Ron Elsenbaumer, Interim Provost

Ron Elsenbaumer, Interim Provost

Interim Provost Ron Elsenbaumer

The University of Texas at Arlington
May 9, 2008

Commencement is a special time for any university.  It honors students’ hard work and perseverance, re-enforces the classroom commitment of the faculty, and allows us in administration to brag about all of you. 

In that spirit, I’m delighted to be here tonight at Graduation Celebration—which is a wonderful event for our University—to share in these festivities.  Congratulations to all of you. 

As interim provost this academic year, it’s been my pleasure to work in a variety of ways with so many outstanding students from across campus Truly, UT Arlington students are some of the best and brightest anywhere. 

We see this in your levels of engagement, both in and out of the classroom, where you complement you academics with co-curricular and extra-curricular events.  We see this in your outstanding research, demonstrated each spring at the Annual Celebration of Excellence by Students.  We see this in you ever-increasing academic standards, which begin the moment you arrive at UT Arlington. 

As you can imagine, of course, we want to showcase you!  And so, we include as part of the Graduation Celebration program a student speaker.  Every year we will honor one college or school by asking one of its outstanding graduating students to speak at Graduation Celebration.  Tonight, we honor the College of Science. 

Our student speaker representing Science is Nathalie Tacconi [nat-UH-lee tuh-CONE-ee].  Nathalie is graduating this week with a bachelor’s degree in biology…and she’ll graduate again in August with a bachelor’s degree in computer science engineering.

Nathalie is also a member of our Honors College and has a deep interest in a variety of fields, not limited to biology and engineering, but also including art and astronomy.  As an undergraduate here at UT Arlington, she has been actively involved in research—including her work with DrFred MacDonnell of the Department of Chemistry, in which she is developing new drugs to shrink tumors from the inside out, rather than the traditional outside-in approach of chemotherapy.  Early indications, by the way, have shown positive results…and Nathalie may someday transform the way tumors are treated.

She’s also conducted engineering-based research, most notably related to testing devices for “smart house” networks…which may allow Alzheimer’s patients to live unassisted by wearing a tracking device that works in conjunction with wireless devices imbedded in their home. 

After she graduates, Nathalie plans to move to Washington and pursue work in the corporate world. 

I’m delighted to welcome…an outstanding representative of UT Arlington’s student body…Nathalie Tacconi.