The speaker for the undergraduate ceremony, Jamie E. Long, left, and the speaker for the graduate ceremony, Jacqueline B. Vo.Summer commencement ceremonies at the University of Alabama at Birmingham will be held Aug. 10 and 11, with an estimated 1,650 students expected to graduate. About 900 will participate in the university’s ceremonies.
A doctoral hooding and commencement ceremony for nearly all graduate programs will be held at 6 p.m. Friday, Aug. 10, in Bartow Arena. Students receiving master’s degrees now receive their diplomas with the doctoral candidates. For summer 2018, the UAB Graduate School will confer the university’s highest degrees on 98 students from 22 states and eight countries in 46 disciplines; approximately 68 will participate in the ceremony. For the Friday evening ceremony, the mace will be carried by Endowed Professor of Polar and Marine Biology James B. McClintock, Ph.D. McClintock is the inaugural recipient of the 2018 SCAR Medal for Education and Communication, awarded by the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research for his decades-long educational efforts emphasizing Antarctic climate change and impacts on marine biology.
Undergraduate diplomas will be awarded to students in a university ceremony at 9:30 a.m. Saturday, Aug. 11, in Bartow Arena. The mace will be carried by Professor of Art History Heather McPherson, Ph.D., the 2018 recipient of the Ireland Prize for Scholarly Distinction, presented annually by the College of Arts and Sciences to a faculty member for professional and academic achievements and contributions to the university and local community.
A to-do list for graduates, as well as information for guests, is available on the commencement website. Tickets are not required; but seating for the ceremonies are first come, first served. Bartow Arena doors will open one hour prior to each ceremony. University officials recommend guests leave nonessential bags at home or in the car. The ceremonies will be livestreamed on the UAB Facebook page. The ceremonies also will be recorded and added online for viewing at www.uab.edu/commencement about a week after the ceremonies.
The speaker for the graduate ceremony will be Jacqueline B. Vo of Springville. She is graduating with a Doctor of Philosophy degree in nursing, under the mentorship of Karen Meneses, Ph.D., R.N., FAAN. Her doctoral study is supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Future of Nursing Scholars Program, UAB School of Nursing Scholarship and the Susan G. Komen Graduate Training in Disparities Research. Additionally, Vo received funding from the American Cancer Society Doctoral Degree Scholarship in Cancer Nursing for her dissertation, titled “Cardiovascular Disease Risk Among Breast Cancer Survivors.” She graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in nursing from UAB in 2014.
Vo’s postdoctoral fellowship into the National Cancer Institute Cancer Prevention Fellowship Program began in June. This is a four-year postdoctoral fellowship in which she will train in cancer prevention and control. During the first year of the postdoctoral fellowship, she will pursue a Master of Public Health degree with a concentration in quantitative methods at Harvard University. In summer 2019, she will relocate to Rockville, Maryland, to complete her postdoctoral fellowship at the NCI, where she will collaborate with interdisciplinary scientists from the NCI and throughout the National Institutes of Health. Her research will focus on cardiotoxicity as a result of cancer treatment and health disparities in medically underserved cancer populations.
The speaker for the undergraduate ceremony will be Jamie E. Long of Arab. She is graduating with a Bachelor of Science degree in nursing. Long is in the UAB Honors College’s University Honors Program. While at UAB she was president (2017-2018), vice president (2015-2017) and public relations chair (2014-2015) of the Alabama Student Rural Health Association, and membership director of the Student Nurses’ Association (2017-2018).
Long has worked throughout the pursuit of her degree gaining valuable clinical experience, most recently at Shelby Baptist Medical Center in Labor and Delivery. She has also worked in various areas at UAB Hospital, Veterans Administration Medical Center, Princeton Baptist Medical Center, St. Vincent’s Health System, Children’s Hospital of Alabama, Brookwood Baptist Medical Center and Fair Haven Retirement Community. After graduation, Long will work on the Hospitalist I unit at UAB Hospital. She plans to return to UAB to obtain her Master of Nursing degree with future plans to serve rural Alabama as a family nurse practitioner.