COMMENCEMENT
CEREMONIES
GRADUATE DIVISION
SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING & SCHOOL OF NATURAL SCIENCES
SCHOOL OF SOCIAL SCIENCES,
HUMANITIES AND ARTS
Graduate Keynote Speaker UC Merced Professor Ricardo Cisneros
Cisneros is a member of UC Merced’s Department of Public Health, specializing in environmental public health and exposure science. He joined the faculty in 2013, five years after earning the first doctoral degree conferred at UC Merced – a Ph.D. in environmental systems under the mentorship of then-Professor Sam Traina. Worth noting: This fall marks 20 years since UC Merced began graduate education and postdoctoral training.
Cisneros, who earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in health at Fresno State before enrolling at UC Merced, worked for the U.S. Forest Service before and after completing his graduate studies.
His research at UC Merced recognizes the interdependence of ecological and human health with special interests in air pollution and assessing exposure. He has conducted several environmental studies, including determining the impacts of forest fires on air quality. He was the first scientist to determine the current PM2.5 background in the Sierra Nevada and mountain communities.
Cisneros’ findings have been used to stimulate policy suggestions and changes by nonprofit groups as well as government agencies at state and federal levels. He is considered an authority on forest fires and their impact on air quality.
Undergraduate Keynote Speaker NASA Astronaut Joseph Acaba
Acaba, chief of the Astronaut Office at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, is the first person of Hispanic heritage to hold the position.
He was born in Inglewood and raised in Anaheim, where his parents still reside.
As chief of the Astronaut Office, Acaba is responsible for managing astronaut resources and operations. He helps develop flight crew operation concepts and make crew assignments for future missions, including astronauts assigned to the new Artemis program.
Before joining the space program in 2004, Acaba taught high school and middle school math and science in Florida and worked as a hydrogeologist. He attended UC Santa Barbara, earning a bachelor’s degree in geology. He earned a master’s degree in geology from the University of Arizona and a master’s in education curriculum and instruction from Texas Tech University. Acaba also served in the Marine Corps Reserves and for the Peace Corps.
Acaba has logged 306 days in space on three missions. In 2009, Acaba flew aboard the space shuttle Discovery to the International Space Station to deliver a pair of power-generating solar array wings and a truss element. During this mission, he conducted two spacewalks. In 2012, he flew aboard a Soyuz spacecraft to the space station, where he worked as flight engineer and helped facilitate deliveries from the first commercial resupply spacecraft, the SpaceX Dragon. In 2018, he returned to the space station in a Soyuz, serving again as flight engineer and conducting one spacewalk to install new cameras outside the ISS.
Student Speaker Kimberly Farias
Kimberly Farias is a Mexican American and a first-generation student who grew up in Arizona and moved to Madera during her senior year of high school. She is a double major in political science and psychology and a double minor in community research and service and writing studies.
While at UC Merced, she was a lead resident assistant. She was a member of PSI CHI, the International Honors Society in Psychology, and Phi Alpha Delta Professional Law Fraternity where she served as treasurer and community service chair. She participated in research with Professor Courtenay Conrad’s Political Science Lab and Professor Linda Cameron’s Health Communication Interventions Lab. She also received a Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship through the Undergraduate Research Opportunity Center and she had two of her research papers published in UC Merced’s Undergraduate Research Journal.
She was also a member of the Psychological Science Honors cohort and Political Science Honors Program at UC Merced this past year.
After graduation, she plans to continue her education and earn a Ph.D. in Political Science and a Juris Doctor degree in hopes of becoming an immigration lawyer.
Student Speaker Gehad Elhanafy
Gehad Elhanafy is a bioengineering major with a political science minor from Merced. Two of her siblings also graduated from UC Merced.
During her time on campus, Elhanafy served in leadership positions for the Associated Students of UC Merced and as president of the Muslim Students Association. She worked as an intellectual property intern for the Tech Transfer Office. Additionally, she conducted research in the Victor Muñoz group as a Center for Cellular and Biomolecular Machines NSF-CREST Fellow.
She spent her summers as a legislative intern at the UC Center Sacramento for Assemblyman Kevin Kiley and for Congressman Jim Costa through the Kenneth L. Maddy Institute. She was also a venture capital intern at UCLA Biodesign and a trainee at the University of Californian Office of the President’s UC Investments Academy.
After graduation, Elhanafy will apply to law school to pursue corporate law to help contribute to the entrepreneurship and innovation ecosystem at UC Merced and in the Central Valley.