Merit Pages News
(May 28, 2025) — Katherine Byrum of Killingworth graduated from Worcester Polytechnic Institute with a degree in Industrial Engineering at commencement ceremonies held on May 16, 2025. WPI President Grace Wang told members of the Class of 2025 they are entering a changing world filled with competing visions for how to solve challenges and advance society. But, she said, along with knowledge and technical competence in their chosen fields of study, WPI graduates have been equipped with the ability to think critically, to be resilient, to work in teams, and to do it all with a sense of ethics and global responsibility.
“Outside these walls today is a world that needs you,” Wang said. “Not just because of what you have learned to do in your chosen field, but because of who you are, and also because of the leadership qualities you built at WPI.”
Delivering the undergraduate commencement address, Michelle Gass (Class of 1990), the president and chief executive officer of Levi Strauss & Co., reflected on her journey from student to global business leader. Gass said she’s often asked how a chemical engineering graduate from WPI became CEO of one of the most iconic apparel companies in the world. The answer, she told the graduates, lies in a handful of guiding principles she started refining in her years on the WPI campus.
“I’ve realized that to the extent I’ve been successful and able to engineer the kind of life I wanted for myself and my family, it’s largely because I learned how to approach problems and moments intentionally and productively, while keeping real people in mind at all times,” Gass said.
Gass and Mark Fuller, chair and treasurer of the George F. and Sybil H. Fuller Foundation, a significant supporter of WPI, received honorary degrees as part of the ceremony.
Student speaker Dhespina Zhidro, a biomedical engineering and mechanical engineering double major, reminded fellow graduates about the community they formed for themselves, shaped by a collective experience that included struggle, doubt and, ultimately, achievement.
“WPI has given us more than an education,” Zhidro said. “It has given us a blueprint for how to live, how to lead, create meaningful change, and leave every place we enter better than we found it.”
