational Specialists ............................. 25 Dean of the Graduate School Graduate Program Directors .................... 26 Professor of History Commonwealth and University Officials .................................................. 27 Award Recipients understanding of how the research fits into the overarching conceptu- DISTINGUISHED GRADUATE MENTORS al architecture of the students’ fields. Warren is always willing to read, comment, and edit her student’s research designs, grant applications, Mentoring is a crucial skill for any faculty member who works with and publications in detail. As an advisor, Warren walks an exemplary graduate students. Excellent mentors both provide effective instruction line between providing support and fostering independence. inside the classroom and enrich their students’ lives in the larger world. They spend countless hours inspiring, advising, nurturing, and challeng- John Higginson (Professor, Department of History) is a historian of ing students, ensuring their intellectual and professional development. modern Africa with a particular focus on colonial and postcolonial Beyond that, they often help students balance the parallel needs of southern Africa. His survey courses on African history have trained academic accomplishment and personal fulfillment. Three outstanding dozens and dozens of graduate student teaching assistants in the faculty mentors are being recognized today. complexities of engaging students in the study of colonialism, slavery, and ongoing processes of decolonization in the southern hemisphere. Asha Nadkarni’s (Associate Professor and Director of American Courses such as History of Africa Since 1500 and Power and Violence Studies) research and teaching interests include postcolonial literature in South Africa have inspired graduate students with no prior interest and theory, transnational feminist theory, empire studies, and Asian in African history to complete MA and PhD fields with Higginson. American studies, with an emphasis on the literatures and cultures of Moreover, he has taught graduate students in the mandatory seminar the South Asian diaspora. Her book, Eugenic Feminism: Reproductive for incoming graduate students, Introduction to History, and has Nationalism in the United States and India (University of Minnesota taught Global Historiography virtually every Fall, thus supplying Press, 2014), traces connections between U.S. and Indian nationalist coursework for one of the core tracks in our graduate curricu- feminisms to suggest that both launch their claims to feminist lum--Global History. A common theme among Higginson’s students citizenship based on modernist constructions of the reproductive is how he embodies the mission that diversity matters at UMass body as the origin of the nation. She is working on a second book Amherst, as he has striven over the years to mentor graduate students, project, tentatively titled From Opium to Outsourcing, that focuses especially graduate students of color. Students describe Higginson as a on representations of South Asian labor in a global context. Nad- brilliant, dedicated mentor who encourages them to do their best. He karni joined the English Department in 2006, receiving tenure and helps them reach their potential by providing meaningful feedback promotion in 2014. She began serving on comprehensive-exam and and also by pushing them to think carefully and critically about the dissertation committees during her first year in the department, and material. Higginson is truly a treasure to the students he supports and the extent of that service has steadily grown in the intervening years. the history department. He is capable of communicating to students In total, since 2006 she has directed nine dissertations and served as regardless of where they are from, by identifying with their interests a member on eight more dissertation committees. Nadkarni fiercely and creating a rapport with them. His generous spirit and genuine and consistently advocates for graduate students in the English De- concern for students make him a model mentor. partment. Her scholarship continues to inspire by modelling ways of thinking about the paradox of the indispensability and dispensabili- ty of the reproductive body. Paige Warren (Professor, Department of Environmental Conver- sation) seeks to understand processes generating and maintaining biological diversity in a world that is becoming increasingly domi- nated by humans. Her research in the lab spans species, community and landscape levels and focuses on the impacts of urbanization on animals. Rapid urbanization is one of the greatest challenges facing conservation biology, with many cities growing in area faster than in population. The highly managed nature of a city landscape provides biologists unique opportunities to understand both the role of humans in altering patterns of biological diversity and the role of behavior in limiting animal distributions. A guiding principle for Warren’s research is that the typical indices of urbanization, such as human population density, describe only a portion of the habitat structure that is important for wildlife. Human behaviors, values, and resource consumption levels can influence the habitat and re- source availability for birds and other organisms. Warren wholly in- vests in the success and career development of the graduate students in her lab, as well as graduate students in the Department of Organ- ismic & Evolutionary Biology. It is no accident that her lab has an unusual amount of National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship recipients. She works continuously with her students to develop the details and methods of research, and a comprehensive 1 AWARD RECIPIENTS DISTINGUISHED TEACHING ASSISTANTS DISTINGUISHED GRADUATE STAFF This year we honor two graduate students who have provided exemplary This award recognizes the indispensable role staff members play in classroom instruction. Chosen from representatives of every department supporting the university’s graduate teaching mission. Staff members are on campus, they have been widely praised by the students and alumni essential to the smooth operation of every graduate program across cam- for their abilities to communicate, motivate, and inspire. pus. They help implement the curriculum, manage the admission pro- cess, ensure that students receive their funding in a timely manner, and Kelly N. Giles is a PhD student in the Department of Sociology at the perform many other vital administrative tasks. Equally important, they University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Her research centers the inti- frequently serve students as informal advisors, career counselors, local mate and sexual lives and experiences of Black women during their guides, cultural ambassadors, bankers, real estate agents, and relation- mid-30s to mid-50s, analyzing how they redefine, reconstruct, and ship coaches. Today we honor one such outstanding staff representative. renegotiate their ideas about love, marriage, sex, and intimacy. Addi- tionally, Giles does research which examines Black men, ages 45 to 65, Regina Bortone de Sá joined the Department of the History of Art and their relationship to masculinity, health disparities, and