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Media representatives are invited to attend the December Commencement ceremony at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Media representatives are invited to attend the December Commencement ceremony at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Sunday (Dec 16)
2 p.m.

Dean E. Smith Center

Bowles Drive

Chapel Hill

Myron S. Cohen, M.D., an acclaimed physician and researcher who has spent the last three decades studying the transmission and prevention of HIV/AIDS, will speak at the ceremony, continuing a tradition of members of the faculty delivering the December Commencement address.  

Chancellor Holden Thorp will preside at the ceremony for students who graduated in August as well as those graduating Sunday.

Graduates in Carolina blue (bachelor’s degree recipients) and black (master’s, doctoral, professional) caps and gowns will enter to “Procession of the Nobles” by Nikolay Andreyevich Rimsky-Korsakov, played by the 50-member UNC Ceremonial Band.

Graduates: To date, 2,410 students have applied to graduate Sunday. Administrators anticipate awarding 1,299 bachelor’s, 766 master’s, 277 doctoral and 68 professional degrees.

Speaker: As the J. Herbert Bate Distinguished Professor of medicine, microbiology, immunology and public health, Cohen, along with his team of researchers at Carolina, developed sensitive assays to measure the concentration of HIV in bodily fluids. Cohen was among the first to demonstrate that the presence of other sexually transmitted diseases can increase the likelihood of HIV transmission. As the architect and principal investigator of the multinational National Institutes of Health HIV Prevention Trials Network, Cohen was instrumental in showing that antiretroviral treatment prevents the sexual transmission of HIV-1. In April, he received the top honor of the inaugural Clinical Research Forum Top 10 Clinical Research Achievement Awards.

Media kits/seating: News Services expects to have advance copies of Cohen’s speech. Media kits will be available from Karen Moon of News Services at the bottom of sections 123 and 124. No media seating will be reserved: reporters may sit in the guest section.

Broadcasters: Audio feeds will be available.

Media parking: Media parking will be available in the Bowles lot across from the front of the Smith Center and the Manning lot down Bowles Drive below Kenan-Flagler Business School.

Related Cohen links:
http://www.unc.edu/campus-updates/cohen
http://www.unc.edu/campus-updates/AIDS.conference.2012
http://news.unchealthcare.org/news/2012/april/unc-professor-myron-cohen-wins-top-award-from-clinical-research-forum-for-hiv-prevention-study  

Cohen photo: http://tinyurl.com/9en2q47

Photo credit: Dan Sears

News Services contact: Karen Moon, (919) 962-8595, karen_moon@unc.edu

For more information about Commencement at UNC, refer to http://commencement.unc.edu

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