The University of New Mexico will celebrate the fall class of 2024 in two separate commencement ceremonies on Thursday, Dec. 12 and Friday, Dec.13 at University Arena (commonly known as the Pit).

The graduate ceremony for master’s and doctoral students will be held Dec. 12, and the undergraduate ceremony will be held Dec. 13. Both will be at 6 p.m.

Approximately 1,535 from the Albuquerque campus will receive degrees. A total of 1,717 will receive UNM degrees or certificates this fall (across all campuses). An official degree count is determined following commencement.

The breakdown is as follows: 

  • 1,045 bachelor’s degrees
  • 360 master’s degrees
  • 93 doctorates
  • 7 juris doctorates
  • 3 medical doctorates
  • 22 graduate certificates
  • 5 education specialists 

UNM’s branch campuses will also confer degrees. UNM Gallup will award 52 associate degrees and 35 certificates. UNM Los Alamos will award 30 associate degrees. UNM Taos will award 16 associate degrees and 24 certificates, and UNM Valencia will award 9 associate degrees and 16 certificates.  

Including summer graduates, UNM is expected to confer approximately 2,600 degrees and certificates. 

Keynote speakers
The keynote speaker for the graduate ceremony will be Lillian Montoya, president and CEO of Christus St. Vincent health system in north central New Mexico. Montoya is the hospital’s first female CEO since the original Sisters of Charity founded the hospital in 1865. During her tenure, she has led an organizational and cultural transformation of Christus St. Vincent. As a native New Mexican, Montoya is active in many community, business and educational organizations.

Prior to her work with Christus St. Vincent, Montoya led organizations and initiatives to strengthen New Mexico in the areas of higher education, economic development, venture capital and early childhood education. Montoya has more than 30 years of experience in helping corporate, government and nonprofit leaders navigate strategic and organizational challenges. Montoya earned both her bachelor’s and master of business administration degree at UNM.

The keynote speaker for the undergraduate ceremony will be tech entrepreneur Doug Campbell, who has moved back to his native Albuquerque and is focused on building the New Mexico innovation economy. He is a double alumnus from the Gerald May Department of Civil, Construction and Environmental Engineering and is the founder and former CEO of Solid Power, a Louisville, Colo.-based company that develops all solid-state, high-energy and safe rechargeable batteries for the electric vehicle market.

He previously co-founded and was CEO of Roccor, LLC, which specializes in innovative, high-performance, deployable structures and thermal management solutions for satellite and terrestrial military and commercial markets. He is creator and host of his own podcast called Leaders of Enchantment, which features a variety of guests who share success stories on how they are making New Mexico a more innovative place to live and work.

Popejoy Dissertation Prize
The Tom L. Popejoy Dissertation Prize was established as a permanent memorial to the late Tom L. Popejoy, president of UNM from 1948 to 1968. The award recognizes and encourages the highest level of academic excellence, with competition structured among academic units on a three-year rotation.

UNM alumna Jessie L. Williamson has been awarded the 2024 Tom L. Popejoy Dissertation Award. Williamson, a research associate at the Museum of Southwestern Biology at UNM, is the recipient of the 2024 Tom L. Popejoy Dissertation Prize, which will be awarded during UNM’s fall graduate commencement ceremony on Dec. 12.

Williamson is a National Science Foundation postdoctoral research fellow in biology and a Rose Fellow at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and Museum of Vertebrates, as well as a member of the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Cornell University. She is an integrative ornithologist who studies how elevation affects the migration, physiology and genomic divergence of birds.

She received a master’s and Ph.D. in biology from UNM, earning her doctorate in 2022. In August, she will start as an assistant professor in the Department of Zoology and Physiology at the University of Wyoming.

Convocations
In addition to the main ceremonies, several schools and colleges also hold convocation ceremonies for their graduates. A list of those can be found here.

Livestream and program information
Official programs listing the ceremony order will be available at graduation.unm.edu prior to the events. The ceremony will also be live-streamed on UNM’s social media, as well as at the 2024 Fall Commencement livestream and stories of Inspiring Graduates; visit the Class of 24. 

Additional information, including instructions for students and guests, as well as parking information, can be found on the Fall 2024 Commencement website.