Summer commencement ceremony set for Friday
Susan Ellis-Felege, professor of biology, will be guest speaker
More than 500 students are eligible to receive degrees at the University of North Dakota’s summer commencement ceremony at 3 p.m. Friday in the Chester Fritz Auditorium.
As many as 242 undergraduates and 275 master’s students and doctoral candidates are expected to graduate.
UND President Andrew Armacost will preside over the ceremony, and Susan Ellis-Felege, professor of biology, will be the guest speaker.
Parking is free for graduates, guests, faculty and staff in the lot south of the Chester Fritz Auditorium. Doors to the seating area open one hour before the ceremony.
For those tuning in online, the ceremony will be livestreamed at UND.edu and UND’s Facebook page.
About the guest speaker
Susan Ellis-Felege is a professor of wildlife ecology and management in the Department of Biology at the University of North Dakota.
Felege earned a bachelor’s degree in Ecology from Penn State University and a doctorate in Wildlife Management from the University of Georgia. Since 2011, she has been a faculty member at UND, where she teaches courses in wildlife ecology, management and survey methods.
Her ecological research covers a vast area, from the southeastern U.S. to the Arctic, as well as a broad diversity of organisms, from small birds to polar bears. She has been recognized among her peers for combining extensive fieldwork with cutting-edge technologies such as drones, remote sensing and Big Data computing. Felege strives to include students in her research and creates opportunities for hands-on learning both inside and outside the classroom.
While at UND, Felege has secured more than $3.8 million in external funding while publishing more than 50 journal articles. In recognition of those efforts, she received the UND Foundation Outstanding Undergraduate Teaching Award in 2017 and the UND Foundation Faculty Scholar for Excellence in Teaching, Research and Service in 2023. She also is a two-time winner of the national Wildlife Society’s Outstanding Student Chapter Advisor award, in 2017 and 2019.
Felege is a member of the Board of Directors for Pheasants Forever and Quail Forever. She is passionate about conservation and loves spending time outdoors with her husband, Chris Felege (also a UND Biology faculty member), as well as her two children and their dog.
