School Notes: Graduate School of Arts & Sciences
May/June 2023

Conference honors scholars

This spring, the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences hosted the 19th annual Yale Bouchet Conference on Diversity and Graduate Education. The theme of this year’s conference was “The Role of the Academy in Preserving a Democracy,” and the event included a keynote address by Bouchet Leadership Award Medal recipient David A. Thomas ’78, ’86PhD, president of Morehouse College. The two-day conference included poster sessions, panel presentations, and an induction ceremony in which six new members were welcomed into the Bouchet Graduate Honor Society: William D. Shipman II, dermatology resident and postdoctoral fellow in the Yale Department of Dermatology; Eric Glover, assistant professor adjunct at Yale’s David Geffen School of Drama; Ngozi Akingbesote, PhD candidate in cellular and molecular physiology; Sandy Chang ’88, professor of laboratory medicine, pathology, and molecular biophysics and biochemistry; Mariam O. Fofana, postdoctoral associate in the Department of Epidemiology of Microbial Diseases at the Yale School of Public Health and clinical instructor in emergency medicine at the Yale School of Medicine; and Paola Figueroa-Delgado ’21MPhil, PhD candidate in the Department of Cell Biology.

Named for Edward Alexander Bouchet, the first African American doctoral recipient in the United States, the BouchetGraduate Honor Society recognizes outstanding scholarly achievement and promotes diversity and excellence in doctoral education and the professoriate. 

Student relocation awards expanded

The Graduate School announced during this year’s admissions season that it would expand its offering of relocation awards to all students admitted to PhD programs at Yale. Each newly matriculating student will receive a $1,000 relocation award to help defray the cost of moving to New Haven to begin graduate school. Relocation awards had been offered previously to any student who requested a fee waiver as part of their application. This new approach recognizes the rising costs associated with starting a new graduate program and takes the burden off incoming students to ask for assistance. The Graduate School hopes this will provide funding to more students who need it, especially low-income students and those coming from international locations.