Rusha Al-Rawaf of UC Santa Barbara’s Gevirtz School has been chosen to be the student speaker at the UC Santa Barbara’s 2013 Graduate Division Commencement on Sunday, July 16.
“I am extremely honored, thrilled, and grateful to have been selected to be the graduate student commencement speaker,” Rusha Al-Rawaf says. “I am very pleased to be given the chance to thank UCSB and Santa Barbara for enriching my educational journey, and I am very proud to have selected UCSB and that the University selected me back.”
Rusha Al-Rawaf, from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, earned her BS degree in Computer Science from the University of Bahrain in 1999. She will receive her MA degree in Education, with an emphasis in Educational Leadership and Organization spring 2013 from UC Santa Barbara. Her co-advisors are Prof. Sharon Conley and Prof. Jenny Cook-Gumperz. Prior to attending UCSB, Al-Rawaf worked for Saudi Aramco as a business systems analyst. Her last project included managing the design of a highly integrated technology package at Aramco’s King Abdulaziz Center for World Culture. She is at UCSB on the Saudi Aramco’s Advance Degree scholarship program.
Al-Rawaf has recently joined the Gevirtz Doctoral program and will conduct research on program evaluation at the King Abdulaziz Center’s Museum educational component. She currently lives in Dammam, with her husband and two children. She is also bilingual in Arabic and English.