UMass Dartmouth Doctoral Commencement Program 2023

Board of Trustees

Stephen R. Karam, Chairman

Mary L. Burns, Vice Chair ’84, Lowell

Bethany C. Berry

David M. Brunelle

Gerald G. Colella ’78, Lowell

Jose M. Delgado ’18, Amherst

Michael E. Dooley

Robert Epstein ’67, Amherst

Richard M. Kelleher ’73, Amherst

Mina T. Lam

Adam M. Lechowicz ’22, Amherst

Robert Lewis, Jr.

Ann M. Maguire Keches ’73, Amherst

Michael V. O’Brien ’88, Amherst

Noreen C. Okwara, M.D. ’12, Boston; ’17, Chan Medical School

Imari K. Paris Jeffries, BA, MEd, MA ’97, ’99, ’03, Boston

Julie M. Ramos Gagliardi, MBA ’87, Dartmouth

Elizabeth D. Scheibel, JD ’99, Boston

Steven A. Tolman

Patrick Tutwiler, PhD

Maxwell D. White ’23

Charles F. Wu, MBA

UMass Dartmouth Mission

UMass Dartmouth distinguishes itself as a vibrant, public research university dedicated to engaged learning and innovative research resulting in personal and lifelong student success. The University serves as an intellectual catalyst for economic, social, and cultural transformation on a global, national, and regional scale.

UMass Dartmouth Vision

UMass Dartmouth will be a globally recognized premier research university committed to inclusion, access, advancement of knowledge, student success, and community enrichment.

Land Acknowledgement Statement

UMass Dartmouth acknowledges the land that we occupy and on which we sit today as the traditional and ancestral home of the Wampanoag tribes, including: the Mashpee, Nauset, Nantucket, Pennacook, Pokanoket, Pocasset, Seaconke, and other indigenous nations of Southeast Massachusetts. Without them, we would not have access to this gathering and to this dialogue. We take this opportunity to thank and honor the original caretakers of this land.

The permanent record kept in the Office of the University Registrar for each student will certify the award of degree and carry their grades, averages, and honors (if any). At commencement, students graduating with distinction are noted only if that distinction has been earned at the end of the previous semester.

The names appearing in the Commencement Program represent an unofficial listing of candidates.

The University of Massachusetts is committed to a policy of equal opportunity without regard to race, color, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, age, sexual orientation, national origin, ancestry, disability, military status, or genetic information in employment, admission to, and participation in academic programs, activities, and services, and the selection of vendors who provide services or products to the University.

History of the University

The University of Massachusetts Dartmouth traces its roots to 1895 when the state Legislature chartered the New Bedford Textile School and the Bradford Durfee Textile School in Fall River.

As the region’s economic base shifted from textiles to more diverse manufacturing and service industries, the colleges adapted by diversifying their curricula to respond to the needs of new generations of students. By the middle of the 20th century, the colleges grew rapidly, spurred by the GI Bill and the emerging economic and social advantages of a well-educated citizenry. They evolved into multipurpose institutions that prepared engineers, health care workers, teachers, and business leaders.

In 1962, the Legislature created Southeastern Massachusetts Technological Institute (SMTI) by merging the New Bedford Textile School and the Bradford Durfee Textile School, the first in a series of mergers and acquisitions that form the current day University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. The 710-acre campus in Dartmouth, located between the urban centers of New Bedford and Fall River, was created in 1964. The dramatic campus design was the work of renowned architect Paul Rudolph, then Dean of the Yale University School of Art and Architecture.

The public demand for a comprehensive university provided the momentum in 1969 to transform SMTI into Southeastern Massachusetts University. The University continued to grow through the 1970s when its first residence halls were opened and through the 1980s as research and studio facilities were added. In 1988, the Dion Science and Engineering Building opened, as well as the Cedar Dell Townhouse Complex.

Also in 1988, the Swain School of Design in New Bedford merged with the University’s College of Visual and Performing Arts, strengthening programs in art and artisanry. The Swain merger added downtown New Bedford art facilities to the University.

In 1991, Southeastern Massachusetts University and the University of Lowell joined the University of Massachusetts, which already had campuses in Amherst, Boston, and Worcester. Thus, Southeastern Massachusetts University became the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth.

In 1994, UMass Dartmouth received approval to offer its first Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering. In 1997, construction was completed on the School for Marine Science and Technology, located on 2.6 acres in New Bedford, near Buzzards Bay.

In 2001, the University opened the College of Visual and Performing Arts’ Star Store facility in downtown New Bedford, a structure transformed from a landmark department store into a vibrant arts center located in the city’s historic district. That same year, the University opened the Advanced Technology and Manufacturing Center in Fall River. The 60,000 square foot research center and business incubator facility, now called the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE), currently houses a major pharmaceutical firm, 20 start-up technology companies, prototype shops, conference space and laboratories. Several companies have graduated from the CIE, creating jobs in the region.

In 2002, the University began a major expansion of student housing, growing to 4,500 beds in 2005. This made the University a predominantly residential campus. In 2004, the University opened a new Charlton College

of Business building, and recently added a Charlton Learning Pavilion wing. In 2007, the University opened a 22,000 square foot research building, focusing on interdisciplinary science initiatives.

In 2010, the University opened its School of Law, the only public law school in Massachusetts. The school has since earned national American Bar Association accreditation. A major renovation and expansion of the 160,000 square foot Claire T. Carney Library was completed in 2013. The project more than doubled the use of the library by students and won numerous architecture awards for bringing a modern approach to Rudolph’s vision.

Throughout its history, the University has been a national leader in civic engagement, and in 2013 earned a national top 20 ranking among nearly 800 institutions ranked by the Corporation for National Community Service.

In 2016, the University achieved formal doctoral institution status when the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education designated the university as a “Doctoral University–Higher Research Activity.” The University remains the only

Massachusetts research university located south of Boston.

In 2018, the University broke ground on a housing and dining complex designed to transform the student living and learning experience on campus. The 1,200-bed housing complex is also home to technology-equipped maker spaces where students collaborate on group projects, soundproof music practice spaces, and two computer learning commons. Attached to the Balsam and Spruce Halls is the 800-seat dining facility called The Grove. This marketplace concept expanded food options in response to students’ needs and expectations. The complex was opened to students in the fall of 2020.

In recognition of the University’s mission fulfillment, U.S. News & World Report ranked the University #69 in the nation, #2 in Massachusetts, and #3 in New England on their 2023 Top Performers on Social Mobility list. The ranking analyzes institutions that are more successful than others at advancing social mobility by enrolling and graduating large proportions of low-income students awarded Pell Grants.

Academic Regalia

The University of Massachusetts Dartmouth and other contemporary institutions of higher learning evolved historically from the great medieval universities in Europe such as those in Bologna, founded in 1088, Oxford in 1167, and Cambridge in 1209.

Originally, the university was a guild of Masters of Arts, and the degree was the token that full membership had been attained. Even as, after “serving his time,” an apprentice was licensed to practice his trade or “master,” so the Master of Arts was certified by his superiors and admitted to the practice of instruction and, therefore, the ceremony marking the occasion was known as “Commencement.”

The term “Bachelor” originally designated a man who was assistant to a small landowner and in medieval times denoted the apprentice as opposed to the master workman. It is uncertain when the title of “Doctor” was established as a degree superior to that of “Master,” but at Bologna it was conferred in Law in the 12th century, and Paris awarded the degree in Divinity about the same time. There is mention of the “Doctors of the different Faculties” at Oxford in 1184, so that the term was evidently used as a title for those possessing the highest degree of learning soon after the establishment of the first universities.

At that time, everyone–men and women, royalty and commoners–wore gowns; that is, long, full-flowing robes, and the king himself decreed what quality apparel might be worn by whom. After about 1600 they were rarely worn by men other than legal and official personages.

The hood first appeared as a separate article of attire in the 13th century, but by 1600 it, like the gown, ceased to be worn at all except by legal, official, academic, and clerical personages.

During the early years of the medieval universities, scholars wore the same general type of clothing as everyone else: gowns, cloaks with hoods attached, or separate hoods and caps. After a while, details of scholars’ apparel were prescribed by university statutes to distinguish the faculties as well as the different degrees of learning. When the fashions of the people changed, scholars kept

the original styles both because they were prescribed by university statutes and “because it is honourable and in accordance with reason that clerks to whom God has given an advantage over the lay folk in their adornments within, should likewise differ from the lay folk outwardly in dress.”

In today’s academic procession, the regalia not only contribute pageantry and color, but denote the academic status of their wearers. The cap, or mortarboard, is worn by all academics upon occasion; but only those who hold an academic degree wear the tassel to their left, and only those who hold the Doctor’s degree are permitted tassels of gold.

Gowns are of three basic patterns: (a) the Bachelor’s gown, of unadorned black and with long pointed sleeves; (b) the Master’s gown, unadorned black but with an oblong sleeve, open at the wrist, square cut with an arc cut away; and (c) the Doctor’s gown, velvet-faced, with bell-shaped sleeves and bars of velvet on each sleeve.

Hoods are of two shapes and lengths, also corresponding to the degree held by the wearer. Their binding or trim is colored to indicate the department or faculty to which the degree pertains, while the lining is decorated in the colors and arrangement characteristic of the institution which awarded the degree.

It should be noted that some institutions depart to a lesser or greater degree from these general rules in the design and execution of their academic regalia.

Hood Colors Fields

White Humanities, Liberal Arts

Orange Engineering

Apricot Nursing

Gold Sciences

Peacock Blue Public Policy

Light Blue Education

Dark Blue PhD Degrees –all fields

Light Brown Business

Brown Art

Purple Law

The Chancellor’s Chain of Office

The Mace

The Chancellor’s Chain of Office, designed and created by College of Visual and Performing Arts faculty, reflects the rich history of the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth as well as the current array of its diverse Schools and Colleges. Visually inspired by campus architect Paul Rudolph’s original vision, the Chain of Office incorporates modern contemporary lines echoing the University’s commitment to the future.

The official University seal, the seals of the University’s predecessor institutions, and emblems of the eight existing Schools and Colleges are represented in the medals comprising the chain, which was created of cast bronze and plated in 24-karat gold.

Professors Alan Burton Thompson and Susan Hamlet of the Artisanry Department combined cutting edge computer technology and the oldest of technologies, the hand, to create the chain, which was constructed of more than 60 individual pieces. Full-time Lecturer Charlotte Hamlin of the Textile Design/Fiber Arts program fashioned the blue velvet backing. Full-time Lecturer Reuben Foat of Artisanry’s Furniture Design program assisted in the production process.

The 3-D design software and printer used to create the chain was recently purchased for the College and is now being used to teach digital fabrication classes to undergraduate and graduate students.

The mace, once a terrible instrument of medieval close combat, has come to symbolize the power and authority of an appointed or anointed leader. Many universities, eager to engage in the medieval pageantry reflecting the origins of our earliest universities, have adapted the mace as a ceremonial staff borne at the head of processions traditionally marking the beginning of convocation and commencement.

The University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Mace, created by Richard Creighton, Professor of Fine Arts, is the gift of the late Vice Chancellor for Student Services Emeritus, Celestino Macedo, and the late Special Assistant to the President, Norman Zalkind LHD ’81.

Class of 2023 Ceremony

Commencement

The Commencement ceremony represents the culmination of years of hard work for students who are receiving degrees.

During the Commencement, the name of each graduate is read. The degrees are conferred after all names have been read. Please do not detract from the dignity of the ceremony and the enjoyment of other participants and their guests by leaving before the ceremony is completed.

The Academic Procession

The Students

The Faculty

The Chancellor’s Cabinet and Deans

The Chancellor

Order of Exercises

Student Procession

The audience is requested to remain seated until after the processional has been completed.

National Anthem

Kianna Wilson ’24

Welcome

Mark A. Fuller, PhD Chancellor

Student Address

Marilyn Naeem ’23

Honorary Degree Presentation

Jessie Little Doe Baird

Loretta “Lee” Blake

Mark Dion

Conferring of Degrees in Course

Hanchen Huang, PhD

Provost & Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs

Recessional

Student Speaker

Marilyn Naeem

Marilyn Naeem will be receiving her Ph.D. in Chemistry. Originally from Pakistan, she received two bachelor’s degrees from Kinnaird College for Women, Lahore, and Punjab University, Lahore, and a Master’s Degree from Forman Christian College, Lahore, in Inorganic Chemistry before moving to New York City from Pakistan in 2015.

After arriving at UMass Dartmouth in 2018, Marilyn became a highly productive and valued member of Dr. David Manke’s research laboratory. Initially, her research focused on designing novel inorganic ligand sets. Marilyn then shifted her research to synthesizing biologically relevant organic molecules, which led to reporting the first crystal structure of freebase serotonin.

During her five years at UMass Dartmouth, she represented the graduate students as the Vice President, former Secretary, and a Senator of the College of Arts and Sciences in the Graduate Student Senate. She also served as the graduate representative on the Search Committees for Vice Chancellor and Associate Vice Chancellor of Students Affairs. In addition to being a recipient of multiple awards and serving as a panelist to promote graduate studies, she has also presented scientific talks and posters at national forums, including national meetings of the American Chemical Society (ACS), and was the proud first prize winner of the UMassD Three Minute Thesis Competition in 2022.

Currently a member of the Northeastern Section Younger Chemists Committee and ACS Women Chemists Committee, she is passionate about promoting science among under-represented communities throughout her professional career.

Honorary Degree Recipients

Jessie Little Doe Baird

Jessie Little Doe Baird is a Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe citizen and linguist who is working toward reclamation of her once-silent language of heritage and working with her people to restore a vital piece of cultural clarity. The use of Wôpanâak language brings cultural understanding and philosophy not found in English. Wôpanâak, the Algonquian language of her ancestors, was spoken by tens of thousands of people in southeastern New England when 17th century Puritan missionaries learned the language and taught the Wampanoag to read English, encouraged Wampanoag speakers to write Wampanoag using the Roman alphabet, and to translate the King James Bible under the supervision of missionary John Eliot. As a result, this Bible and other religious texts, as well as many personal letters, deeds, and wills written by Wampanoag were all that remained of the language by the middle of the 18th century. Due to dispossession of Wampanoag territory and laws restricting Wampanoag culture, the language was not spoken for six generations. Determined to answer the call of a Wampanoag prophesy and reclaim the language, Baird founded the Wôpanâak Language Reclamation Project, an intertribal effort that aims to return fluency to the Wampanoag Nation. She undertook graduate training in linguistics and language pedagogy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she worked with the late Kenneth Hale, a scholar of indigenous languages, to decipher grammatical patterns and compile vocabulary lists from archival Wampanoag documents.

By turning to related Algonquian languages for guidance with pronunciation and grammar, this collaboration resulted in the undertaking of a wordlist by Baird in 1996. That wordlist that has become a 12,000-word Wampanoag-English dictionary, which MIT Professor Norvin Richards began working on in 2001 and that he and the Wampanoag community continues to develop into an essential resource for students of the language. In addition to achieving fluency herself, Baird has adapted her scholarly work into accessible teaching materials for adults and children for a range of educational programs—after-school classes for youth, beginning and advanced courses for youth and adults, and summer immersion camps for all ages—with the goal of establishing a broad base of Wampanoag speakers. Through painstaking research, dedicated teaching, and contributions to other groups struggling with language preservation, Baird is reclaiming the rich linguistic traditions of indigenous peoples and preserving precious links to our nation’s complex past.

Jessie Little Doe Baird received an M.Sc. (2000) from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She has served as the co-founder and lead linguist of the Wôpanâak Language Reclamation Project serving the Assonet Band, the Herring Pond, Gay Head Aquinnah, and Mashpee Wampanoag Tribes in Massachusetts, since 1993.

Honorary Degree Recipients

Loretta “Lee” Blake is an educator and president of the New Bedford Historical Society. She has spent much of her life raising awareness about Black history, and the important role New Bedford played in the Underground Railroad in the 1800s. Born and raised in New Bedford, she began to organize students in her high school in the late 1960s, and demanded African American studies classes and African American afterschool programs, so that students could connect to their own identity and have positive images of Black people.

Blake attended UMass Amherst and UMass Dartmouth in the early 70’s and was a member of only the second UMass class to integrate. While still a student at UMass, Lee was one of the founding members of the New Bedford Women’s Center in 1973, where she worked to share information on free women’s health services and birth control throughout the region. After graduation, Blake’s first job was teaching African American studies classes at her former high school in New Bedford. After four years, she moved to New York, where she first worked to integrate the construction unions, and then was appointed Executive Director of the Mayor’s Office of Educational Services in the administration of Mayor David N. Dinkins. There she coordinated education initiatives and served as the liaison to the Board of Education, City University and the New York State Board of Higher Education.

She returned to New Bedford in 2001, seeking more community involvement in New Bedford’s development. For the last eight years, Blake has been President of the New Bedford Historical Society, working with other organizations to make sure that voices from all corners of this richly diverse community are heard through events and preserving New Bedford’s history for people of color. Blake has worked to ensure that the Society proactively supports multicultural and multi-racial history that reflects New Bedford’s African American, Native American, and Cape Verdean communities.

The National Endowment for the Humanities has awarded the New Bedford Historical Society five grants relating to the city’s history with the Underground Railroad and Frederick Douglass. In partnership with UMass Dartmouth, the New Bedford Historical Society has hosted several summer workshops for approximately 400 teachers from around the country to learn about the Underground Railroad from the maritime perspective. Blake led the creation of a movable campus using historical sites in New Bedford, including its Quaker meeting house, the New Bedford Whaling Museum.

Loretta “Lee” Blake

Honorary Degree Recipients

Mark Dion

Mark Dion was born in New Bedford, Massachusetts, in 1961. He received a BFA in 1986 and an honorary doctorate in 2003 from the University of Hartford, School of Art, Connecticut. Dion’s work examines the ways in which dominant ideologies and public institutions shape our understanding of history, knowledge, and the natural world. “The job of the artist,” he says, “is to go against the grain of dominant culture, to challenge perception and convention.” Appropriating archaeological, field, biological and other scientific methods of collecting, ordering, and exhibiting objects, Dion creates works that question the distinctions between “objective” (“rational”) scientific methods and “subjective” (“irrational”) influences.

The artist’s spectacular and often fantastical curiosity cabinets, modeled on Wunderkabinetts of the sixteenth century, exalt atypical orderings of objects and specimens. By locating the roots of environmental politics and public policy in the construction of knowledge about nature, Mark Dion questions the authoritative role of the scientific voice in contemporary society, by tracking how ideology and pseudoscience creep into scientific discourse.

He has received numerous awards, including a Guggenheim Fellowship (2019). Dion has had major exhibitions at Miami Art Museum (2006); the Museum of Modern Art, New York (2004); the Institute of Contemporary Art Boston (2017); and Tate Gallery, London (1999). He is the co-director of Mildred’s Land an innovative visual art education and residency program in Beach Lake, Pennsylvania. Dion lives with his wife and frequent collaborator Dana Sherwood in Copake, New York, and works worldwide.

College of Arts & Sciences

College of Engineering

Robert T. Jones, PhD, BA ’96

Dean

Doctor of Philosophy

Chemistry and Biochemistry

Reem Alshehry Advisor: Sivappa Rasapalli

Marilyn Naeem Advisor: David R. Manke

Shyam Kumar Pahari Advisor: Patrick J. Cappillino

Benjoe Rey Baguio Visayas Advisor: Maricris L. Mayes

Doctor of Philosophy

Engineering & Applied Science

Richard Bellizzi

Co-Advisors: Alfa Heryudono & Yanlai Chen

Christopher John Hixenbaugh Advisor: Alfa Heryudono

Rebecca Marie Pereira

Co-Advisors: Yanlai Chen & Bo Dong

Doctor of Philosophy

Luso-Afro-Brazilian Studies & Theory

Jaqueline Ristau Advisor: Gláucia Silva

Doctor of Philosophy

Mathematics Education

Robert Joseph Nanna Advisor: Chandra Orrill

Doctor of Philosophy

STEM Education

Zarina Gearty Advisor: Chandra Orrill

Due to publication deadlines and the evolving status of many prospective graduates, errors and omissions may have occurred. Being listed here has no bearing on a student’s official graduation status. If a name has been misspelled, misplaced, or wrongly omitted, please email graduation@umassd.edu

Jean VanderGheynst, PhD Dean

Doctor of Philosophy

Electrical Engineering

Anthony Fascia Advisor: Dayalan P. Kasilingam

Doctor of Philosophy

Electrical Engineering/Computer Engineering

Chencheng Zhou Advisor: Liudong Xing

Doctor of Philosophy

Engineering & Applied Science

Venkata Sukumar Gurugubelli Advisor: Hua Fang

Venkata Suhas Maringanti Advisor: Vanni Bucci

Ashok Vardhan Raja Advisor: Jiawei Yuan

College of Nursing & Health Sciences

Kimberly Christopher, PhD Dean

Doctor of Philosophy

Biomedical Engineering & Biotechnology

Allison J Helme Advisor: Frank J. Scarano

Doctor of Nursing Practice

Alice Karanu Advisor: Shannon Avery-Desmarais

Tabby W Kinyanjui Advisor: Christine A. Fournier Bell

Melissa Jacqueline Martin Advisor: Monika Schuler

Daniel R. Simoneau Advisor: Ashley Manzotti

Doctor of Nursing Practice

Adult - Gerontology Nurse PractitionerPrimary Care

Christine Elizabeth Guillen Advisor: Christine A. Fournier Bell

Erin Lee Jachimczyk Advisor: Monika Schuler

Rebecca Lynn Pereira Advisor: Shannon Avery-Desmarais

Evelyn Pereira Salvador Advisor: Ashley Manzotti

Doctor of Nursing Practice

Psychiatric & Mental Health Nurse Practitioner

Katherine Anne Orlowski Advisor: Monika Schuler

Kerri Jean Sullivan Advisor: Ashley Manzotti

Doctor of Philosophy Nursing

Gerri-Lyn Boyden Advisor: Maryellen Brisbois

Joyce Helene Cadorette Advisor: Mary K. McCurry

Kiley Medeiros Advisor: Elizabeth Chin

School for Marine Science & Technology

Jean VanderGheynst, PhD Dean

Doctor of Philosophy

Marine Science - Marine and Atmospheric System Modeling & Analysis

Filipe Pereira dos Santos

Co-Advisors: Ilson Carlos Almeida da Silveira & Amit Tandon

Adrienne M Silver Advisor: Avijit Gangopadhyay

Lu Wang Advisor: Changsheng Chen

Congratulations from the UMass Dartmouth Alumni Association!

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See you back on campus for Blue & Gold Weekend, October 20-21