Day of Details
Date: Wednesday, May 1, 2024
Time: 6:00 – 8:00 p.m.
Location: Crisler Center (333 E. Stadium Blvd, Ann Arbor, MI)
Registration
All 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: Kunle Olukotun
Kunle Olukotun, the Cadence Design Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Stanford University, is a computer systems designer and pioneer in multicore processors. In the 1990s, as the leader of the Stanford Hydra chip multiprocessor research project, he developed the ideas for multicore processor design, which is now the mainstay for all modern computer systems. Multicore processors make computer systems that range from data center servers to cellphones more powerful and more energy efficient. With the goal of making multicore processors easier to use, Dr. Olukotun developed new programming languages for parallel computing—ideas that underpin the software development environments used to develop artificial intelligence and machine learning applications today. More recently, he developed new ways of designing specialized computer systems to meet the huge computational demands of AI and machine learning applications.
Dr. Olukotun is the cofounder of multiple companies that translate his research innovations into commercial products. He cocreated Afara WebSystems to produce high-throughput, low-power multicore processors for server systems. The Afara multicore, multithreaded processor, called Niagara, was acquired by Sun Microsystems and now powers Oracle’s SPARC-based servers. He cofounded Migo to use AI techniques to make it economical to extend credit in developing economies. Dr. Olukotun is also cofounder of and chief technologist at SambaNova Systems, which produces integrated software and hardware for generative AI.
In 2023 Dr. Olukotun received the ACM-IEEE Computer Society Eckert-Mauchly Award, the most prestigious award in computer design, for contributions and leadership in the development of parallel systems, especially multicore and multithreaded processors. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is an Association for Computing Machinery Fellow and an Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Fellow for contributions to multiprocessors on a chip design and the commercialization of this technology, and a recipient of the IEEE Harry H. Goode Memorial Award. Dr. Olukotun received his Ph.D. in Computer Engineering from the University of Michigan, where he was advised by Professor Trevor Mudge.
Student Speaker: Oluwami (Wami) Dosunmu-Ogunbi
Oluwami Dosunmu-Ogunbi, affectionately known as Wami, is graduating with a Ph.D. in Robotics. She holds dual master’s degrees in Robotics and Mechanical Engineering from the University of Michigan and a bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
During her time at Michigan, Wami has held leadership roles in the Mechanical Engineering Graduate Council, Movement of Underrepresented Sisters in Engineering and Science, and Gender Diversity in Robotics student organizations. She has planned, organized, and hosted numerous outreach activities and mentored eight undergraduate and master’s students. Wami’s academic, outreach, and mentorship impact has been recognized with the MLK Spirit Award for Mentoring and Inspiration, as Engineering Innovation Runner-Up in the 3-Minute Thesis Competition, with the Willie Hobbs Moore Achievement Award and her membership in the Edward Alexander Bouchet Graduate Honor Society, and in her role as a Robotics Outreach Ambassador.
Committed to academia, Wami aims to become a professor and equip future engineers with a global perspective.