On Saturday, May 14, 2011, more than 350 Heinz College graduates were awarded diplomas and five graduates received doctoral degrees at the college’s annual Commencement ceremony. [ VIDEO LINK ] This ceremony marked an important milestone for the college, as it was the first time graduates from both schools (School of Information Systems and Management and the School of Public Policy and Management) shared one commencement event. The unified event highlighted the collective success of our students and the collaborative environment that is cultivated at Heinz College.
Lisa Briggs (MEIM ’11) opened the ceremony with the singing of the national anthem. Dr. Craig Barrett, Retired CEO/Chairman of Intel Corporation, gave the keynote address and inspired graduates using fortune cookie adages. Jose Frech (MSPPM ’11) had the honor of sharing his thoughts, reflections and inspiration with his colleagues as the student speaker. The ceremony closed with an inspiring charge from Professor Wil Gorr.
In addition to the awarding of diplomas, there were a number of awards presented at these ceremonies to honor the accomplishments of the graduates, faculty, and staff. At the ceremony the following awards were presented: Rocco Pacella (MPM ‘11) was awarded the Student Leadership Award; Jose Pedro Undurraga (MISM ‘11) was recognized for his performance with the Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award; Brett Wiewiora (MSPPM ‘11) was honored with the Barbara Jenkins Award for his service to the Heinz College and the Pittsburgh communities; RaShall Brackney (MPM ‘11) was presented with the Otto A Davis Award to recognize her commitment to social and racial justice; Glenn Molzer was honored with the Staff Excellence Award; Wil Gorr received the Martcia Wade Teaching Award.
Two new Heinz College awards were presented to doctoral students to recognize outstanding first and second papers that our doctoral candidates write in advance of their dissertation. Yan Huang was awarded the inaugural Suresh Konda First PhD Research Paper Award for her paper entitled, "A Structural Model of Employee Behavioral Dynamics in Enterprise Social Media." The inaugural George T. Duncan Second PhD Research Paper Award was presented to Yu-Chieh Hsu for her paper entitled, "Estimating Black-White Mortality Differences by State of Birth Using Census and Vital Statistics Data: A Simple GMM Approach."
Kiminori Nakamura received his Doctor of Philosophy in Public Policy and Management and was awarded the William W. Cooper Dissertation Award. This great honor is awarded annually at Carnegie Mellon University to a doctoral dissertation that deals with issues and problems in management or management science and has a strong applications orientation with accompanying theoretical or methodological developments. His dissertation is titled, “Redemption in the Face of Stale Criminal Records Used in Background Checks.”
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Commencement Photography by:
