Honoring Doctoral Degree Recipients

The Graduate College welcomes doctoral degree recipients from the current Academic Year, senior leadership, deans, faculty and professional staff advisors, and guests to attend the annual Doctoral Student Celebration, a reception honoring the graduating class. The event features brief remarks from senior leadership and distinguished student and alumni speakers. Light hors d'oeuvres and refreshments are served.

Please review the Graduation Requirements page of our website for important graduation dates and deadlines.

Please note that doctoral candidates are hooded as part of the individual college and school ceremonies. For more information about Commencement, including dates, times, locations, parking, tickets, regalia, where to report, etc. please visit the Commencement website or email commencement@drexel.edu.

2024 Doctoral Student Celebration

Tuesday, June 11, 2024
5 to 7:30 p.m. EDT

World Café Live
Music Hall
3025 Walnut Street
Philadelphia, PA 19104

Please enter the venue through the main entrance on upper Walnut Street, 3025 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104. For more information about getting to the venue, parking, and accessibility, please visit the venue's website.

The formal remarks will begin promptly at 5:30 p.m. EDT and will be streamed and recorded on YouTube.

Watch the 2024 Remarks [YouTube]

View the 2024 Event Photos

Password: celebration

2024 Distinguished Graduating Student Speaker

Sarah Malik, PhD '24

PhD Program in Mechanical Engineering
College of Engineering

Dr. Sarah Malik completed her PhD this year in Mechanical Engineering, focusing on Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Autonomous Systems at Drexel University. She has been awarded prestigious national fellowships from the National Science Foundation (NSF), Department of Education for Areas of National Need (GAANN), and American Society for Mechanical Engineers (ASME), underscoring her exceptional academic and research expertise. She graduated Summa Cum Laude in both her Master's in Mechanical Engineering and her B.S. in Business & Engineering, with Honors with Distinction in the latter. As a scholar, she has actively contributed to esteemed conferences, including the U.S. National Congress for Computational Mechanics, Stanford University’s International Structural Health Monitoring Workshop, and ASME's Smart Materials Conference. Her research collaborations with the U.S. Department of Defense have deepened her expertise in data-driven methods, Damage Detection, and Digital Twin technology. Her research focuses on creating real-time damage detection systems leveraging AI and Internet of Things (IoT). Dedicated to promoting diversity in engineering, Sarah has mentored hundreds of students, establishing herself as a reliable advocate for their voices. Her recognition as a Stanford University Rising Star and a finalist in Cornell University's International Embedded Systems Competition highlights her as a leader. As a proud triple Dragon, Sarah is eager to represent Drexel and share her journey, showcasing the institution's excellence in every step forward.

2024 Distinguished Alumni Speaker

Elizabeth Campbell, MS '20, PhD '22

Elizabeth Campbell, PhD is an NLM Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Biomedical Informatics at Columbia University Irving Medical Center. She holds a PhD in Information Science and a MS in Data Science from Drexel University. She completed a B.A. in Public Health Studies from Johns Hopkins University along with a MSPH in Health Policy from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Prior to her doctoral studies at Drexel, Elizabeth worked in global health throughout Asia, Latin America, and Sub-Saharan Africa, including as a fellow to support electronic health record (EHR) system implementation in Zambia. As a PhD student, Elizabeth completed her doctoral research with the Department of Biomedical and Health Informatics at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, where her dissertation focused on developing a methodological approach to mine EHR data for temporal diagnostic patterns and using these patterns to develop machine learning models. Elizabeth was the recipient of a Drexel University Graduate College Doctoral Fellowship Recipient at the Blue Level. She has been nationally recognized for her research as a merit scholarship recipient from the American Medical Informatics Association LEAD Fund and the American Health Information Management Association; she also received the 2021 Eugene Garfield Doctoral Dissertation Award from the Beta Phi Mu society. Elizabeth’s research focuses on complementary uses of data science methods and non-traditional data sources to conventional epidemiological approaches in local and global public health research. She is passionate about using informatics to empower marginalized populations and address health disparities domestically and abroad.

Dr. Campbell was also featured in Drexel Magazine's 40 Under 40 this year!

Accommodation Requests

Disability Resources provides equal opportunity and equal access to programs and activities for all individuals at Drexel University and empowers individuals who have documented disabilities by working together proactively to provide reasonable accommodations. To request accommodations for this event, please contact the Disability Resources at disability@drexel.edu. We appreciate requests at least 72 hours in advance. Thank you!

All levels of the venue are accessible by our central elevator. If you are using a wheelchair or mobility device, we recommend entering through the lower level on 31st Street. Please feel free to reach out ahead of time with any needs so that we can best accommodate you.