More than 600 Missouri University of Science and Technology graduates will be awarded degrees during three upcoming ceremonies this December. Dr. Harold R. “Skip” Garner, chief scientific officer at Orbit Genomics, will speak at the Dec. 13 ceremony. William R. Kennedy, CEO of Jack Kennedy Metal Products and Buildings Inc., will speak at both Dec. 14 ceremonies.

All three ceremonies will be held at the Gale Bullman Building, located at the corner of 10th Street and Bishop Avenue in Rolla. The first ceremony, for Ph.D. graduates, will begin at 6 p.m. Friday, Dec. 13. The other two ceremonies, for bachelor’s and master’s degree recipients, will begin at 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 14. Saturday’s ceremonies are divided by discipline.

Each event will be livestreamed via Missouri S&T’s Facebook page and on Zoom for those guests needing closed captioning. For more details about commencement ceremonies, visit commencement.mst.edu.

Speaker biographies

Dr. Harold R. “Skip” Garner is the chief scientific officer for Orbit Genomics, sits on numerous corporate advisory boards, and advises several governmental agencies. He earned a bachelor’s degree in nuclear engineering from Missouri S&T in 1976, and a Ph.D. in plasma physics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1982. He worked for 12 years at General Atomics, conducting experimental and theoretical fusion research, before transitioning to medicine.

Garner has held faculty positions at University of Texas Southwestern, Virginia Bioinformatics Institute at Virginia Tech, and the Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine, and has supervised over 75 students pursing their Ph.D., M.D., or D.O.

William R. Kennedy is the CEO of Jack Kennedy Metal Products and Buildings, Inc., the world’s largest mining ventilation firm. He has over 40 years of experience in the ventilation of mines and manufacturing of related equipment. He has been a guest lecturer repeatedly at mineral engineering colleges, both for undergraduate students and for continuing education courses offered for practicing and graduate mining engineers, and other mining company officials on both university campuses and at major mining company facilities.

Kennedy is the named inventor and holder of 91 U.S. and foreign patents, with others pending, and is the author of a textbook, titled Practical Mine Ventilation.

About Missouri University of Science and Technology

Missouri University of Science and Technology (Missouri S&T) is a STEM-focused research university of over 7,000 students located in Rolla, Missouri. Part of the four-campus University of Missouri System, Missouri S&T offers over 100 degrees in 40 areas of study and is among the nation’s top public universities for salary impact, according to the Wall Street Journal. For more information about Missouri S&T, visit www.mst.edu.