{"id":192636,"date":"2026-04-29T10:58:16","date_gmt":"2026-04-29T14:58:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/gso\/?p=192636"},"modified":"2026-04-29T11:56:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-29T15:56:11","slug":"commencement-2026-student-speakers-for-college-graduation-ceremonies-named","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/gso\/news\/commencement-2026-student-speakers-for-college-graduation-ceremonies-named\/","title":{"rendered":"Commencement 2026: Student speakers for college graduation ceremonies named"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

April 29, 2026<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Nine students will share their experiences at the University of Rhode Island and words of encouragement and wisdom with fellow graduates during the University\u2019s Spring 2026 Commencement Weekend<\/a>, held May 15-17 in the Ryan Center on the Kingston Campus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

URI will celebrate the achievements of approximately 3,400 graduate and undergraduate degree recipients with their families and friends\u2014and student speakers will again be part of the pomp and circumstance. On May 17 at 9 a.m., Zoie Ndonye of the College of the Environment and Life Sciences and Asta Habtemichael of the Graduate School of Oceanography will speak to their fellow graduates at a joint ceremony for the two colleges.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Asta in the lab.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Asta Habtemichael<\/strong>, from Eritrea<\/strong>, will graduate with a doctorate in oceanography. A member of GSO’s Lohmann Lab<\/a> and trainee in the STEEP Superfund Research Program<\/a>, Habtemichael pursued interdisciplinary research around bioaccumulation of persistent pollutants in the marine food web. Notably, he spent the last year in Washington D.C. as a John A. Knauss Marine Policy Fellow<\/a>, completing a prestigious NOAA-funded fellowship that places recent graduate students in offices either in the Executive or Legislative branch of government.<\/p>\n\n\n

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RI Sea Grant fellows during the Knauss Graduation Ceremony. Pictured from left to right: Danielle Becker, Asta Habtemichael, Rafeed Hussain, and Diana Fontaine<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Looking to the future, he will participate in the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education\u2019s postdoctoral fellowship program to conduct research at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Washington. URI became Habtemichael\u2019s second home, he said, meeting collaborators and friends, and building lasting relationships along the way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI feel proud being an alum of such an incredible institution,\u201d Habtemichael said. \u201cMy academic, research, and service experiences at URI have taught me the importance of humility, empathy, and community in leadership. As a scientist, I carry these values with me as I engage with different communities to tackle deep-rooted and complex problems and develop holistic solutions.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

GSO doctoral graduate Asta Habtemichael will speak to his fellow graduates on May 17.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4762,"featured_media":182732,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[79],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-192636","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/gso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192636","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/gso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/gso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/gso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4762"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/gso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=192636"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/gso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192636\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":192642,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/gso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192636\/revisions\/192642"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/gso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/182732"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/gso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=192636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/gso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=192636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/gso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=192636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}