{"id":33041,"date":"2023-05-08T08:45:01","date_gmt":"2023-05-08T12:45:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eng.ufl.edu\/newengineer\/?p=33041"},"modified":"2025-06-11T12:42:11","modified_gmt":"2025-06-11T17:42:11","slug":"erin-jackson-university-wide-commencement-speech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eng.ufl.edu\/news\/alumni-spotlight\/erin-jackson-university-wide-commencement-speech\/","title":{"rendered":"Erin Jackson&#8217;s university-wide commencement speech"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_33047\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-33047\" style=\"width: 800px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-33047\" src=\"https:\/\/www.eng.ufl.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/249\/2023\/05\/erin-jackson.jpg\" alt=\"Erin Jackson speaks at the university-wide commencement speech held Friday, May 5. (Dylan Taylor\/UF)\" width=\"800\" height=\"534\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.eng.ufl.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/249\/2023\/05\/erin-jackson.jpg 800w, https:\/\/www.eng.ufl.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/249\/2023\/05\/erin-jackson-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.eng.ufl.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/249\/2023\/05\/erin-jackson-768x513.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-33047\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Erin Jackson speaks at the university-wide commencement speech held Friday, May 5. (Dylan Taylor\/UF)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Erin Jackson is an Olympic gold medalist, a history maker and a Gator. Her story shows the type of grit, adaptability, and steadfastness UF graduates should be known for.<\/p>\n<p>Jackson won the women\u2019s 500-meter race in the 2022 Olympics in Beijing, becoming the first American to win that race since 1994 and the first Black American woman in history to win a Winter Olympic gold medal in an individual sport.<\/p>\n<p>Additionally, she graduated UF cum laude in 2015 with a bachelor\u2019s degree in materials science and engineering. Her undergraduate research focused on the fracture mechanics of dental ceramics.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/news.ufl.edu\/2023\/05\/erin-jackson-commencement-speech-for-spring-2023\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Watch her speech for the University-wide, Spring 2023 Commencement<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Erin Jackson (MSE &#8217;15) gave the university-wide commencement speech at the ceremony on Friday, May 5. Jackson is an Olympic gold medalist, a history maker and a Gator. She won the women\u2019s 500-meter race in speed skating in the 2022 Olympics in Beijing, becoming the first American to win that race since 1994 and the first Black American woman in history to win a Winter Olympic gold medal in an individual sport. Additionally, she graduated UF cum laude in 2015 with a bachelor\u2019s degree in materials science and engineering.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2592,"featured_media":33047,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"single-templates\/single-sidebar-none.php","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"featured_post":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[3,33,43,57],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33041","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni-spotlight","category-events","category-honors-awards","category-stories"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eng.ufl.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33041","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eng.ufl.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eng.ufl.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eng.ufl.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2592"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eng.ufl.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33041"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.eng.ufl.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33041\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37655,"href":"https:\/\/www.eng.ufl.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33041\/revisions\/37655"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eng.ufl.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33047"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eng.ufl.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eng.ufl.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33041"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eng.ufl.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}