University of Michigan School of Information
UMSI celebrates record graduating class at 2025 commencement
Friday, 05/02/2025
By Abigail McFeeThe University of Michigan School of Information celebrated its largest-ever graduating class at the school’s 2025 spring commencement ceremony on May 1.
A total of 790 graduates earned degrees across UMSI’s five programs: the Bachelor of Science in Information, Master of Science in Information, Master of Health Informatics, Master of Applied Data Science and PhD in Information.
The ceremony was held in Crisler Center, home court of the U-M basketball teams, for the third year in a row. As the school continues to see growth in its residential and online programs, it has outgrown multiple venues in the past decade. More than 2,300 additional people joined the festivities remotely via a YouTube livestream.
Visit the School of Information’s 2025 graduation archive to watch the commencement ceremony and view the full photo gallery 📸
“Our school’s remarkable transformation reflects the incredible need in the world for what you all know how to do,” Dean Andrea Forte told graduates. “You’re equipped to tackle the world’s most challenging problems with innovative, thoughtful, human-centered solutions.”
UMSI alumna Marta Rey Babarro, vice president of research and insights at Zillow, delivered a commencement address celebrating how the connections she made at UMSI have shaped her path.
Rey Babarro earned her MSI degree from UMSI in 2005. “Today feels like a full circle closing for me,” she said. “Twenty years ago, I was exactly where you are today.”
She spoke about straddling two worlds — the United States and her home country of Spain, academia and industry, structure and creativity, rules and rebellion — and in these in-between spaces “finding the most growth and meaning.” Rey Babarro encouraged graduates to challenge norms and “bring the best of one world into the other.”
“Every single one of you is uniquely positioned to be an agent of profound goodness in this world,” she told graduates. “You possess the skills to connect, to organize, to understand and to innovate, in ways that will shape and reform an equitable and humane future.”
Laura Elgas, assistant dean for academic and student affairs, presented student awards to MSI graduates Mila Ekaterina Filipof, Rachael Zuppke and Chiao Lin and BSI graduates Charlotte Parent and Shantaisa King.
Charlotte Parent offered remarks on behalf of undergraduate students. When she began her journey at U-M, Parent said, she would never have anticipated learning how to code. By taking risks, she found her passions.
She encouraged her fellow graduates to embrace failure — whether a job application that doesn’t pan out or a new skill that takes time to develop — not as the opposite of success but as “a predictor of it.”
“Two years was not nearly enough time to spend with this incredible cohort of driven, passionate students,” Parent said. “Learning, growing and — yes — failing alongside all of you is something I will never take for granted.”
MHI graduate Hibah Al-Jabur gave remarks on behalf of graduate students.
“Each of us arrived here on different paths, but we share a common belief: that information has the power to change lives,” Al-Jabur said. “Information connects people and drives decisions and shapes the world, and today we are not just graduates. We are the next generation of leaders ready to harness that power.”
After the ceremony concluded, graduates departed Crisler Center, reuniting with their loved ones to take photos.
Friends met each other’s families, UMSI alumni posed with their newly graduated younger siblings, and young children tried on the caps and stoles of their graduating parents.
The celebration continued in the evening at a reception hosted by UMSI at Ingalls Mall on U-M’s Central Campus.
Video by Jeffrey M. Smith
