Day of Details
Date: Wednesday, April 30, 2025
Time: 6:00 – 8:00 p.m.
Location: Crisler Center (333 E. Stadium Blvd, Ann Arbor, MI)
Registration
All engineering graduating master’s and PhD students who plan on attending the Michigan Engineering Graduate Ceremony are required to register their attendance. Click here for more information.
Live-Stream
If you are unable to attend in person, the Michigan Engineering Graduate Student Ceremony will be live-streamed and available for viewing by clicking here.
Graduation Day Schedule
5:00 p.m. – Crisler Center doors open to students and guests
5:45 p.m. – All graduating students and guests should be in their seat
6:00 p.m. – Graduation ceremony begins
- Welcome by the Dean
- Student speaker remarks
- Guest speaker remarks
- Conferral of degrees
8:00 p.m. – Graduation ceremony concludes (approx.)
Speaker Details
Keynote Speaker
Harriet B. Nembhard is the president of Harvey Mudd College, the nation’s premier liberal arts STEM college and a member of The Claremont Colleges. She is a widely recognized leader in the field of industrial engineering, a voice on the national level for advancing undergraduate STEM education, and a champion for Harvey Mudd’s mission.
Under her leadership, the College is implementing STEM for a Better World—HMC Strategy: 2025-2035, a bold plan dedicated to educating responsible and compassionate scientists, mathematicians, and engineers.
President Nembhard’s scholarship has led to major advances in healthcare engineering, including a patented medical device manufacturing process, simulation models for improving emergency department flow, and a machine-learning system for early Parkinson’s disease screening. These innovations have enhanced patient care and contributed to her co-authored textbook, Healthcare Systems Engineering.
Prior to Harvey Mudd, she served as dean of engineering at the University of Iowa and held leadership roles at Oregon State and Penn State, where she strengthened research impact, faculty recruitment, and student success. She is a Fellow of the American Society for Quality, the Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers, and the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering.
President Nembhard holds a B.A. from Claremont McKenna College, B.S. from Arizona State University, and M.S. and Ph.D. from the University of Michigan.
Student Speaker
Leena Ghrayeb is graduating with her PhD in Industrial and Operations Engineering. She previously earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Industrial and Systems Engineering from Northern Illinois University.
Throughout her time at Michigan, Leena has taken on numerous leadership roles. Notably, she served as president of the Institute for Operations Research and Management Sciences student chapter during the 2022–2023 academic year, where she was instrumental in advancing the INFORMS chapter’s initiatives and creating an inclusive, collaborative environment for students passionate about operations research. In addition, Leena led interdisciplinary research teams at the Center for Healthcare Engineering & Patient Safety, where her teams worked to improve prenatal care delivery in the United States by evaluating how personalized care models impact clinic operations.
Her contributions have earned her several prestigious accolades, including the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship in 2021 and a Fulbright U.S. Student Research
Award to Jordan for the 2023–2024 academic year. During her time in Jordan, she applied health care optimization techniques within a different cultural context, further expanding her global perspective.
Leena aspires to become a professor, continuing her interdisciplinary research with a focus on improving healthcare access, both in the U.S. and abroad.