Table of Contents
- Letter from the President
- Letter from the Dean
- Schedule of Celebrations
- Department of Economics
- Departments of English and History
- Government, International Relations and Global Studies
- College of Liberal Arts Combined
- Department of Mexican American and Latina/o Studies
- Plan II Honors
- Dean's Distinguished Graduates
- Undergraduate Degree Candidates
Mission of the College of Liberal Arts
In the College of Liberal Arts, we teach students to think critically and independently so they can thrive in the world beyond campus. We are dedicated to promoting cutting-edge research that helps people better understand human history, society, and culture.
By providing students a strong foundation in the humanities and social sciences, we serve as a model in education and intellectual excellence for other universities. Our distinguished faculty is committed to teaching and to developing the best academic programs available in their fields. And our graduates must be able to read analytically, write cogently, and speak persuasively.
We do this in an atmosphere that fosters fellowship and understanding among students, faculty, and the administration. With a large and diverse student body, we recognize the importance of respecting students as individuals with unique needs, goals, and challenges.
In all courses and programs, we emphasize ethics, integrity, citizenship, and awareness of global issues. Students learn to assume personal responsibility for their actions, while they develop self-reliance and a passion for life-long learning. The College guides the lives of its students by fostering creativity, leadership, and service to community and nation.
Letter from the President
Dear Graduate,
As we welcome you to your convocation, I hope you feel the excitement and pride that comes from successfully completing a goal through hard work, self-discovery, and determination. Your degree from The University of Texas is a significant accomplishment and, today, you will be awarded a well-earned UT diploma.
At one of the top universities in the world, you studied with amazing professors, learned alongside brilliant students, and challenged yourself and others. Your diploma is a symbol of academic success, but it represents much more; it connects you to your time on the Forty Acres, while linking you to Longhorn Nation forever. Remember the friendships, the mentors, and the experiences that shaped you. Carry these memories with you as you embark on the journey ahead and rely on your ability to do great and hard things. It is your turn to change the world!
Class of 2024, your perseverance is second to none, and the entire Longhorn community compliments you on your steadfastness and tenacity. Despite all the elements outside of your control, you emerged stronger and wiser. I extend my deepest congratulations to each of you, and please know that I am proud of you!
Hook 'em Horns!
Jay C. Hartzell, President, The University of Texas at Austin
Letter from the Dean
Dear Graduates,
Congratulations!
You've made it to the end. We're so proud of you. Your family and friends are so proud of you.
In the College of Liberal Arts, we pride ourselves on introducing our studetnts to the hardest and most important questions about the world and how we live in it. What is the good life? What is the structure of society? How is power attained and distributed? What is the human mind? What is language? How do people live together in a complex society? What happens when they fail to do so?
Our goal is to help equip you with the skills and knowledge you'll need to continue answering these questions as an adult. I say “continue” because your presence here at commencement means that you’ve already acquired so much knowledge and so many essential skills. You’re already quite accomplished at wrestling with the big questions.
But there is so much more to learn. So many new things to encounter and master. You will struggle. You will often fail. I can’t promise you that we’ve given you all or even most of the answers. What you’ve built here, though, is a strong foundation. You’ve proven that you can handle challenge and difficulty and complexity. You’ve proven that you can fail and grow and then succeed. You’ve proven that you can handle the real world. You can flourish in it.
I wish you the best as you continue to do so.
Hook ‘em,
Ann Huff Stevens, Dean of the College of Liberal Arts
Administrative Officers 2023-2024
Ann Huff Stevens
Dean, College of Liberal Arts
David Bruton, Jr. Regents Chair in Liberal Arts
Steven Hoelscher
Associate Dean for Academic Affairs
Robert Crosnoe
Associate Dean for Research & Graduate Studies
Mia Carter
Associate Dean for Student Affairs
Schedule of Celebrations
Thursday, May 9
6:00 PM
College of Liberal Arts
Moody Center
Friday, May 10
8:30 AM
Government, International Relations and Global Studies
Gregory Gymnasium
3:00 PM
Departments of English and History
Hogg Auditorium
Saturday, May 11
9:00 AM
Department of Economics
Gregory Gymnasium
9:00 AM
Plan II Honors
Hogg Auditorium
10:00 AM
Department of Mexican American and Latina/o Studies
William C. Powers, Jr. Student Activity Center Auditorium
Department of Economics
Saturday, May 11, 2024, at 9 a.m., Gregory Gymnasium
Thomas Wiseman, Professor and Chair
PROCESSIONAL
Marshals
Haiqing Xu | Associate Professor
Saroj Bhattarai | Associate Professor
WELCOME AND INTRODUCTIONS
Thomas Wiseman | Department Chair, Professor
KEYNOTE ADDRESS
Tony Budet
UT Economics, 2000
Consultant at Good Works Strategic Advisors
PRESENTATION OF CERTIFICATES TO DOCTORAL CANDIDATES
Presented by Robert Town | Graduate Studies Committee Chair, Professor
PRESENTATION OF CERTIFICATES TO MASTER'S CANDIDATES
Presented by Stephanie Houghton | MA Program Director, Associate Professor of Instruction
RECOGNITION OF ECONOMICS HONORS PROGRAM CANDIDATES
PRESENTATION OF CERTIFICATES TO BACHELOR CANDIDATES
Presented by
Richard Murphy | Associate Professor
Gerald Oettinger | Associate Professor
CLOSING REMARKS
RECESSIONAL
RECEPTION
ECONOMICS COMMENCEMENT RECEPTION
Saturday, May 11, 2024, at 11 a.m.
Bernard & Rapoport Audre (BRB) Lawn
You are cordially invited to attend the reception following the ceremony The reception will take place outside of BRB.
Tony C. Budet is a community leader, nonprofit sector investor, and trusted advisor to and advocate for mission-oriented organizations in Central Texas. He is a former long-tenured and accomplished credit union executive who seeks to boost performance through injection of strong culture, core values, and focused collaboration.
Tony earned a BA in Economics from The University of Texas at Austin. He served as President and Chief Executive office of University Federal Credit Union (UFCU) in Austin, Texas. He was honored by the National Credit Union Foundation as a 2024 Herb Wegner Award winner and was inducted into the Credit Union House and Credit Union Executives Society Halls of Fame in 2023. Currently, Tony serves as a consultant to Good Works Strategic Advisors partnering with and counseling executive directors of Central Texas nonprofits. He also serves as a Nexus committee member and mentor for the Austin Center for Faith and Work.
Departments of English and History
Friday, May 10, 2024, at 3 p.m., Hogg Auditorium
MUSIC
Sienna String Quartet
PROCESSIONAL
Student Marshal
Douglas Bruster
Louann and Larry Temple Centennial Professorship in English Literature
Distinguished Teaching Professor
Grand Marshal
Elizabeth Cullingford
Jane Weinert Blumberg Chair in English
Distinguished Teaching Professor
Faculty Marshal
Walter Buenger
Barbara White Stuart Centennial Professor in Texas History
WELCOME AND INTRODUCTIONS
Martha Newman
Chair, Department of History
COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS
Keith Sharman
Producer, 60 Minutes
Winner of Alfred I. duPont- Columbia Awards
University of Texas at Austin, History, Class of 1998
PRESENTATION OF SPECIAL AWARDS
English and History Faculty
RECOGNITION OF DEGREE CANDIDATES
Gerry Heng
Mildred Hajek Vacek and John Roman Vacek Chair
Bruce Hunt
Professor
CLOSING REMARKS
Martha Newman
Chair, Department of History
RECESSIONAL
Sienna String Quartet
CELEBRATORY MUSIC
Steel Pan Ensemble
This year's commencement address will be delivered by Keith Sharman. Keith Sharman is an award-winning producer for 60 Minutes in New York. He has won two Alfred I. duPont-Columbia Awards, the broadcast journalism equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize: the first for a 2006 investigation into a billion-dollar corruption scandal in the Iraqi Ministry of Defense and the second, for being part of the CBS NEWS team that covered the Newtown shootings in 2012. Keith has received twelve Emmy nominations and won his first for 60 Minutes’ coverage of the 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris.
During his 23 years at 60 Minutes / CBS NEWS, Keith has specialized in big interviews, breaking-news, economics, history, politics, sports & war. He’s produced pieces that included interviews with President Joe Biden; Vice President Kamala Harris; Secretary of State Antony Blinken; former Presidents Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush (for an obituary of President George H.W. Bush). In 2019, he produced the first interview with Crown Prince Muhammed Bin Salman of Saudi Arabia following the assassination of Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi. In 2017, he produced Congressman Steve Scalise’s first interview during his recovery from the Congressional baseball shooting.
This past February, he was part of a 60 Minutes / CBS News team that were the first journalists to cover the U.S. Navy’s response to attacks on international commercial shipping in the vital waterways of the Red Sea.
Keith has reported stories from more than twenty-five different countries, including Afghanistan, Iraq, Israel, Russia & Syria. He’s also worked with some of the biggest names in broadcast news, including Ed Bradley, Anderson Cooper, Steve Kroft, Norah O’Donnell, Scott Pelley, Lesley Stahl, and Mike Wallace.
He lives in Brooklyn, New York with his wife and two daughters.
Government, International Relations and Global Studies
Friday, May 10, 2024, at 8:30 a.m., Gregory Gymnasium
PROCESSIONAL
WELCOME AND INTRODUCTIONS
Dan Brinks
Professor and Chair
COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS
Elliott Morris
Editorial Director of Data Analytics, ABC News
SPECIAL RECOGNITIONS
Michael Anderson
Director, International Relations & Global Studies
PH.D. HOODING
PRESENTATION OF CERTIFICATES TO GRADUATES
Announced by
Bethany Albertson
Associate Professor, Department of Government
Raul Madrid
Professor, Department of Government
CLOSING REMARKS
RECESSIONAL
Elliott Morris is the Editorial Director of Data Analytics at ABC News, where he develops polling aggregation and election-forecasting models and manages the data science and visualization teams for FiveThirtyEight, a popular political analysis website. He is a regular guest on the network’s podcasts as well as its broadcast and streaming news programs, where he provides political analysis of notable events and upcoming elections.
Elliott is also the author of STRENGTH IN NUMBERS: How Polls Work and Why We Need Them, a book about public opinion polling and democracy which was published in 2022 by W. W. Norton. Elliott’s academic interests include Bayesian statistical modeling, the dynamics of public opinion during elections, why and how voters make decisions, survey sampling in eras of politically motivated nonresponse, and political theory.
From 2018 to 2023 Elliot was a Senior Data Journalist and US Correspondent for The Economist, where he covered American politics, public opinion polling, demographics, and elections — among other topics. Elliott was the lead developer of the paper’s election forecasting models, including for the US and several European and South American countries.
Elliott is a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin (2018), where he majored in Government and History and minored in Computer Science. He lives outside Washington, DC with his wife (also a proud longhorn), dog and two cats. When he’s not working he enjoys walks through the area’s plentiful trails and parks, reading a variety of non-fiction books and articles, and brainstorming his next book project. He is originally from Texas’s coastal bend.
College of Liberal Arts Combined
Thursday, May 9, 2024, at 6 p.m., Moddy Center
Faculty Procession
Welcome Remarks
Ann Huff Stevens - Dean, College of Liberal Arts
Alumni Speaker
Pete Geren, CEO & President, Sid W. Richardson Foundation
Recognition of Dean's Distinguished Graduates
Presentation of Graduates
- African and African Diaspora Studies; Race, Indigeneity & Migration Studies; Ethnic Studies
- American Studies; Urban Studies
- Anthropology
- Asian Studies; Asian American Studies; Asian Cultures and Languages
- Classical Studies; Classical Languages
- Geographical Sciences; Geography; Environmental Sciences; Sustainability Studies
- English
- Economics
- French; French Studies; Italian Studies
- European Studies; German; Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies
- Government
- Health and Society
- History
- Human Dimensions of Organizations
- Humanities
- Iberian and Latin American Languages and Cultures; Portuguese; Spanish
- International Relations and Global Studies
- Middle Eastern Studies; Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures; Jewish Studies
- Sociology
- Various COLA Majors
Student Speaker
Joshua Russell, Plan II & Rhetoric & Writing
Presentation of Graduates
- Latin American Studies
- Linguistics
- Mexican American & Latina/o Studies
- Philosophy
- Plan II Honors Program
- Religious Studies
- Rhetoric & Writing
- Women's & Gender Studies
- Psychology
Commencement Speaker
Pete Geren
CEO & President, Sid Richardson Foundation
Geren is President and CEO of the Sid W. Richardson Foundation. A native of Fort Worth, he earned his undergraduate degree in history at UT Austin and attended The University of Texas Law School. He was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives for four consecutive terms. In 2007, Geren was confirmed as the 20th Secretary of the United States Army, a post he rose to after joining the Pentagon in September 2001.
Student Speaker
Joshua Russell
Plan II & Rhetoric & Writing
Joshua, a Michigan-born Texan, is graduating with a degree in Plan II Honors and Rhetoric and Writing. During his time at UT, Joshua was committed to addressing disparities in higher education, advocating for the creation of safe and supportive writing spaces, and participating in and organizing events that focused on showcasing Black artistic expression. He’s performed at every Poetry on the Pond since its inception in 2021 and, in his final semester, received the “All We Can Save” Poetry Award.
Department of Mexican American and Latina/o Studies
Saturday, May 11, 2024, Auditorium, at 10 a.m., William C. Powers, Jr. Student Activity Center Auditorium
Karma R. Chávez, Professor and Chair
MUSIC
PROCESSIONAL
Marshal
Mary “Maggie” Rivas-Rodriguez
Professor, School of Journalism and Media
Director, Center for Mexican American Studies
WELCOME AND INTRODUCTIONS
Karma R. Chávez
Bobby and Sherri Patton Endowed Professor in Mexican American and Latina/o Studies
Chair, Department of Mexican American and Latina/o Studies
COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS
Jose Reuben Parra-Cardona
Professor and Associate Dean, Steve Hicks School of Social Work
Interim Director, Latino Research Institute
PRESENTATION OF CERTIFICATES TO GRADUATES
Announced by
Maria E. Cotera
Associate Professor and Graduate Advisor, Department of Mexican American and Latina/o Studies
Rachel V. González-Martin
Associate Professor and Undergraduate Advisor, Department of Mexican American and Latina/o Studies
CLOSING REMARKS
RECESSIONAL
Reception to follow, hosted by the Center for Mexican American Studies.
Dr. Ruben Parra-Cardona is a Professor and Associate Dean for Global Engagement at the Steve Hicks School of Social Work and the Interim Director of the Latino Research Institute.
Before coming to UT, Professor Parra-Cardona was at Michigan State University where he was an associate professor in the Department of Human Development and Family Studies, College of Social Science; and the associate director of the MSU Research Consortium on Gender-Based Violence. He was funded by NIMH to investigate the treatment efficacy and relevance of two versions of an evidence-based parenting intervention culturally adapted for Latino families with young children.
Professor Parra-Cardona is currently funded by NIDA to extend this line of research to Latino families with adolescent children. He is the recipient of the 2013 American Family Therapy Academy Early Career Award for his innovative work on cultural adaptation research.
Professor Parra-Cardona has a wealth of experience on research collaborations across the U.S.-Mexico border, and is currently vice-president of the Family Process Institute, a member of the board of directors of the Centro de Investigación Familiar (a leading family therapy institute in Mexico and in Latin America), and a clinical faculty member and researcher in the Instituto Regional de Estudios de la Familia (a leading family therapy institute in northern Mexico).
Professor Parra-Cardona completed his master’s and doctorate degrees at Texas Tech University and his bachelor’s degree at Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Occidente (ITESO), Guadalajara, México.
Plan II Honors
Saturday, May 11, 2024, at 9 a.m., Hogg Auditorium
PROCESSIONAL
1st Marshal:
Carol MacKay
Professor, Department of English
2nd Marshall:
Helena Woodard
Professor, Department of English
WELCOME AND INTRODUCTIONS
Alexandra Wettlaufer
Professor of French and Comparative Literature
Director, Plan II Honors Program
Hayden W. Head Regent's Chair
Stuart Stedman Director's Chair in Plan II
COMMENCEMENT ADDRESSES
Presentation of Plan II Chad Oliver Teaching Award
Awardee
Lito Elio Porto
Associate Professor of Instruction, Department of Spanish and Portuguese
Student Speaker
William Cotton Hearn, '24
Plan II Honors and Government
Alumni Speaker
Heidi Boutros Gesch, '04
PRESENTATION OF CERTIFICATES TO GRADUATES
Alexandra Wettlaufer
RECESSIONAL
Born in the United States to parents who emigrated from Egypt, Heidi Boutros Gesch completed her BA in Plan II Honors and Government at the University of Texas at Austin in 2004 as a Dedman Scholar, where she graduated summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, and was awarded a Truman Scholarship. She received her MPhil degree in international relations at Oxford University, where she was a Marshall Scholar and selected as a Goldman Sachs Global Leader.
She completed her JD at Yale University, where she was a Fellow of the Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans, a merit-based fellowship exclusively for immigrants and children of immigrants who are pursuing graduate school in the United States.
While still an undergraduate, Heidi wrote a country report for the UN World Conference against racism, interned with the International Justice Mission in India, worked on the Milosevic trial at the International Criminal Tribunal in The Hague, and investigated prison conditions in Russia for the Moscow Center for Prison Reform. Her senior thesis evaluated the motives behind attacks against white farmers in post-apartheid South Africa. Before embarking on her Oxford University program, Heidi interned with the Public Defender Service of DC, investigating felonies on behalf of indigents, and later worked for the FBI, where she analyzed drug trafficking and money laundering intelligence. More recently, she has worked with USAID in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
She was previously a Trial Attorney at the U.S. Department of Justice in the Public Integrity Section, where she investigated and prosecuted public corruption crimes. She is now working for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Alexandria, VA.
Dean's Distinguished Graduates
Graduate
This year, 5 graduates in the College of Liberal Arts were designated as Dean’s Distinguished Graduates, based on high achievements in scholarship, leadership, and service to the College.
Joshua L. Crutchfield
African and African Diaspora Studies Ph.D.
Joshua L. Crutchfield is a scholar of 20th century Black freedom movements, African American women’s history, Black intellectual history, and abolition studies. He is an incoming postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Black Studies at Northwestern University. He has extensively published and presented his research, earning fellowships, awards, and prizes, while also contributing to his discipline and campus community at The University of Texas. His research has been recognized with the Harry Ransom Center UT Fellowship, the Carrie Chapman Catt Prize for Women and Politics, and the Graduate Association for African American History’s Memphis State Eight Paper Prize. He has also served as managing editor of the academic blog Black Perspectives, and as internship coordinator for the “Commemorating Student Activism: Past, Present, and Future” (CSA) project.
Faith M. Deckard
Sociology Ph.D.
Faith M. Deckard is a sociology Ph.D. graduate at The University of Texas and an incoming assistant professor at UCLA. Her research examines how marginalized communities experience, navigate, and respond to institutions like the U.S. criminal justice system. Her passion for research and teaching is rooted in her lived experience. Witnessing several family members navigate the criminal justice system made her keenly aware of the relationship between individual agency and structure and influenced her perception of education as a vehicle to increase awareness of social problems and provide people with tools to develop and enact solutions. Her research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the Russell Sage Foundation, and the Austin Branch of the American Association of University Women. At UT, she taught undergraduate students, prospective college students (via Summer Discovery), and women behind bars (via the Texas Prison Education Initiative), and she has served her department as Sociology Student Minority Liaison and Student Chair.
Austin German
Linguistics Ph.D.
Austin German is a Ph.D. graduate in Linguistics whose research focuses at the intersections of sign language typology, sociolinguistics, and language development. His research focuses on an emergent sign language, developed by several deaf siblings in an Indigenous community of southern Mexico. He received a BA in Linguistics and a BS in Cognitive Science from the University of California, San Diego in 2018. He has conducted long-term fieldwork with signers of Zinacantec Family Homesign (ZFHS), a sign language developed by three deaf siblings and their hearing extended family members in Zinacantán, an Indigenous community of southern Mexico. German has also collaborated with other scholars to produce the first ethnographic comparison of sign language socialization practices in three different Indigenous Mesoamerican communities.
Tristin Brynn Hooker
Rhetoric and Writing Ph.D.
Tristin Brynn Hooker is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Rhetoric and Writing. Her research examines the rhetoric of rare diseases at the intersection of clinical science, patient advocacy, and public policy. Her work has appeared in Rhetoric of Health and Medicine, Computers and Composition, and College Composition and Communication. Hooker studies the material and generative effects of rhetorical processes, the development and sustainability of institutions, and the transformative power of research and education, which sit at the vital intersection of clinical research, pharmaceutical regulation, patient- provider communication, and patient advocacy. Hooker has have served as an editorial assistant for Rhetoric Society Quarterly and as associate editor of Praxis: A Writing Center Journal. She also served as a member of the UWC’s graduate administrative team, and as assistant director of lower-division writing.
“Molly” Mary McNamara
Clinical Psychology Ph.D.
“Molly” Mary McNamara is receiving her Ph.D. in clinical psychology from The University of Texas at Austin and is a recipient of a Harrington Dissertation Fellowship. Her research investigates cognitive mechanisms of depression, including advanced computational approaches to understanding depression. She has accepted a postdoctoral position at Harvard Medical School McLean Hospital. While at UT, she has published nine articles and has additional manuscripts in progress. McNamara was selected to supervise her peers in UT’s graduate-level practicum course, and currently supervises practicum students at Harvard Medical School. Additionally, she led a summer workshop series to fill a clinical training gap for first-year doctoral students. She was primary mentor on two honors theses and mentored several additional undergraduates who are now pursuing advanced degrees. McNamara also provided over 1,000 hours of low/no-cost therapy to the Austin community.
Undergraduate
This year, 16 graduating seniors in the College of Liberal Arts were designated as Dean's Distinguished Graduates, based on high achievements in scholarship, leadership, and service to the College.
Eddie Lee Bankston Jr.
African and African Diaspora Studies, Humanities Honors
Eddie Lee Bankston Jr. is graduating with dual majors in African and African Diaspora Studies and Humanities Honors from The University of Texas at Austin. During his time at UT, he served a leadership role in Project SEED, guiding a team of undergraduate researchers in reviewing articles on the stress experienced by bilingual children serving as cultural intermediaries for their parents. He also worked for the Institute for Urban Policy Research and Analysis transcribing interviews on the settlement experiences of black Cubans in Miami, FL during the Civil Rights Era. Bankston is a recipient of the President’s Award for Global Learning for his investigation of racial discrimination on UK campuses while studying in London. At A New Way of Life, he wrote grants to expand their S.A.F.E housing network to Detroit, MI. While volunteering at Doug’s House in in Austin, he collaborated on a virtual scrapbook, highlighting the power of collective efforts in creating tributes amid the HIV/AIDS journey.
Megha Bhatia
Plan II Honors, Health and Society
Megha Bhatia is a Plan II Honors and Health and Society graduate. She is a mentor and coordinator for the Plan II-KIPP partnership, an Osier Lab research assistant, and a recipient of the President’s Award for Global Learning. She is passionate about challenging health inequities and advancing medical humanities as a future physician. As a leader in the undergraduate-run Osier Lab, she helped build a UT Signature Course on cultural humility in healthcare, published in a kids’ science journal, and served as onboarding officer. As program coordinator for the Plan II-KIPP partnership, she worked to connect undergraduates to young people who seek a friend to share and learn from and, in return, foster mentors’ openmindedness and self-growth. While abroad, Bhatia worked on a team building a patient-turning tool to prevent bedsores with Kenyan and UT nursing and engineering students. Through her honors thesis on the mental health of wound care nurses, she was able to contribute to the research on the subject in sub-Saharan Africa.
Mishell Magnus Ducloux
Humanities, French
Mishell Magnus Ducloux is graduating with a degree in Humanities and French. She plans on teaching English in France and pursuing either law or linguistics. As the first in her immigrant family to receive a degree in the United States, she is driven to pave the way for her younger siblings, and her move from Mexico to Austin has inspired much of her studies, research, and service. Ducloux has tutored refugee children in a local home, using her French and Spanish there, and has helped Afghan families apply for re-parole and Dreamers for DACA. Her experiences culminated in a large-scale research project that seeks ways to better serve Hispanic students and to enhance the linguistic ecology on campus. After graduating, she plan to teach English in France and then pursue a degree in either law or linguistics.
Neerul Gupta
Rhetoric and Writing, Psychology Honors
Neerul Gupta is a Dedman Distinguished Scholar and Liberal Arts Honors student, graduating with degrees in Rhetoric and Writing and Psychology Honors. While earning her degrees at UT Austin, Gupta received two fellowships at leading Texas research centers, presented at two national conferences, earned multiple awards, and published an article in Psychology Today. Gupta had initially planned to pursue a Ph.D. in clinical psychology, but instead fell in love with the storytelling aspects of psychology. Now an aspiring copywriter, she worked as a content writer for the School of Design and Creative Technologies and an editor at Spark magazine. After graduating, Gupta plans to teach English in Madrid.
Brooke E. Jordan
Psychology
Brooke E. Jordan graduated with a bachelor's in Psychology and minor in Health Communication. As a peer mentor, teaching assistant, and research assistant, she completed her honors thesis examining developmental learning trajectories. Jordan worked as a uRA, piloting an experiment for an external investigator and leading a team of eight uRAs and as a senior lead PACE Mentor. She concurrently served as a TA for two courses and also worked as a COLA front desk associate. She now works at Brown University as a joint-laboratory manager of three research labs.
Noor M. Khan
International Relations & Global Studies
Noor M. Khan is graduating with degrees in International Relations & Global Studies with minors and certificates in Asian American Studies, Global Management, and Business Spanish. She loves engaging with AAPI and other minority group communities through art, social justice activism, and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) work. An instance of Islamophobia she faced as a child led to her interest in different cultures and her academic concentrations, which provided her with vocabulary to understand her experiences and histories and the desire to help others feel seen. Academically, Khan pursued a capstone project on acculturation and served as an intercultural competency trainer. Professionally, she served as a DEI intern at Texas Instruments. She has exhibited poetry on South Asian America throughout Austin and organized events with the Center for Asian American Studies, planning its first community iftar. She looks forward to a professional focus on DEI.
Amara Kwiatkowski
Government
Amara Kwiatkowski is graduating with a degree in Government. She has worked with the Center for Community Engagement and served as editor-inchief of Texas Orator, a multi-partisan publication, throughout her time at UT. She also served as chair in the Community Engagement Collective (CEC), leading members in organizing The Project, UT’s largest day of service, and Alternative Breaks (AB), a spring break community service trip. She completed an independent research project on voting rights and racial disparities in Austin and acted as a research apprentice on the Mapping Violence project, investigating the problematic history of elections in Texas. Kwiatkowski hopes to pursue a career as a political science researcher and professor, studying contentious politics.
Nina Mbonu
Plan II Honors, Human Development & Family Sciences
Nina Mbonu is a Dedman Scholar and premedical student majoring in Plan II Honors and Human Development & Family Sciences. She has volunteered at St. David’s Medical Center and served as a TA for Plan II’s Pathways to Civic Engagement. Her time at UT has been largely inspired by her identity as a Nigerian immigrant, her passion for service-oriented leadership, and her desire to work in global pediatric medicine. As a freshman, she worked as an RA for the Origins Project, contributing to the research and development of a human fossil database and co-authoring a paper published in the Journal of Human Evolution. Mbonu is currently an RA for Project TAURUS, a study researching the impact of racial discrimination on health, where she is researching the impact of parent-child conflict on adolescent anxiety in immigrant vs. non-immigrant households. As a Student Counselor for Dell Medical School, she mentored students from underrepresented backgrounds. She also served as an intern at People’s Community Clinic and a bedtime reader at Helping Hand Home for Children.
Samuel Mills
International Relations & Global Studies, Asian Studies
Samuel Mills is graduating with dual degrees in International Relations and Global Studies and Asian Studies with a focus on modern Korean history. He has staffed conferences through Central Texas Model UN and competed on the collegiate circuit across North America. He has conducted research through an undergraduate-led think tank, Global Macro Team, and through the many hours working in archives to produce his undergraduate thesis. Mills looks forward to enrolling in graduate school with the goal of earning a Ph.D. in history and a career in academia.
Morgan Pace
Government
Morgan Pace is graduating with a degree in Government. During her time at UT Austin, she has played on the Texas soccer team and served as president of the National Black Law Student Association, Alpha Kappa Alpha, and the Black President's Leadership Council. She is the recipient of the annual Sharon H Justice Leadership Scholarship. As president of the National Black Law Student Association, she has discovered that learning is a tool for empowerment. As the President of Delta Xi chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Incorporated, she leads a group of women in their mission to provide service to all mankind. They have broken barriers in the community for decades and Pace was honored to continue to carry this legacy. As the co-chair of the Black President's Leadership Council, Pace embraced the opportunity to guide Black leaders on campus.
Marco A. Pevia
Spanish, Linguistics
Marco A. Pevia is graduating with degrees in Spanish and Linguistics and a minor in Portuguese. As a Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellow, his research focused on the impact of Heritage Spanish instruction on the linguistic and social anxieties of Heritage Spanish speakers. This research also informs his Spanish Honors thesis. As a McNair Scholar, Pevia's work interrogated the usage of Black English by Latinx speakers at his own community high school in Texas. He has received support from the Longhorn Center for Academic Equity, which has motivated his work as a mentor in the First-Gen Longhorns program. In this position, he mentored ten first-year, first-generation college students. After graduating from UT, Pevia will pursue a Ph.D. in Hispanic Linguistics at the University of California, Los Angeles and eventually seek a tenure-track position at a research university, continuing to support heritage students.
Ingrid Piña
Humanities Honors
Ingrid Piña has received supported from the Dedman Distinguished Scholars Program, the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship Program, and the Humanities Honors Program. She researches Venezuelan migration, writes poetry, and practices videography. She serves as head chef at Pearl St. Co-op. After completing various communications internships for U.S. Department of State offices, and after studying in Mexico when the Title 42 policy was extended to Venezuelan migrants without warning, Piña conducted independent research on how migrants and U.S. federal offices communicate online. She is graduating with a degree from the Humanities Honors Program, where she designed her own course plan encompassing research and interests in the arts. Piña was accepted to the MFA Poetry program at Johns Hopkins, with full funding, and plans to pursue a Ph.D. in Visual Anthropology following the MFA.
Kimia Pourebrahim
Humanities Honors
Kimia Pourebrahim is graduating with a degree in Humanities Honors with a course of study focused on Immigrant and Refugee Health. She served as a leadership member and clinical volunteer for the C.D. Doyle Free Clinic and Health Careers Mentorship Program and biked from Texas to Alaska to advocate for cancer prevention. As a future physician, Kimia is devoted to advancing accessible health education. Her experience as a first-generation Iranian immigrant in Belgium and the United States drove her passion for improving health education for refugee communities. Able to speak Farsi and engage meaningfully with Afghan culture, Pourebrahim designed and facilitated culturally adapted cancer education workshops for Afghan refugee women in Austin. Collaborating with the Livestrong Cancer Institute, she is coordinating free mammograms and pap-smears for the women she's guided for the past year. She looks forward to pursuing a career as a refugee healthcare provider.
Olivia Richert
Environmental Science, Government
Olivia Richert is graduating with degrees in Environmental Science and Government and will be attending law school in August with a passion for energy law. She is an alumna of the Archer Fellowship Program and currently works at Tesla as an energy and charging policy intern. Richert cites her impressive physical height as a source of empowerment, motivating her commitment to public service and to alleviating the gender imbalance in government. As a staunch environmentalist, her long-term goal is to assume a leadership role at a federal agency to drive systemic shifts toward a climate-friendly power grid. In preparation, she has pursued internships at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Tesla.
Ritesh Soule
History
Ritesh Soule is graduating with a degree in History with a Pre-Health Professions certificate. At UT, he researched the history of medicine and the social determinants of health through his honors thesis and through volunteering in organizations such as Dell Med HLA, Dell Seton Medical Center, Micah 6. At Dell Med HLA, Soule helped the unhoused find resources at C.D. Doyle Clinic and track health funding in Austin in the 1960s through the Model Cities Champions group. After graduation, Ritesh will matriculate to medical school.
Cameron Waltz
Asian Studies, International Relations, Chinese, Government
Cameron Waltz is a Dedman Distinguished Scholar and an aspiring policymaker in U.S.-China relations. While at UT, Waltz took on four majors to examine the bilateral U.S.-China relationship from as many perspectives as possible. He studied abroad three times and achieved fluency in Chinese and intermediate proficiency in Korean. As an intern—and later junior fellow—at the Bush China Foundation, Waltz co-authored several reports and op-eds on U.S.-China affairs. He wrote an Asian Studies honors thesis investigating the process of Taiwanese foreign policymaking and how it might shape U.S.-China security ties in the coming decades. As an undergraduate fellow at the Clements Center, he organized UT's first Undergraduate National Security Thesis Symposium, which united students across disciplines to share their policy-relevant research. As editor-in-chief of the Intercollegiate U.S.-China Journal, he helped expand the staff from four students to 23, spread across both countries. As vice president of Liberal Arts Council, Waltz worked with Associate Dean Carter to develop best practices to protect COLA students' well-being and privacy amid online learning.
Dean's Distinguished Graduates Honorable Mention
The 2024 Dean's Distinguished Graduates Honorable Mention recipients are:
Undergraduate
- Alexander Vu, Economics
- Chloe Brownlow, Health and Society
- Emily Lawitz, Religious Studies, Middle Eastern Studies
- Grace Ann Arulanandam, Italian Studies
- Kaya Stiffel, Psychology
- Keziah Reina, Linguistics
- Mary Michael, Sustainability Studies
- Mimi Calzada, Rhetoric and Writing
- Monica Olivo, Mexican American and Latina/o Studies
- Nathan Silverstein, Government
- Olivia Green, American Studies, History, Liberal Arts Honors
- Rachel Chen, Sociology, Psychology, Liberal Arts Honors
- Sara Apostol, Humanities
- Simon Gerst, Jewish Studies, German, Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies
- Tanya Velazquez, Latin American Studies
- Zander Vasquez, Sociology, Psychology
- Zoe Alvarez, History, Government, Liberal Arts Honors
Ph.D.
- Arianna Avalle, Italian Studies
- Andra Bailard, Comparative Literature
- Keith Padraic Chew, Government
- Ashley Garcia, History
- Emily Martin, French
Undergraduate Degree Candidates
Degrees and honors listed are only projections. Actual degrees conferred and honors earned will be determined after final grades are submitted.