Chemistry Graduate Students Celebrated at the 2026 Advanced Degree Conferral

On Wednesday, May 27, 2026, the Department of Chemistry presented its graduate students with their advanced degrees and doctoral hoods. Prior to the ceremony, the graduates and their families were celebrated with a brunch hosted by the Department of Chemistry at the Samberg Conference Center.

The School of Science held the Advanced Degree Conferral Ceremony in Kresge Auditorium’s Swarj Paul Theater, where graduates received a charge from School of Science Dean Nergis Mavalvala and listened to a keynote address by Alison Gopnik—a professor of psychology and affiliate professor of philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley, and a member of the Berkeley AI Research Group. Gopnik, a leader in cognitive science (particularly the study of learning and development), was a founder of the field of “theory of mind,” an originator of the “theory-theory” of cognitive development, and the first to apply Bayesian models to children’s learning.

The Department of Chemistry is immensely proud of the commendable efforts and achievements of its newly minted PhD and SM recipients:

Ezra Alexander, PhD
Carolyn Barnes, PhD
Alex Nicholas Byrne, PhD
Hongyu Chen, PhD
Andrew Dorfeuille, PhD
Forrest Fitzgerald PhD
Nathan Frey, PhD
Zachary Fried, PhD
Jianting Guo, PhD
Deiaa Harraz PhD
Christa Imrich, PhD
Yi Ji, PhD
Seo-Yeon Kim, PhD
Chantalle Krajewska, PhD
Angela Lee, PhD
Gha Young Lee, PhD
Wei Hao Lee, PhD
Kunal Lodaya, PhD
Yongli Lu, PhD
Andrea Marcano-Delgado, PhD
Rachel Motz, PhD
Yanina Pankratova, PhD
Aaron Petty, SM
Kevin Qian, PhD
Robert-Cristian Raclea, PhD
Benjamin Senzer, PhD
Dina Sharon, PhD
Meng-Chen Shih, PhD
Sorin Srinivasa, PhD
Alice Su, PhD
Axel Vera, PhD
Cong Wang, PhD
XueZhou Wang, PhD
Molly Warndorf, PhD
Theodore Warner, PhD
Leah Weisburn, PhD
Mingrui Wu, PhD