COMMERCE, Texas - Dr. Richard De La Garza, a 1985 graduate of Texas A&M University-Commerce who works at the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California-Los Angeles, will speak at Summer Commencement on Saturday, Aug. 13.
De La Garza will address the Graduate School ceremony at 2:30 p.m. in the University Auditorium, second floor of the Ferguson Social Sciences Building.
The A&M-Commerce graduate is noted for his research in depression and drug abuse.
He earned a Ph.D. in neuroscience from the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston in 1996. De La Garza has been a post-doctoral fellow at Harvard Medical School and a research scientist at Yale's School of Medicine.
Before moving to California, he was an assistant professor at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in Bronx, N.Y.
Speaking at the 9 a.m. graduation for students in the College of Arts and Sciences will be Stephen W. Sullivan, a 1969 graduate of A&M-Commerce who retired last December as vice president of Newspaper Operations for E.W. Scripps Co.
At 11 a.m., students in the College of Business and Technology will graduate with Don McCaskill, a 1949 graduate of the university, speaking.
Dr. Sheryl L. Santos, dean of the College of Education at Texas Tech and a former A&M-Commerce faculty member, will speak at the College of Education graduation at 5 p.m.
Sullivan, who studied advertising and public relations at A&M-Commerce, is a former publisher of the Corpus Christi Caller-Times, president of Harte-Hanks Newspapers, and senior vice president of Harte-Hanks Communications, Inc.
A resident of Corpus Christi for most of his life and a graduate of W.B. Ray High School, Sullivan serves on the President's Advisory council at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi, on the Executive Committee of the Texas State Aquarium, and on the Board of Trustees of the Spohr Health System.
A member of the Advisory Board of the A&M-Commerce College of Business and Technology, McCaskill is a Lamar County resident who worked 35 years for IBM.
He retired in 1985 as director of information systems for the America's and Far East Group of IBM. McCaskill has lived and worked in Louisiana, Texas, New York, New Jersey and Connecticut and in Hong Kong, Rio de Janeiro and Vienna.
Active in Lamar County civic affairs for the last 18 years, the A&M-Commerce alumnus has also served on the Foundation Board of the university for the last seven years and its Executive Committee for four years.
Dean at Texas Tech since July 2003, Santos previously served as dean and professor of the School of Education at California State University, Bakersfield.
Santos, who began her college teaching career at A&M-Commerce, has also worked at Arizona State University, Tempe and has been an interpreter for the U.S. Department of State.
She received her bachelor's and master's degrees from Queens College in New York, N.Y., and her Ph.D. in curriculum and instruction with a specialization in bilingual education from Kansas State University.
Santos serves as president of the Texas Chapter of the National Association for Multicultural Education, and she chairs the South Plains Closing the Gaps Coalition. She was recently recognized with an award from the League of United Latin American Citizens LULAC, Council 263, as the Community Member of the Year and has received an Excellence in Diversity and Equity Award from the Texas Tech Office of the President.
All of Saturday's graduations will be in the University Auditorium with approximately 400 students receiving diplomas in the four ceremonies.