Pardee RAND Graduate School
Commencement Weekend 2022

Dear Pardee RAND Community,

This year’s Pardee RAND Graduate School Commencement festivities were wonderful! A record number of attendees cheered as the graduates walked across the stage in front of proud family members, friends, faculty, and staff.

Our keynote speaker, Dr. Wanda Austin, also recognized the amazing accomplishments of our students, and encouraged them with the following words:

Whatever we are today as a nation, as a society, as humanity, you have the power to make it better. Graduates of the Pardee RAND Graduate School of Public Policy, we are all anxiously watching to see what you are going to do next.

Relive the day by watching this photo montage from the ceremony. And please join me in congratulating our Pardee RAND graduates!

With warmth and excitement,

Nancy Staudt
Frank and Marcia Carlucci Dean, Pardee RAND Graduate School
Vice President, Innovation, RAND Corporation

Keynote Speaker and Honorary Degree Recipient

Wanda M. Austin

Wanda Austin

Wanda M. Austin is an American businesswoman who is internationally recognized for her work in aeronautics and systems engineering. She is the former president and CEO of The Aerospace Corporation, an independent, nonprofit federally funded research and development center dedicated to the application of science and technology toward critical issues affecting the nation’s space initiatives. From January 2008 to October 2016, she led the organization’s 3,600 employees and managed annual revenues of $950 million at 17 U.S. locations. She retired after 37 years of service. She is co-founder of MakingSpace, Inc., a systems engineering and leadership development consultant, STEMinist, and a motivational speaker. She is the author of Making Space: Strategic Leadership for a Complex World. She served as interim president of the University of Southern California (USC) for the 2018-2019 academic year and led the institution through a crucial transition period.

Read her Keynote Address

Honorary Degree Recipients

Rose Gottemoeller

Michael Rich

Eric Schlosser

Rose Gottemoeller

Rose Gottemoeller is the Steven C. Házy Lecturer at Stanford University's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and its Center for International Security and Cooperation. Before joining Stanford, Gottemoeller was the Deputy Secretary General of NATO from 2016 to 2019, where she helped to drive forward NATO’s adaptation to new security challenges in Europe and in the fight against terrorism. Prior to NATO, she served for nearly five years as the Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security at the U.S. Department of State, advising the Secretary of State on arms control, nonproliferation and political-military affairs. While Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control, Verification and Compliance in 2009 and 2010, she was the chief U.S. negotiator of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) with the Russian Federation.

Michael D. Rich

Michael D. Rich is president and chief executive officer of the RAND Corporation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization that helps improve policy and decisionmaking through research and analysis. For more than 40 years, Rich has helped RAND become a leading source of expertise, analysis, and evidence-based ideas in an increasingly complex and polarized policymaking environment.

Eric Schlosser

Eric Schlosser is an investigative journalist and the author of Fast Food Nation, Reefer Madness, and, most recently, Command and Control, which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. He has written for Rolling Stone, The Atlantic, and The New Yorker, among others, and has received a number of journalism honors, including a National Magazine Award. Schlosser previously worked as a playwright for an independent film company. Two of his plays, Americans (2003) and We the People (2007), have been produced in renowned London theaters.

 

Meet Our Ph.D. Graduates

The following alumni finished their requirements for the Pardee RAND Ph.D. in Policy Analysis between July 2018 and June 2022.

Cohort '12 and Earlier

Kun Gu

Amber Jaycocks

Eduardo Marquez-Peña

Christina Steiner

Bryan Tysinger

Cohort '13

Gursel Aliyev

Melissa Felician

Prodyumna Goutam

Carlos Gutierrez

Dan Han

Crystal Huang

Ashley Muchow

Claire O'Hanlon

Adeyemi Okunogbe

Gabriel Weinberger

Mahlet Woldetsadik

Cohort '14

Gulrez Shah Azhar

Maya Buenaventura

Meg Chamberlin

Bill Gelfeld

Jakub Hlavka

Pavan Katkar

Xiaoyu Nie

Etienne Rosas

Yan Wang

Cohort '15

Gabriela Armenta

Ellie Bartels

Nick Broten

Christine Chen

Juliana Chen-Peraza

Steven Davenport

Lauren Davis

Erin Duffy

Ifeanyi Edochie

Diana Gehlhaus

Balys Gintautas

John Hamm

Simon Hollands

Jesse Lastunen

Nicholas Martin

John Speed Meyers

Sujeong Park

Benjamin Smith

Sara Turner

Cohort '16

Sohaela Amiri

David Catt

Benjamin Goirigolzarri

J. Luke Irwin

Felix Knutson

Bilyana Lilly

Alex Mendoza-Graf

Rachel Perera

Lindsey Polley

Hilary Reininger

Uzaib Saya

Nima Shahidinia

Cohort '17

Damien Baveye

Michael Gaines

Mahlet Gizaw

Hank Waggy

Russ Williams

Cohort '18

Hannah Acheson-Field

Jarrett Catlin

Max Izenberg

Meet Our M.Phil. Graduates

The following students finished their requirements for the Pardee RAND Master of Philosphy in Policy Analysis between July 2018 and June 2022.

Cohort '16 and Earlier

Eugeniu Han

Emily Haskel

Dung Huynh

Kurt Klein

Ah Reum Lee

Karen Lee

Tim McDonald

Diogo Prosdocimi

Claudia Rodriguez

Joshua Russell-Fritch

Mimi Shen

Cohort '17

Graham Andrews

Jalal Awan

Sangita Baxi

Alejandro Becerra-Ornelas

Meghan Franco

Allie Huttinger Ntazinda

Jonathan Lamb

Krystyna Marcinek

Jake McKeon

Karishma V. Patel

Jamie Ryan

Shawn Smith

Tal Wolfson

Keren Zhu

Rushil Zutshi

Cohort '18

Hamad Al-Ibrahim

Annie Brothers

Max Griswold

Eric Hastings

Noah Johnson

Moon Kim

Omair Khan

Nabeel Qureshi

James Syme

Ashley Woo

Cohort '19

Gaby Alvarado

Samer Atshan

Lawrence Baker

Charlie Barton

Tara Blagg

Carlos Calvo Hernandez

Annie Chen

David DeSmet

Melissa Diliberti

Ingrid Estrada Darley

Katie Feistel

Heather Gomez-Bendaña

Kyle Haak

Lynn Hu

Diana Myers

Pedro Nascimento de Lima

Kelsey O'Hollaren

Cohort '20

Elliot Brennan

Priya Gandhi

Marissa Heron

Khrystyna Holynska

Jim Mignano

Will Shumate

Mark Simpson

Erik Van Hegewald

Brian Wong


M.Phil. graduates not pictured: Pau Alonso-Garcia, Joan Chang