Commencement 2016: Thibault, Schmid give addresses
Macy Foundation leader to speak at Medical School event; Cell Biology Chair to keynote Graduate School ceremony
By Lin Lofley
Dr. George Thibault, President of the Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation, and Dr. Sandra L. Schmid, Chair of Cell Biology at UT Southwestern Medical Center, will be the speakers for the Medical School and Graduate School, respectively, at this year’s Commencement exercises.
Graduates of the UT Southwestern Medical School will walk across the stage June 1 at 7:30 p.m. at the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center in the Arts District of Dallas. UT Southwestern Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences graduates will receive their degrees on June 2 in a ceremony that begins at 7 p.m. in the Tom and Lula Gooch Auditorium on UT Southwestern’s South Campus.
Dr. Daniel K. Podolsky, President of UT Southwestern, will confer medical degrees upon 235 medical students and doctorates or master’s degrees to 91 graduate students at this year’s Commencements.
Dr. Thibault has served as President of the New York-based Macy Foundation since 2008. Since 1930, the Macy Foundation has worked to improve health care in the United States by supporting projects that broaden and improve health professional education. It is now the only national foundation solely dedicated to this mission.
Dr. Thibault previously served as Vice President of Clinical Affairs at Partners Healthcare System in Boston and Director of the Academy at Harvard Medical School. During his distinguished career he has also served as Chief Medical Officer at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston and as Chief of Medicine at the Harvard-affiliated Brockton/West Roxbury VA Hospital.
He graduated summa cum laude from Georgetown University and magna cum laude from Harvard Medical School. He is a member of the National Academy of Medicine, formerly the Institute of Medicine.
Dr. Schmid, elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2015, is widely recognized as a transformative thinker, both within her field of specialty and in the world of science. She is an internationally recognized researcher on endocytosis, which is the fundamental process by which cells internalize nutrients and other molecules, as well as signaling molecules and plasma membrane proteins.
Any list of the top advances in endocytosis in the past 25 years would include several made by Dr. Schmid. She uses sophisticated techniques to visualize membrane trafficking and to analyze the structure and function of this cellular machinery.
But Dr. Schmid also is known for strong, interdisciplinary collaborations with world-renowned scientists throughout the U.S. and Europe, having said more than once that “collaborative research is often the most rewarding and most effective means of answering important questions.”
Prior to her recruitment by UT Southwestern in 2012, Dr. Schmid spent 23 years at The Scripps Research Institute in California – including 12 years as Chair of the Department of Cell Biology.
In addition to her doctorate in Biochemistry from Stanford University, Dr. Schmid has a master’s degree in executive leadership from the University of San Diego School of Business Administration. A Canadian by birth, she graduated from the University of British Columbia. After earning her doctorate, Dr. Schmid completed a fellowship in cell biology at Yale University.
Marshals for the medical school will be: Dr. Reeni Abraham, Co-Director of the Internal Medicine Clerkship Program, and Assistant Professor of Internal Medicine; Dr. Soumya Adhikari, Associate Professor of Pediatrics; Dr. Mark Agostini, Associate Professor of Neurology and Neurotherapeutics; Dr. Blake Barker, Assistant Professor of Internal Medicine; Dr. Dennis Burns, Professor of Pathology; and Dr. David Greenberg, Associate Professor of Internal Medicine, and of Microbiology.
Dr. Lee Ann Pearse, President of the Dallas County Medical Society, will administer the Physician’s Oath.
Southwestern Medical Foundation Trustee James Huffines, former Chairman of the UT System Board of Regents, will present the Ho Din Award to Dr. Samuel Parnell. The Ho Din is the top award given a graduating medical student, and is the most senior student award presented at UT Southwestern, dating back to 1943.
Marshals for the graduate school include Dr. Lisa Gardner, Assistant Dean of the Graduate School and Professor of the Division of Basic Science, and Assistant Professor of Pharmacology; Dr. Natalie Lundsteen, Director of Graduate Career Development, and Assistant Professor of Psychiatry; Dr. Stuart Ravnik, Associate Dean of the Graduate School, and Assistant Professor of Cell Biology; and Dr. Nancy Street, Associate Dean of the Graduate School, and Assistant Professor of Microbiology.
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Dr. Burns holds the Jane B. and Edwin P. Jenevein, M.D., Chair in Pathology.
Dr. Podolsky holds the Philip O’Bryan Montgomery, Jr., M.D. Distinguished Presidential Chair in Academic Administration, and the Doris and Bryan Wildenthal Distinguished Chair in Medical Science.
Dr. Schmid holds the Cecil H. Green Distinguished Chair of Molecular and Cellular Biology.
