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2026 Commencement Exercises, Benjamin N. Cardozo School Of Law

Commencement Programs

Order of Exercises

Processional:

Felix Wu, JD, PhD, Vice Dean, Professor of Law, Herald

Presiding: 

Selma Botman, PhD, Provost and Vice President for  Academic Affairs, Yeshiva University, Chief Marshal

Rabbi Dr. Ari Berman, President, Yeshiva University

National Anthem: 

Cantor Ira W. Heller, JD, Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, Class of 2008

Remarks: 

Melanie Leslie, JD, Dean, Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, Class of 1991

Commencement Address: 

Hon. Rowan D. Wilson, Chief Judge of the State of New York and the New York Court of Appeals

Student Remarks: 

Quentin Decurnes, LL.M. Class Speaker, Class of 2026

Basya Bates, …

Accessibility And Daily Cigarette Consumption Among Indonesian Adolescents: A Descriptive Study, Noviana Lathifah, Istiqomah Hanifah Rachman, Anisa Isnaini, Gloria Threesia Piliphinsa Simatupang

Journal of Indonesian Health Policy and Administration

Despite restrictive regulations, Indonesia faces a high prevalence of adolescent smoking, facilitated by easy access to tobacco products. This descriptive study aims to describe cigarette accessibility patterns and daily consumption trends among Indonesian adolescents. A cross-sectional study was conducted using secondary data from the 2019 Global Youth Tobacco Survey (GYTS) involving 9,208 respondents. Descriptive analysis was performed to examine the distribution of age at smoking initiation, daily cigarette consumption, and purchasing accessibility. The majority of respondents started smoking at ≥14 years of age. Daily cigarette consumption showed an increasing trend with age, with older adolescents more likely to consume more …

Optimizing Vitamin A Intervention: Strengthening Supplementation With Targeted Biscuit Fortification, Mayfa Yemima Simanjuntak, Nadia Amanda, Yuli Berliana Simanjuntak, Carissa Wityadarda, Lesta Livolina Simamora

Journal of Indonesian Health Policy and Administration

Vitamin A deficiency (VAD) remains a persistent public health challenge in Indonesia, particularly among children under five and breastfeeding mothers. This study aimed to analyze the distribution of vitamin A interventions and assess the potential of biscuit fortification as a complementary strategy. This study employs a literature review using the Health Policy Triangle (HPT) framework, examining policy context, content, key actors, and implementation processes related to vitamin A interventions. The analysis was conducted using secondary data from government reports, international agencies, and peer-reviewed literature published between 2018 and 2025, with comparative evidence from Vietnam, Bangladesh, and Ghana. The findings show …

Edge Co-Occurrence Regularization For Node Classification, Kadir Altunel

Theses

We propose a simple yet effective regularization technique for node classification on graphs that leverages edge-based label co-occurrence patterns. We first train an MLP on node features to produce class probability distributions, then compute a fixed penalty matrix from edge-based co-occurrence statistics of these predictions. This penalty matrix, which captures unlikely class combinations on connected nodes, is then used to regularize GNN training without further updates. We evaluate this approach across multiple homophilic datasets (Cora, CiteSeer, PubMed, ogbn-arxiv) and heterophilic benchmarks (Chameleon, Squirrel, Actor, Roman-Empire) using three GNN architectures: GCN, GraphSAGE, and H2GCN. Results show consistent improvements on homophilic graphs, …

Invisible Students, Visible Consequences: Leadership Under Fte Funding, Derek Bryant

Inquiry: The Journal of the Virginia Community Colleges

The full-time equivalent (FTE) funding model used by the Virginia Community College System (VCCS) serves as a structural constraint that misaligns financial incentives with the missions of the 23 member institutions within it. This qualitative, descriptive phenomenological study, through interviews with system- and college-level leaders, found that this model underserves part-time, adult, and workforce students while simultaneously contributing to a resource instability that prioritizes enrollment over student success. The study concludes that any reform must require a redesigned funding model that first makes institutions whole, with a stable operational baseline of funding, by incorporating broader enrollment measures that better align …

Maximum Agency: Educator Engagement In The Ai Era, W Alex Foxworthy

Inquiry: The Journal of the Virginia Community Colleges

The dominant narrative about AI in education emphasizes anxiety: jobs lost, skills devalued, futures foreclosed. But survey data reveals a more complex picture. Students and faculty who engage with AI tools see greater possibility and feel less threatened than those who avoid them. Engagement correlates with optimism. This essay argues that community college educators are uniquely positioned to bridge this gap and can play a key role in moving students from anxiety to agency by modeling engaged adaptation themselves. Yet faculty consistently report that lack of institutional support, not resistance, is the primary barrier to integration. Drawing on recent surveys …

Rewarding Risk: How Political Health Messaging Drives Virality And Controversy On X, Hiba Ali

Quantitative Social Science Undergraduate Senior Theses

No abstract provided.

The Struggle Of Indigenous Women From A Critical Feminist Perspective: A Literature Study Of The Indigenous Communities Of Lake Toba, Mudiyati Rahmatunnisa, Cusdiawan Cusdiawan

Jurnal Wacana Politik

This article explores the struggle of indigenous women in the Lake Toba region through a critical feminist perspective. Critical feminism is employed here not only to analyze the complexity of Indigenous women’s experiences in the Lake Toba region, but also as a theoretical framework for envisioning and advancing Indigenous women’s movements. Using a literature study method, this research analyzes various academic works, reports, and secondary data related to indigenous women, capitalism, patriarchy, and corporatist development. This study argues that indigenous women experience various forms of marginalization caused by the intersection of state-supported capitalist expansion, which has led to the loss …

The Impact Of Turkey’S Policy On Refugees (Case Study Of Syrian Refugees), Muhammad Kadhafie, Abdullah Haidar

Jurnal Wacana Politik

In the aftermath of World War II, the international community sought to establish a global order that guarantees the protection of human rights, formally declared through the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Fundamental principles such as the right to life, the right to security, and freedom from torture became central to the international human rights regime. However, contemporary realities demonstrate that human rights violations persist, particularly in situations of armed conflict. The Syrian conflict, which began in 2011, has evolved into one of the largest humanitarian crises of the 21st century, forcing millions of civilians to flee their country …

Mechanics And Physical Attributes Of Nature-Based Alterations: Rock Reinforcement And Urban Heat Island Assessment, Mary Chikondi Ngoma

Dissertations

Ground improvement is critical to geotechnical and geo-engineering systems, where modification of the properties of geomaterials (rocks and soils) is required to maintain stability and prevent failure of infrastructure installed within and around them. This need has become increasingly important with rapid urbanization and population growth, which intensify demands on surface and subsurface systems and further challenge the performance of supporting geomaterials. As a result, there is growing interest in nature-based solutions, particularly biologically mediated processes such as biocementation, which can enhance the physical, hydraulic, and mechanical properties of geomaterials while offering environmentally sustainable alternatives to conventional ground improvement techniques. …

Glass Transition Temperature Of Plga Nanoparticles And The Application In Drug Delivery, Guangliang Liu

Dissertations

The glass transition temperature (T_g) of poly(D,L-lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA) nanoparticles plays a crucial role in governing molecular mobility, diffusion, and consequently, drug release kinetics. However, the interaction among residual surfactant, drug effect, nanoscale confinement, and release medium on T_g remains insufficiently characterized. This study aims to bridge this gap by correlating the thermal behavior of PLGA nanoparticles with their drug release behavior under physiologically relevant conditions.

In the present study, PLGA nanoparticles were synthesized using both nano-emulsion and surfactant-free nano-precipitation approaches. The influence of residual surfactants - poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) and didodecyldimethylammonium bromide (DMAB) - was systematically …

Petals And Pride: A Botanical History Of Queer Expression, Sarah O. Kowal

Graduate Masters Theses

“Petals and Pride” examines the historical use of flowers as enduring symbols of queer expression and persecution across diverse cultures and time periods, paying particular attention to violets, green carnations, roses, lilies, pansies, and lavender. This study begins with the appearance of violets in the works of the Ancient Greek poet Sappho and traces their adoption by the lesbian community of Paris at the turn of the twentieth century. Around this same time, another floral symbol emerged across the English Channel: the green carnation. Popularized by Oscar Wilde, the green carnation functioned in Victorian Britain as an emblem of sexuality …

The Cultivation Of Public Perception: Cultivated Meat Narratives And Misinformation On Tiktok, Anna M. Balkus

Graduate Masters Theses

Cultivated meat is an emerging tissue engineering technology that has the potential to address major issues threatening food systems, including climate change, rapid population growth, and the spread of disease. Among technical challenges, public perception remains a significant barrier for the widespread adoption of cultivated meat. While social media has transformed communication globally, it has simultaneously contributed to corrupt online environments infected with misinformation—unintentional inaccuracies that differ from disinformation, which is spread with the intent to mislead. The way the public receives and digests information regarding new food technologies, like cultivated meat, will be shaped by their social media environment. …

Identity And Distress: The Role Of Misracialization And Membership Esteem In Multiracial Mental Health, Jordan Cherry

Graduate Masters Theses

The population of Multiracial individuals in the US is growing (Jones et al., 2021). Multiracial people face a higher likelihood of adverse consequences, including reconciling the significance of holding multiple racial identities in a society that predominantly categorizes race in single categorical terms (Gabriel et al., 2023). The inaccurate perception of Multiracial individuals by others, or misracialization, is a result of this dynamic. Research indicates that inaccurate racial representation relates to worse mental health outcomes for Multiracial individuals (Campbell & Troyer, 2007; Does et al., 2023; Franco, Toomey, et al., 2021; Lusk et al., 2010). Further, one’s racialized experiences have …

Role Of Technical Assistance In Pollution Prevention In Massachusetts Craft Breweries, Shubhechchhya Regmi

Graduate Masters Theses

This study aims to examine pollution from Massachusetts craft breweries, and if it can be lessened through a pollution prevention program. This study analyzed data from two assessments with the aim of analyzing the role of technical assistance in pollution prevention across eight impact categories. The first assessment was conducted on 29 MA breweries between 2022 and 2024, and 23 were assessed a second time (in summer 2024 and summer 2025). Craft breweries face several constraints in adopting pollution prevention practices the pollution prevention program known as BetterBev helps to bridge this gap by providing technical assistance, identifying inefficiency practices …

Voices Of The Young: Exploring Child Agency In Heritage Language Socialization In Chinese American Families, Yiyang Guan

Graduate Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation investigates how young children in Chinese‑heritage families participate in heritage language development and maintenance (HLDM) in everyday family life. It asks four questions: what agentic behaviors young children display in heritage language socialization (HLS) and family language policy (FLP) co-construction; how they conceptualize language ideologies; what attitudes they hold toward HLDM; and whether differences in agency, ideologies, and attitudes relate to socioeconomic background.

Using a qualitative multiple‑case design, the dissertation focuses on seven families in the San Francisco Bay Area. Data includes parent and child interviews, child language portraits, child audio diaries, parent‑recorded natural conversations, and family background …

Jihad As Discourse: The Houthi Movement's Official Rhetoric On The 2023–2024 Red Sea Attacks, Moh. Iqbal Bulgini, Imam Khomaeni Hayatullah

Journal of Terrorism Studies

This study examines how Ansar Allah (the Houthi movement) constructs and legitimises a jihad discourse through official speeches and formal statements issued by military spokesperson Yahya Sarea and the movement's official platforms during the 2023–2024 Red Sea attacks. Employing Norman Fairclough's three-dimensional Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) framework—integrating textual analysis, discursive practice, and sociocultural context—the study analyses a purposive corpus of 45 verified institutional texts. Three dominant and mutually reinforcing discursive formations are identified: (1) the Humanitarian-Juridical Discourse, which reconstitutes armed attacks as legally and morally obligatory acts of protection; (2) the Anti-Hegemonic Resistance Discourse, which constructs the movement as a …

Critical Geopolitics And The Reconstruction Of Meaning: A Discourse Analysis Of The 'Terrorism' Label Applied To Hamas By Western Hegemony, Cahaya Mulyani Sakti, M.Hamdan Basyar

Journal of Terrorism Studies

The emergence of Hamas in 1987 cannot be separated from the configuration of modern colonialism and the continuity of occupation that shaped the political reality. Hamas’s early phase was rooted in socio-religious activities through education and community empowerment programs, before evolving into armed resistance against the occupation. The labeling of Hamas as a “terrorist” organization began in the mid-1990s in U.S. legal documents, which subsequently generated debate and gave rise to counter-narratives. This study employs the frameworks of critical geopolitics (Ó Tuathail & Agnew) and the Discourse-Historical Approach (Wodak) to analyze the labeling of Hamas as “terrorist” by Western hegemony. …

Digital Communication And The Evolution Of Ideological Narratives In Indonesia: Insights From Social Media Platforms, Tia Mariatul Kibtiah, Muhammad Fikri Fawazi

Journal of Terrorism Studies

This study examines how pro-caliphate and anti-democratic narratives are articulated and normalised within YouTube comment spaces in Indonesia. As the world’s largest Muslim-majority country with high levels of digital engagement, Indonesia provides an important context for analysing how political-religious discourses circulate through everyday digital interaction. The research analyses 1,354 YouTube comments related to the caliphate, governance, and democracy. Data were collected using Google Apps Script, manually filtered for relevance, and examined through qualitative content analysis informed by Social Network Theory (SNT) and the Radicalisation Factor Model (RFM). The findings show that 34.49% of comments endorsed ideological pro-caliphate narratives, while 35.97% …

Ai-Augmented Financial Advisors: Comparing Ai And Human Analyst Investment Recommendations In Agreement, Performance, And Firm Size Effects, Crystal Chen

Honors College Theses

This study examines the level of agreement and performance between artificial intelligence (AI) generated investment recommendations and human analyst recommendations across U.S. publicly traded firms. Using a sample of twelve companies categorized by firm size (large, mid, and small), the study collects buy, hold, or sell recommendations from generative AI systems and human analysts. Agreement between AI-to-AI and AI-to-human recommendations is measured using Cohen’s Kappa agreement. Portfolio performance is evaluated by constructing equal-weighted portfolios for each recommendation source and size category. Risk-adjusted returns are measured using the Sharpe ratio over 1-, 2-, and 3-month periods. Furthermore, the study tests whether …

Re: Conditional Approval Letter For The Butte Priority Soils Operable Unit (Bpsou) 2026 Revised Draft Final Backfill And Cover Soil Quality Assurance Project Plan (Qapp) (Dated May 13, 2026), Molly Roby

Silver Bow Creek/Butte Area Superfund Site

No abstract provided.

The Effect Of State Abortion Restrictions On Female Labor Force Participation And School Enrollment, Elena T. Albano

Graduate Masters Theses

This paper examines the causal effect of state-level abortion restrictions on young women’s labor force participation and school enrollment following the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. Using a difference-in-differences design that exploits the cross-state variation in post-Dobbs abortion policies, I estimate that abortion bans led to a decline in combined school and labor force participation among young women by at least 1 percentage point. This effect is qualitatively robust to a triple difference specification that uses men as a within-state control group, confirming that the results do not reflect broader economic shocks specific to …

Supporting Three-Sector Relationships For Enhancing Agility And Market (Stream): A Comparative Study Of Small And Medium Enterprises (Smes) In China And Indonesia, Marizal Fanani, Muhammad Akmal Daffari, Ikhtiar Anugrah Hidayat, Adinda Qornelica

BISNIS & BIROKRASI: Jurnal Ilmu Administrasi dan Organisasi

In a rapidly evolving borderless economy, the success of Chinese Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in penetrating global markets demonstrates the critical role of structured collaboration among government, industry, and academia. This study examines how intersectoral collaboration, analyzed through the Triple Helix Framework, impacts the innovation agility and market readiness of SMEs in China and Indonesia. This research adopts a qualitative comparative policy analysis, drawing on relevant journals, policy documents, and SME reports to explore how interactions between these sectors influence SME growth and innovation. The findings show that China’s SME is supported by: (1) strong institutional coordination, (2) well-developed …

Determinants Of Public Trust In E-Government: A Comprehensive Review And Conceptual Framework Over The Past Decade, Andrean Nathaniel, Sumartono Sumartono, Abd. Qadir Muslim

BISNIS & BIROKRASI: Jurnal Ilmu Administrasi dan Organisasi

The evolution of digital governance has heightened the strategic significance of public trust in the implementation of e-government. Despite numerous empirical investigations, the results concerning the factors influencing trust remain fragmented and largely centered on technological aspects. This study seeks to systematically identify, categorize, and synthesize the determinants of trust in e-government through a structured literature review of 21 Scopus-indexed articles published between 2015 and 2025. Utilizing an evidence-based synthesis methodology, the study organizes determinants of trust into four main categories: citizen-related, technological, institutional, and risk-related factors. The findings indicate that technological and citizen-related factors are the most significant predictors …

Indonesian Tax Reform: A Never-Ending Dialectic, Charoline Cheisviyanny, Niki Lukviarman, Verni Juita, Suhanda Suhanda

BISNIS & BIROKRASI: Jurnal Ilmu Administrasi dan Organisasi

Indonesian tax reform has evolved through recurring cycles of institutional change, yet it continues to face persistent tensions among fiscal demands, administrative capacity, and taxpayer compliance. While existing tax reform studies predominantly examine reform outcomes in terms of revenue performance and compliance rates, limited attention has been given to the structural contradictions that shape reform trajectories over time. This study re-conceptualizes Indonesian tax reform as a dialectical process by applying a thesis–antithesis–synthesis framework to three major reform cycles since 1983. Using an interpretive qualitative design based on documentary reconstruction and illustrative interview evidence, the analysis demonstrates that each reform phase …

The Role Of Bank Portfolio Heterogeneity In The Fiscal Stimulus Policy In Indonesia, Michael Kusuma, Brigitha Mega Rebeca

BISNIS & BIROKRASI: Jurnal Ilmu Administrasi dan Organisasi

Fiscal stimulus transmission is often hindered by banking frictions from risk-averse behavior and channel specialization. To evaluate the fiscal stimulus policy in Indonesia, this study introduces a modified Input-Output (I-O) framework integrated with bank portfolio-based shock vectors. This approach captures banking frictions by incorporating institution-specific portfolio weights into the macro-simulation framework, providing a more realistic assessment than standard uniform-transmission assumptions. Three scenarios are simulated (policy design, interim realization, and expansionary response) to assess the macroeconomic impacts of credit concentration. The results reveal a significant gap between the initial policy design and its actual realization, generating an economic opportunity loss of …

Arts On The Point: Boston's First Public Sculpture Park, Isabella Slonka

Honors College Theses

Led by the conviction that “a public campus needs public art,” Professor Paul Tucker founded UMass Boston’s Arts on the Point (AoP) sculpture park in 1997. Large-scale works by world-class contemporary artists including Sol LeWitt, Dennis Oppenheim, Luis Jiménez, Sheila Pepe, and Mark di Suvero were made accessible to students, served as teaching aids and attracted those outside of UMB to Columbia Point. AoP’s use of long term loans made the landscape itself a rotating gallery.

Consideration of the “personality” of the campus was essential in the selection of works. Site visits with artists were conducted to ensure that their …

Smartphone Usage, Charles Howard, Josiah Nkele, Berner Hernandez, Di Wu

Open Educational Resources

A major smartphone company is studying how smartphone usage affects users' stress, productivity, and sleep habits. As part of the product development team, you have been assigned to analyze user behavior data to help create digital wellness features that improve the overall user experience.

The company has collected behavior data from over 50,000 users to better understand how smartphone habits may influence focus, stress, and performance. By exploring this data, the team hopes to discover patterns that can guide healthier digital usage and create a better balance between daily life and technology use.

Senior product managers are considering several possible …

Electrospun Nanofiber Scaffolds For In Vitro 3d Tissue Engineering, Victoria E. Santillan, Samerender Nagam Hanumantharao, Stephanie Bule, Ronish M. Shrestha, Carter Rodzik, Alan Mendoza Estrada, Stephen L. Farias, Marina Tanasova, Smitha Rao

Michigan Tech Publications

Tissue engineering is widely used in research for investigating cellular proliferation, behavior, and responses to various stimuli. However, the predictive value of preclinical studies using cell culture plates is limited by the inability to recapitulate the complexity of the physiological microenvironment. Synthetic three-dimensional (3D) scaffolds can be engineered to mimic the complex morphology of the extracellular matrix of native tissues and can serve as physiologically relevant platforms for preclinical studies. In this study, 3D electrospun scaffolds were characterized to aid in breast cancer research. Unlike previous studies that focused primarily on scaffold fabrication or cell viability, this work systematically evaluates …

Rebranding Untuk Menanamkan Citra Brand Semanis Koe, Novita Priska Anggraeny Matitaputty, Joni Agung Sudarmanto

Journal of Language, Literature, and Arts

This design project is motivated by the competitive environment among micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in the culinary sector, particularly dessert products, which requires each business to present a strong, consistent, and distinctive visual identity. An appropriate visual identity is needed to enhance brand image and strengthen consumer perceptions of product quality. This project uses a descriptive qualitative method, with data collected through interviews, indirect observation, and questionnaires to understand the brand characteristics and consumer perceptions. The design process applies the design thinking model, which consists of five stages: empathize, define, ideate, prototype, and testing. In addition, SWOT analysis …