Commencement

Me and Kimberly after her commencement.
Photo by Velma Nunez.

Friends, you remember my intern from last summer, right? Kimberly spent her time at WHOI weeding through photos from the Arctic deep sea in order to continue a time series I started 10 years ago. She identified organisms in the images to track changes in the community over time. Ultimately, we tried to determine whether the changes we observed were the result of normal cyclical processes or long-term climate change (spoiler: it's both). Kimberly did an amazing project. 

What you may not know is that Kimberly decided to keep working with me remotely after her internship finished. Over the past year, she has continued to work on the data and develop the analysis into a full-blown honors thesis. I'm actually planning to submit a scientific paper based on her work. We've had weekly Zoom meetings for months but haven't seen each other in person since last August. It didn't feel right to have her just email a PDF of her thesis and call it good - that would be too anticlimatic. I wanted to see her one last time. 

That, friends, is why I find myself today in a little place called Brooklyn, New York. Kimberly graduated today from John Jay College, part of the City University of New York, with a degree in Cell and Molecular Biology. I am so incredibly proud of her. Honestly, the capstone project she did with me through WHOI is just that - a cherry on top of her mountain of accomplishments. I didn't even realize it at first, but Kimberly's graduation gown was covered in honors - a tassel for graduating summa cum laude, a stole for her research program, and another stole for being in the honors college. She was even named Outstanding Undergraduate Researcher earlier this year. 

Confetti canons capped off the commencement. 

One thing that really stuck out to me about Kimberly's commencement was the diversity of the graduating class. John Jay is a minority-serving institution with most of the students hailing from Brooklyn or Queens. Many are first-generation students, children of immigrants, or non-traditional students. The graduating class was large - about 3500 strong - but the energy and pride in the stadium were still disproportionately palpable. Multiple students wore stoles or carried flags with designs from their family's country of origin. I recognized flags of Puerto Rico, Pakistan, Cuba, and Saudi Arabia. One woman walked across the stage with her two young daughters - and the hood she wore indicated she was receiving a Masters degree! I have described Kimberly as persistent, but I have to say, looking out at the crowd of John Jay graduates, there was a lot of persistence in that room. I imagine college graduation must ring a little louder when you're the first generation in a new country to reach that high bar. 

As far as Kimberly is concerned, the next step is pretty clear: grad school. She's actually headed off to Ireland in a few months for a Masters in marine mammal biology, and I wish her all the best. Kimberly, it has been an absolute pleasure working with you, and I am so proud of your accomplishments. Congratulations!