Nine student speakers selected to represent fellow graduates at Binghamton University Commencement ceremonies

Binghamton University will begin its Commencement ceremonies with its doctoral hooding ceremony at 3 p.m. Wednesday, May 15, in the Anderson Center’s Osterhout Concert Theater, and will also hold a Graduate School ceremony for master’s candidates at 4 p.m. Friday, May 17,

Student speakers, however, begin taking the stage at noon Friday, May 17, with the first of nine students representing fellow graduates taking the podium. Here, read a bit about the students selected by their various schools to speak.

Decker School of Nursing
Noon Friday, May 17
Events Center

Jessica Alzona

Jessica Alzona, who is graduating with a bachelor’s degree in nursing and minors in education and forensic health studies, didn’t always know she wanted to be a nurse. In fact, she shied away from taking any sciences courses beyond those required.

“I didn’t know I wanted to be a nurse until my senior year of high school. I originally wanted to go into law,” she said. But then she started volunteering at Stony Brook Hospital. “That’s when I learned I wanted to go into the medical profession and I admired the role of nurses and the relationships they were able to form with patients.

“I was also hospitalized as a child and remembered how the nurses made me feel in relation to all of the other healthcare professionals,” she added.

So, the Lake Grove, Long Island native came to Binghamton. “I was drawn to the great nursing program and stellar academic reputation, and it is also the perfect distance from home to give me the opportunity to grow and develop myself as a person while being surrounded by like minded peers,” Alzona said. “It also has a diverse atmosphere and a wide array of extracurricular activities.”

She spent two years living in Mountainview College residential community, then the past two year off campus, but remained active as a nursing mentor for the Mary E. Mahoney Nursing Support Group and as chapter relations chairman for Phi Mu Fraternity, fostering relationships with alumni and parents to encourage networking opportunities.

Alzona holds certifications in Basic Life Support for Healthcare Providers and is an Open Airways for Schools trained facilitator. She’s currently studying for the NCLEX exam – a nationwide nurse licensing exam – and wants to work on Long Island or in New York City.

“Eventually, I want to work as an intensive care unit nurse, and I also have an interest in anesthesia,” she said.

Harpur 1
8:30 a.m. Saturday, May 18
Events Center

Chelsea Strong

A native of New Rochelle, N.Y., Chelsea Strong always knew she would attend a SUNY school and that she would follow a path to a degree in business. Accepted into Stony Brook University’s School of Business, she instead opted for Binghamton and Harpur College – not the School of Management (SOM).

“I wanted to stay at Binghamton and, to me, economics is business,” she said. “I’ve worked with students in SOM, and tried to transfer there, but I really feel that I was able to get super close with my professors and by staying in Harpur, I was exposed to various classes I wouldn’t have taken otherwise. I have a well-rounded degree.”

It’s also a validation of the liberal arts that Strong said she learned as a high school student in boarding school.

Following graduation, Strong begins a position as an analyst in the Consumer and Investment Management division at Goldman Sachs. She’ll work out of two offices in the Greater New York City area, and is eager to start. “I interned for them last summer and am going back to that same team,” she said. “I’m super excited because I loved it. I’ll be working with quite a few Binghamton graduates as well; three of them who graduated when I was a freshman and one of them was also an economics major.”

“I know I will miss it here, because I’ve loved school, but I loved that experience, too,” Strong said. “If it were possible to stay in school and every summer have an internship, I would. It’s the best of both worlds.”

But the environment she’s going to at Goldman Sachs is also appealing. “It’s typically young people and I’m going back to my team and manager from last summer,” Strong said. “I haven’t felt about any other manager this way. She’s goal-oriented and really cared about me, and I’ve kept in contact with her.”

As student manager of the Division I softball team at Binghamton, Strong also had a mentor on campus in Michelle Johnston, the team’s coach.

“She was one of the first people to know about my father’s passing,” Strong said. “She reached out. She didn’t have to do that. She’s been there for me in every aspect of my college career – my academics and especially mentally and physically. She’s really on top of my well-being even though she doesn’t have to be.”

(Sadly, Johnston and the softball team are excited for Strong, but will miss her Commencement. They’ll be in the America East Softball Championship playoffs in Hartford, Conn.)

In addition to her role with the team, Strong has been a resident assistant for three years, a McNair Scholar, a Safe Ride escort on campus, a member of Student Support Services (SSS), a tutor, a member of Phi Sigma Sigma Sorority and its finance committee – and a mystery shopper.

“I would get assigned a place on campus, go that week and choose any meal and pay close attention to how it was prepared, how the customer service was and if I was greeted or offered extra,” she said. “It really made me more conscious of people’s behavior so now I personally want to make sure I’m doing the best to put myself out there and make sure people know I’m interested in what they’re saying. If I see someone having a conversation and they’re not very engaged, I think, ‘What can I do better to make you more engaged?’

“I learned that even if you’re not having an ‘on’ day, you can’t always let that affect you. Some we must tend to, but there are certainly bad days that you can put on pause and be mindful that you signed up for this and that’s where your dedication needs to be.”

Harpur 2
12:30 p.m.
Events Center

Melanie Messinger

Even though Melanie Messinger, who grew up in Old Bethpage, N.Y., was unsure what she wanted to study in college, she always wanted to go to Binghamton. “I knew the reputation,” she said. “Binghamton has a great academic reputation and I had visited before – when it was freezing! – but I loved the culture and thought it was a great place where I could fit in and figure out what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.”

Communications tugged at her, but Binghamton doesn’t have a communications major. “Someone in the English major spoke to me and told me how she had wanted communications and had ended up in English with a focus on rhetoric and she was learning similar skills but with an emphasis on writing,” Messinger said. “She said she felt it was giving her a unique perspective on communications. I took her advice and have no regrets.”

“If anything, my English major has given me a broader learning spectrum.” she added.

Not completely sure where she’ll be after graduation, Messinger is applying for jobs now. “I would love to work in sales, especially for an advertising or media corporation. It’s a pretty broad area, but for a first job, I want to really see what I’m interested in,” she said. “There are so many aspects to sales and I want to try out different areas to see which I fall into best.”

Messinger had a taste of sales at an advertising corporation through an internship in summer 2018 with Clear Channel Outdoor, which markets billboards. “After being exposed to it I realized I liked working in advertising a lot,” she said. “I worked in sales operations, which is more on the back end, but as an English major, it opened my eyes to a new area of sales I had not been previously exposed to.”

Part of the internship involved working with other interns as part of the Advertising Club of New York. The group held weekly luncheons, but also gained insights into the field of advertising through field trips and networking. “Clear Channel sent us and it was awesome,” Messinger said. “We got to explore Facebook and went to Twitter and Mets games and met people in the field. It was definitely a good networking experience.”

While a student at Binghamton, Messinger was a tutor for the Binghamton University Writing Initiative, a content writer for the weekly electronic newsletter Odyssey Online and was responsible for overseeing the image of Sigma Delta Tau Sorority. She also studied abroad at Anglo American University in Prague, Czech Republic, for the 2018 spring semester.

A member of Phi Beta Kappa, Messinger completed an honors thesis prior to Commencement, with one of her favorite faculty members, Lois Einhorn, professor of English, as her advisor. Her topic wasn’t the normal thesis topic for an English major, she said. “It’s on the rhetorical strategies of amazon.com, unlike the rest of the class that based theirs on literature. I definitely came at things from a different angle!”

Harpur 3
4:30 p.m. Saturday, May 18
Events Center

Tiffany Dun

Tiffany Dun arrived at Binghamton University through a circuitous route – from Australia to Syracuse and then to Binghamton – and tennis opened the door.

“I always thought college seemed so cool in the movies – I wanted that typical American college experience,” she said. “Back home, I would have gone to the local university, lived at home and commuted. I wanted to live independently and get out on my own.”

Because she couldn’t afford to attend school in the United States without help, tennis became her ticket. She received an academic/athletic scholarship from Le Moyne College in Syracuse, and flew halfway around the world to start her college years.

“My parents thought I’d be here for one year and come home, but I really loved the experience and made amazing friends,” she said. “It was an adventure, and every day was exciting and challenging – for the first year at least.”

Dun faced homesickness in her second year in the states and sought to increase her training schedule from the Division II program at Le Moyne. She wanted to continue with her journey, which would eventually see her transfer to Binghamton to play Division I. She completed her final two years here as an undergraduate and member of the tennis team.

Still, the decision to transfer was difficult. Advice from her grandparents helped when they told her she had good options and would be happy no matter what, so she followed her heart.

While at Binghamton, in addition to competing on the tennis team, Dun worked in the Bearcats Issue Room, organizing and prepping gear for Division I competitions. She was also a teaching assistant for biological sciences and a staff writer for Pipe Dream, the student newspaper.

Dun will return to Australia following graduation, with the hope of earning a master’s degree in marine biology.

“In the long term, I’ll try to put everything I like doing together,” she said. “I’ve been a tennis coach and tutor, so I love teaching, but I picture myself being a university professor because I can see myself doing research in the field and contributing to discoveries in marine biology. Ultimately, I want to do what I love, which will hopefully mean I can help to preserve our reefs for the next generation.

“I also enjoy public speaking and communicating with others, but it is important to me that I make a difference. I feel like the best way to make a difference is to teach the next generation because they will become our future,” she said. “I’ve had so many professors who have inspired me. It seems like such an awesome job.”

Dun also loves writing, which fits in with teaching at a university. “I want to write something that has research behind it. To have an impact – that’s the dream.”

Thomas J. Watson School of Engineering and Applied Science
8:30 a.m. Sunday, May 19
Events Center

Chloe Long

Mechanical engineering major Chloe Long, from Flushing, N.Y., has a passion for the fields of sustainability and aerospace that she plans to continue honing after graduation. She was attracted to Binghamton University’s Watson School because it was economically viable, but realized her decision to attend was the right one for her because “the Engineering Design Division allows freshmen to explore all engineering paths before choosing one, so it gave me a lot of time to figure out the academic path I wanted to follow.”

Long, who has been an undergraduate course assistant and research assistant while at Binghamton, was a strategy intern in summer 2018 for Airbus Americas in Herndon, Va., conducting research on electric hybrid aircraft and autonomous air systems. She also completed an internship in high-power rocketry in summer 2016 at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center.

On campus, Long founded and was president of Bing Space, the first aerospace interest organization on campus. She also serves as a representative on student advisory boards for the Department of Mechanical Engineering and the Engineering Design Division. As a Brooke Owens Fellow, she founded and serves as a logistics lead for the Ask a Brookie Outreach Program, where fellows mentor younger students interested in aerospace endeavors.

“I want to affect the most positive change that I can, and I hope to do so by contributing to the sustainable development of the aerospace field,” she said.

Following Commencement, Long will travel to various countries in Europe and Asia, before beginning a doctoral program in aerospace engineering with a concentration in astrodynamics at the University of Colorado Boulder.

Julie Kunnumpurath

Tully, N.Y., native Julie Kunnumpurath only applied to two schools when looking at colleges. “When I ended up making my decision, it came down to where I could afford to actually go and Binghamton was the logical choice,” she said. “Binghamton had a great reputation and I knew that if f I got in I would like the diversity that the school has. It was a big factor and I would also be able to be part of a reputable engineering school.”

Kunnumpurath has made the most of her time at Binghamton. She’s been a member of the Dickinson Research Team, is a founding member of Binghamton Women in Tech, interned with the Road Map Student Task Force, served as president of the Alpha Phi Omega Co-ed Service Fraternity, has been a Watson Peer Advisor for two years, and has also been a resident assistant for two years.

A computer science major, also spent the summer after her freshman year in the Summer Research Immersion, “which was super helpful because it basically got me my first internship with Google,” she said.

She completed two internships with Google and – after taking the summer to travel – will move to Mountain View, Calif., to work full time for the tech giant. “I don’t know my exact role yet, but I will be working on the Ads Team, which is good because a lot of machine learning happens in that field and all of my internships so far have been in machine learning.

“I’ve been really blessed with the faculty in computer science,” she said. “Every professor I’ve had, they like what they do. Eileen Head has been the most impactful for me. She’s a really great mentor and pushed me outside of my comfort zone.”

When Kunnumpurath was trying to decide whether she should graduate a semester early or do something else, she credits Head with helping her weigh her options. “She helped me with the logical approach – graduate early and go into the workforce sooner or study abroad or do an internship for a semester and still graduate with all of my friends.

“She knew I was interested in startup culture, so it made sense and I got lucky that my family was supportive and my class scheduling worked out,” said Kunnumpurath, who spent the fall 2018 semester interning at a health tech startup in San Francisco, Calif.

College of Community and Public Affairs
Noon Sunday, May 19
Events Center

Sarah Rebecca Cohen, master’s student speaker

Sarah Rebecca Cohen, a native of Beacon, N.Y., who goes by her middle name, earned two degrees from Binghamton University before pursuing her master’s degree in social work – she earned her bachelor of arts in psychology and her bachelor of science in human development in 2017. She attributes her success at Binghamton University to God and the support of her Family.

Since high school, Cohen knew that she wanted to go to a school that challenged her. “I knew that Binghamton was highly ranked and known to be very academic,” she said. “I had applied and was accepted to a number of other schools, and was excited to be accepted to Binghamton University. I loved the campus and was ready to be challenged.”

Cohen had always been interested in working with people. “After being familiar with human services through my own community and family experiences, I’ve known my whole life that I wanted to work in a helping profession.”

She decided to remain at Binghamton for her social work degree for a number of reasons. First, the program provided what she wanted: great community connections and a generalist program.

“Plus, Binghamton grabs you and draws you in,” Cohen said. “The weather doesn’t represent the feeling you have when you spend time here. I had grown so much as an undergraduate here and I wanted to continue that trajectory.”

Cohen was drawn to social work as a profession. “In the social work program, you’re not only helping, but what you learn is applicable to so many parts of life. It feels like the natural profession for me.”

Her involvement beyond campus in the Binghamton community has also made an impact on her.

“Getting outside the bubble of Binghamton University has shown me how much the area has impacted me,” she said. “I had opportunities to volunteer with so many agencies as an undergraduate, and for the past two years as a staff person for Greater Binghamton Young Life, a Christian outreach organization for high school students.”

While a master’s student, she has also interned at Our Lady of Lourdes Center for Mental Health and Thomas Jefferson Elementary School in Binghamton. As an undergraduate she interned at the Crime Victims Assistance Center. She was the president of Alpha Phi Omega, a co-ed community service fraternity and a member of Intervarsity Christian Fellowship.

“In general, it’s the opportunities I’ve had to bridge from school to community that have had the greatest impact on me,” she said.

Following graduation, Cohen will continue her search for a position where she can help others.

Max Musashi Fischman, undergraduate student speaker

“Coming from a smaller school in Queens, when I first came to Binghamton, seeing the expansive student population surrounded by the serenity of nature offered me a sense of comfort in a new environment. I toured the Dickinson Community and thought about the experiences I could have here. It felt like a dream. It seemed right,” said Max Musashi Fischman when asked why he chose Binghamton.

Unsure of what to study, Fischman ended up where he belonged, he said. “I became very interested in the human development program and how what I learned in the classroom could be applied to daily life. I enjoy the motivation behind it and the material – learning about how people and societies work and how the world around us exists – seemed perfect.”

A resident assistant (RA) for the past two years in Rafuse Hall in the Dickinson Community, Fischman has been awarded the National Residence Hall Honorary 2017-2018 RA of the year and has also interned in the University’s Human Resources office, shadowed at the Orthopaedic Institute at Lenox Hill Hospital (part of Northwell Health), and interned in marketing with Binghamton University Athletics. He also co-founded and is vice president of public relations for the Binghamton University Data Science and Analytics Club.

He has lived in Rafuse Hall all four years, and his experiences as an RA and before that, the friends he made and the environment that he was welcomed into, sparked his interest in learning more about people and putting himself in a position to help others. “I kept returning to the community that first welcomed me from living in Rafuse Hall to soon working there for the rest of my collegiate career,” Fischman said. “It has helped me grow as a leader and allowed me to interact with a diverse range of phenomenal people. I appreciate and cherish that the most. There’s something about being in the same building that gave me pride and motivated me to try to help other students experience similarly positive experiences like the ones that I had there.”

Plans after graduation include working and traveling, “but at the end of the day I want to do something that is positive to people’s growth and will satisfy my passions in terms of helping others.”

School of Management
3:30 p.m. Sunday, May 19
Events Center

Sofia Haikin

Originally from Israel, Sofia Haikin and her family settled in Leonia, N.J., when she was very young. When it was time to apply to colleges, she began looking at public institutions because she would be paying her own way.

“When I looked at Binghamton, I knew it had the best return on investment and the chance of graduating with a good job,” she said. “But it’s also a very supportive and encouraging environment. Never have I seen that at another school.

“Binghamton encourages you to do your best, rather than compete with your peers,” she added.

As a freshman, Haikin got involved in the School of Management right away, competing in several case competitions with fellow team members. “After that, I was elected to the e-board of the Management Consulting Group – serving one year as the vice president of internal relations and then, the next year, taking on the role of president.”

Haikin was also involved in the National Residence Hall Honorary, as well as the Dickinson Town Council. She took on the responsibility of being an RA for two years, in addition to balancing her curriculum, serving as a tour guide and participating in extracurricular activities.

Haikin completed a summer internship for EY (Ernst and Young) in Australia. “I don’t think I would have been able to do that without Binghamton’s help,” she said. “I’ve experienced so many great things, but that’s the most memorable.”

Haikin will receive her bachelor’s degree in business administration with concentrations in marketing and management information systems and begin her career working at EY in its risk advisory branch in New York City. But first, she’ll travel.

“I have a little break before I start and am currently booking trips to Europe with my Dad,” she said. “We’re going to Amsterdam and Rome and then visiting family in Israel. Then I start my job, but I’ve already started planning future trips!”