Graduation and Alumni News

  • July 24, 2019
    School suspensions can triple the probability that a student will drop out of school or have later involvement with the criminal justice system, according to studies linked to the school-to-prison pipeline. These statistics are concerning, but Sarah Parshall has hope.
  • May 22, 2019
    Calculating the value of a stock or bond is relatively straightforward, but have you ever thought about the monetary value of an endangered species? Finance major and May graduate Eleri Burnett has.
  • May 14, 2019
    During the war in the South Caucasus, and particularly the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, closed borders and a shortage of resources became the norm for Armenians like Margarita Tadevosyan.
  • December 7, 2018
    The fifth Taco Bamba location in the Washington, D.C., area, —which opened Dec. 6 in University Mall, the shopping center across the street from George Mason University’s Fairfax Campus—is a celebration of Albisu’s time at the university.
  • April 21, 2021
    First Lady Jill Biden will be George Mason University’s Commencement speaker next month, headlining the May 14 virtual event honoring nearly 9,700 graduates.
  • April 21, 2021
    Playing football for University of Notre Dame was something Steve Elmer said he could only dream of when he was younger. His talent combined with a scholarship had him playing on the field with a golden helmet as freshman. He became one of the team’s most experienced offensive linemen, having 30 starts to his name.
  • April 15, 2021
    George Mason University names Kevin Cevasco as the 2021 College of Health and Human Services Alumni of the Year. Read more about his time at Mason and commitment to health care accessibility throughout his career.
  • April 5, 2021
    Growing up in the slums of Cameroon, Joseph Sany said he witnessed urban violence and police oppression regularly. He heard about genocide in Rwanda, and he saw more violence firsthand when he worked with NGOs and visited countries like Liberia and Sierra Leone during civil war.
  • April 2, 2021
    A few days after Khalid Noor was born in Takhar, Afghanistan, the Taliban seized the province, and his family had to escape to another region on foot. “We were constantly moving from city to another city,” he said. “When one district was taken or collapsed, we had to move to another.” It wasn’t an ideal life, but Noor is motivated to change that for future generations—and he’s negotiating with the Taliban to do so.
  • March 12, 2021
    Louie Al-Hashimi is driven by service. It started in high school, he said, when his history teacher encouraged him to get involved in community service and he began volunteering at a local food pantry, supporting road cleanup projects, and organizing school concerts for charity. “That, coupled with my studies, encouraged me to pursue public service,” said Al-Hashimi, who earned his master’s in public administration from George Mason University in 2020. “Having the opportunity to build or facilitate a connection with other people—that’s what I’m drawn to.”
  • March 8, 2021
    Smialek, a single mother of one daughter, has been juggling parenting, teaching or going to school and her work as an Air National Guard medic for a while.
  • March 3, 2021
    Earlier this year, Melissa A. Long, a 1995 graduate of George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School, was sworn in as the first Black justice on the Rhode Island Supreme Court.