The Fall 2022 Commencement ceremony on Friday, Dec. 16 at the Dale F. Halton Arena included degrees conferred to 1,266 doctoral, master’s and certificate students. The 6 p.m. Graduate School Commencement was one of three ceremonies hosted by the University over the weekend.
Graduate Spotlights
This year’s graduates included several stand-out students:
Ashley Acosta
M.A. in Teaching
Organizations you have been involved with during your time at Charlotte:
Kappa Delta Phi Honor Society
Why did you choose UNC Charlotte?
I chose UNC Charlotte because I connected to a person through teach.org. During a phone conversation, she recommended Charlotte. After, I researched the social media pages and the university’s website. I learned that UNC Charlotte represents a diverse setting and dedicated support system. As a distance education graduate student, it felt pleasant connecting to the college miles away.
Summarize your experience here in three words:
Life-Changing Journey
Who is your favorite professor and why?
Dr. Christy Luce is my favorite professor. Dr. Luce always provides constructive criticism with the hopes that her student takes it with love and learn from it. She sets high expectations and holds you to them. Every course that I have taken through Dr. Luce has proven meaningful. The assignments have been great resources for my classroom during these courses and after. Dr. Luce’s feedback and instruction provided me with career-long implementation from math content to differentiation content. These implementations will work well beyond my years as a UNC Charlotte graduate student.
What excites you most about applying your graduate program knowledge in your career?
Sharing the information I have learned with colleagues. As educators, we must continue to be lifelong learners, and share information. Collaboration is key in this career field.
What was your favorite or most memorable moment outside of the classroom?
A memorable moment is when I received a personal phone call after normal classroom hours from my instructor Mrs. Rogen saying that I passed edTPA. She knew I had just suffered the loss of my fiance and had a hard time coping and completing it. That phone call was emotional and worth it.
What do you know about yourself now that you didn’t know before coming to UNC Charlotte?
I learned that I am resilient!
What advice would you give to an incoming student?
Dear incoming student,
This journey will change your life forever! Will it get hard sometimes? Absolutely. However, never give up on your journey!
Treat your studies like a job. Get familiar with your program’s plan and know your vision and path for graduating. You need to set a plan and take it seriously from the first day of enrollment. Connect with others like your professor and classroom peers. Connections can lower anxiety and regulate emotions when you can share those feelings with others.
Study, and love yourself. Be good to you so that you can get through college with great physical and mental health. Pace yourself because this journey has bumpy, curvy, smooth, and straight roads. However, the roads at UNC Charlotte lead to success and prosperity. You got this!
Nicholas Rawlings
Master of Architecture and Master of Science in Information Technology (dual degree program)
Why did you choose UNC Charlotte?
It’s a friendly place where the faculty and staff genuinely care about the well-being of their students. From the moment I first visited the campus as a high school senior, I have felt welcomed and accepted here.
Who is your favorite professor and why?
I’m going to cheat and name three:
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David Thaddeus is always willing to go an extra mile (or ten) for his students. Plus, there’s never a dull moment when he’s around.
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Kelly Carlson-Reddig is one of the most positive and uplifting human beings I have ever met. She has an uncanny ability to find something positive and constructive to say about every student’s work.
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Greg Snyder has infected generations of students, including me, with his passions for well-crafted artifacts, great literature and thoughtful design.
What are your immediate plans following graduation?
I will work full-time at Passero Associates, an architecture and engineering firm based in Rochester, New York, that has an office here in Charlotte.
What excites you most about your program of study?
Every design problem presents a unique set of challenges which, in turn, provides new opportunities to learn and grow with each new project.
What do you know about yourself now that you didn’t know before coming to UNC Charlotte?
I’ll just say that I’ve gotten to know myself better. I’m more confident of my abilities, more conscious of my deficiencies, and more capable of overcoming whatever obstacles life or academia throws my way.
What advice would you give to an incoming student?
As you move from high school to college and graduate school and beyond, you have to change how you think about your education. You’re not just a passive recipient of a teacher’s knowledge anymore, but an active participant in whatever classroom, lab, or studio you choose to engage in. Yes, you will still benefit from the comprehension and experience of your professors, but they will also learn from you. A university is a place where knowledge is shared among all.
Summarize your experience here in three words.
Passion, exhaustion, fulfillment
Erin Del Giudice
Master of Arts in History
Why did you choose UNC Charlotte?
I chose UNC Charlotte in part because of the University’s location but also the strength of the History Department and the wide array of historical fields studied by the history professors.
Who is your favorite professor and why?
Dr. Karen Cox, she served as my committee chair and she is an incredible resource for a young historian (and she has a good sense of humor).
What are your immediate plans following graduation?
Continue as a full-time parent with long-term goals to return to teaching.
What excites you most about your major?
The opportunity to continue to hone my writing skills.
What was your favorite or most memorable moment outside of the classroom?
Meeting classmates for lunch outside of campus.
What do you know about yourself now that you didn’t know before coming to UNC Charlotte?
Remote learning can still be enjoyable and rewarding.
What advice would you give to an incoming student?
Focus on small, tangible goals every day and each will help you achieve your larger goal of graduating and attaining a college degree.
Summarize your Charlotte experience in three words.
Productive, instructive, and respectful.
Tesoro Salas
Foreign Language Education MAT - Spanish
Kappa Delta Pi and Phi Kappa Phi
Why did you choose UNC Charlotte?
UNC Charlotte and the Cato College of Education gave me the opportunity to gain my teaching degree through the Teacher Quality Partnership program.
Who is your favorite professor and why?
I feel like it would be unfair to mention just one. All my professors were outstanding in every single way.
What are your immediate plans following graduation?
Professionally speaking, I will continue teaching Spanish at West Cabarrus High School. In a very personal way, I will spend more time with my favorite people: my husband and my son
What excites you most about your major?
To be able to be in the classroom teaching and also be a role model for my community.
What was your favorite or most memorable moment outside of the classroom?
My son and husband being my everyday cheerleaders.
What do you know about yourself now that you didn’t know before coming to UNC Charlotte?
That no matter what stage of your life you are in, with study and dedication, you can achieve your dreams.
What advice would you give to an incoming student?
At a certain point in your studies, there might seem to be more hard times than happy ones, but eventually, the happy ones overcome the hard ones. Don’t give up!
Summarize your experience here in three words.
Meaningful, exciting and worth it.
Shayan S. Nazari
Ph.D. in Biology
Why did you choose UNC Charlotte?
I chose UNC Charlotte because it allowed me to be close to my family while pursuing a graduate degree. I also had a great experience working with the graduate school as a master’s student, before starting my Ph.D., and I really liked the faculty in the biology department and wanted to stay to pursue my Ph.D. here.
Why did you choose to pursue a doctoral degree?
It took me a few years after my baccalaureate degree to figure out what I really would like to do in the future and what truly would make me happy. After taking some cell biology courses and speaking to some professors at UNC Charlotte, I decided to do a Ph.D. because I realized we actually don’t know a lot of things in science and in biology. We are always learning something new – whether it is a new therapeutic drug that is being discovered or a new way that a cell moves or a new understanding into a tissue’s developmental process. There is a lot that we don’t know in the scientific world and scientists around the world are trying to understand them every day. I love the possibilities that not knowing can bring. I like the world that I chose to enter that not only encourages learning but that learning every day is my full-time job.
Who is your favorite professor and why?
I have a lot of favorite professors in the biology department at UNC Charlotte. A number of them really motivated me to go into my Ph.D. in cancer biology. Dr. Pinku Mukherjee was one of the professors that sparked an interest in me in cancer biology and really made me feel like what we were doing was important. When I took her class, “Carcinogenesis and Immunity,” I was instantly interested in everything she was teaching and all that we learned. When I joined her laboratory as a graduate student, we wrote a review paper together and from that point on, I felt very motivated to keep learning about cancer biology and start my own project.
What are your immediate plans following graduation?
I will be starting a postdoctoral position at the National Institutes of Health.
What excites you most about your area of study?
I am excited about learning new techniques and through experimentation, understanding more about how cancer metastasizes to eventually determine therapeutic targets.
What was your favorite or most memorable moment outside of the classroom?
My most memorable moment was during a vacation to Norway with my boyfriend to the Lofoten Islands, located in the arctic circle. It was the most picturesque place I have ever seen, nestled between the mountains and the edge of the arctic sea. We played 54 holes of golf in 24 hours at the northernmost golf course in the world. I remember being immersed in nature and the feeling of serenity while surrounded by so much beauty.
What do you know about yourself now that you didn’t know before coming to UNC Charlotte?
I realized that through hard work and using all the resources available to me at UNC Charlotte, I was able to achieve the goals that I had set for myself. I now know that I can become a scientist who studies tumor biology and contributes to the world of cancer discovery. Standing on the other side, so close to graduation, it makes me very happy to realize how far I have come and know that this is just the beginning of my journey.
If you could tweet something to your 12-year-old self, what would it be? (280 characters or less!)
Work hard. Learn and enjoy the process of learning. Think outside of the box and always listen to your own gut feeling and trust that it will lead you to some place that you can be proud of.
What advice would you give to an incoming student?
There is no one way of doing things. It is ok to have to take a detour or take extra time or the unconventional route. As long as you get to where you want to go, that is all that matters in the end.
Summarize your Charlotte experience in three words.
Curious, hardworking, grateful.
Commencement Events
The commencement week included additional events celebrating graduate education:
Dean’s Doctoral Dinner
The Dean’s Doctoral Dinner recognized the impressive work of graduating doctoral students and the support provided by their advisors.
Center for Graduate Life and Learning Named for Dean Tom Reynolds
UNC Charlotte’s Center for Graduate Life and Learning is now the Thomas L. Reynolds Center for Graduate Life and Learning in recognition and honor of Tom Reynolds, associate provost for graduate programs and dean of the Graduate School. The naming took place during a special ceremony at the center in Atkins Library Thursday, Dec. 15.
Reynolds will retire at the end of the month after 40 years of service to the University. The UNC Charlotte Board of Trustees also voted to bestow dean emeritus status upon Reynolds.