Graduation and Alumni News

Saving an endangered species is possible, but it takes a village. Conservationists, including three George Mason University alumni working at the Smithsonian and a current student, are part of the team at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute (SCBI) and the Smithsonian-Mason School of Conservation (SMSC) working to ensure red pandas move off the endangered list.

Dilafruz Khonikboyeva and her family won the Green Card Lottery while living through Tajikistan’s civil war, but they didn’t know about it until the years-long blockade was lifted in 1995. They crossed multiple battle lines to reach the U.S. consulate in Moscow. Luckily, even though their green cards had expired by the time they arrived, the U.S. government honored them, Khonikboyeva said.

School suspensions can triple the probability that a student will drop out of school or have later involvement with the criminal justice system, according to studies linked to the school-to-prison pipeline. These statistics are concerning, but Sarah Parshall has hope.

Calculating the value of a stock or bond is relatively straightforward, but have you ever thought about the monetary value of an endangered species? Finance major and May graduate Eleri Burnett has.

During the war in the South Caucasus, and particularly the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, closed borders and a shortage of resources became the norm for Armenians like Margarita Tadevosyan.

The fifth Taco Bamba location in the Washington, D.C., area, —which opened Dec. 6 in University Mall, the shopping center across the street from George Mason University’s Fairfax Campus—is a celebration of Albisu’s time at the university.

First Lady Jill Biden will be George Mason University’s Commencement speaker next month, headlining the May 14 virtual event honoring nearly 9,700 graduates.

Playing football for University of Notre Dame was something Steve Elmer said he could only dream of when he was younger. His talent combined with a scholarship had him playing on the field with a golden helmet as freshman. He became one of the team’s most experienced offensive linemen, having 30 starts to his name.

George Mason University names Kevin Cevasco as the 2021 College of Health and Human Services Alumni of the Year. Read more about his time at Mason and commitment to health care accessibility throughout his career.

Growing up in the slums of Cameroon, Joseph Sany said he witnessed urban violence and police oppression regularly. He heard about genocide in Rwanda, and he saw more violence firsthand when he worked with NGOs and visited countries like Liberia and Sierra Leone during civil war.

A few days after Khalid Noor was born in Takhar, Afghanistan, the Taliban seized the province, and his family had to escape to another region on foot. “We were constantly moving from city to another city,” he said. “When one district was taken or collapsed, we had to move to another.” It wasn’t an ideal life, but Noor is motivated to change that for future generations—and he’s negotiating with the Taliban to do so.

Louie Al-Hashimi is driven by service. It started in high school, he said, when his history teacher encouraged him to get involved in community service and he began volunteering at a local food pantry, supporting road cleanup projects, and organizing school concerts for charity. “That, coupled with my studies, encouraged me to pursue public service,” said Al-Hashimi, who earned his master’s in public administration from George Mason University in 2020. “Having the opportunity to build or facilitate a connection with other people—that’s what I’m drawn to.”