Shayla Brown

Graduating psychology student Caroline Little said she grew up at George Mason University. “I have grown from a child to an adult at George Mason in ways I could have never thought possible. I came here a teenager, and left here a married mother of two,” said Little. Little, who will travel from Alabama to address her fellow graduates as the 2024 Winter Commencement Student Speaker, will welcome her second child, Isabella, this winter. 

Darius Jack came to George Mason University with a passion for systems engineering and for flying. He’s been able to maintain his flight hours while earning a bachelor of science in systems engineering this May and an accelerated master's in systems engineering, his second degree from George Mason, in December.

Mason Community Arts Academy has been named one of the Best Summer Camps by  Northern Virginia Magazine every year since 2021. This summer, the program broke multiple records including the number of student participants at just under 1,900. The Acting for Young People program also broke its attendance record with 950 students.

George Mason University senior Katarina Benson has had five different majors throughout her college career. “Choosing what to study [was] very difficult for me, because so many fields interest me,” said Benson. Benson previously majored in agribusiness, film and video, among other subjects, before choosing and completing an English degree with a concentration in cultural studies.

George Mason University associate professor Gabrielle Tayac’s course, HIST 397 Public History in Action, looks at how indigenous communities interact with our student population through community-based engagement and projects.

Since graduating from George Mason University, alum Alex Plank, BA Film and Video Studies ’10, has worked professionally on films and television series as an associate producer and actor. Plank is also an autism activist who works toward more authentic neurodiverse representation in media.

George Mason alumna Jay Ell Alexander, BA Communication ’08, joined Black Girls RUN!, a national running organization, as a PR intern in 2012. In 2018, she bought the company and has been the owner for the last six years.

It was a day that residents in the Washington, D.C.-Baltimore metropolitan areas won’t soon forget: March 26, 2024, when the Baltimore Francis Scott Key Bridge collapsed, killing six and leaving many more forever impacted. Since then, George Mason University professors Elise Miller-Hooks, Alireza Ermagun, and Shanjiang Zhu have received two NSF RAPID grants to study the cause and impact of the collapse, and potential preventative methods for the future.

More than 250 people are working on the construction of the Fuse building at Mason Square, including George Mason University rising senior Leslie Hernandez. “It’s my way of giving back to my school and community,” said Hernandez, who is majoring in civil and infrastructure engineering in the College of Engineering and Computing.

George Mason University professor Lisa Gilman lived in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) from the time she was born until she was 9 years old. She is currently working on her research of migrants and displaced people who have been affected by war and trauma with her project, “My Culture, My Survival: Arts Initiatives by Refugees for Refugees.”