119 medical students to graduate from Boonshoft School of Medicine May 1

In addition to the conferring of degrees, the Boonshoft School of Medicine’s graduation ceremony on May 1 will include a “hooding ceremony” in which graduates receive traditional regalia denoting their status and profession.

A class of 119 medical students from the Wright State University Boonshoft School of Medicine will celebrate graduation on Sunday, May 1, at 4 p.m. in the Wright State Nutter Center.

In addition to the conferring of degrees, the ceremony will include a “hooding ceremony” in which graduates receive traditional regalia denoting their status and profession.

Graduating students will also take a professional oath to mark the start of their medical careers and sign a registry to commemorate their first use of the initials M.D. following their names.

Tickets are not required to attend the ceremony. Face masks are optional at this time.

The graduation ceremony will be live-streamed at wright.edu/streaming and on the School of Medicine’s Facebook page and YouTube channel.

Capt. Juliann Althoff, M.D., the executive officer of the Naval Medical Research Unit at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and a 1995 Boonshoft School of Medicine graduate, will deliver the commencement address.

Althoff has served in a variety of leadership positions across the U.S. Navy, Marine Corps and the joint operating forces.

Boonshoft School of Medicine graduate and Navy Capt. Juliann Althoff will deliver the commencement address.

After completing flight surgeon training in Pensacola, Florida, in 1997, she was assigned to Carrier Air Wing Nine, deploying on the USS Nimitz and on Helicopter Anti-Submarine Squadron 10 in San Diego. Althoff also served with the Presidential Helicopter Squadron (“Marine One”), spending three years as the senior flight surgeon and overseeing a large flight-line clinic and traveling extensively with presidential support missions.

In 2005, Althoff completed a residency in general public health and preventive medicine at the Uniformed Services University,

As the preventive medicine and force health protection officer and the 3rd Marine Expeditionary Brigade surgeon in Okinawa Japan, she was part of a humanitarian assistance survey team and assisted efforts to respond to the H1N1 pandemic in 2009.

As the U.S. Pacific Command’s preventive medicine and force health protection officer, Althoff coordinated the medical response to the earthquake, tsunami and low-level radiological emergency in Japan. She also organized the Navy Environmental and Preventive Medicine Unit Seven in Rota, Spain, supporting forces in Europe and Africa.

She also served as the executive assistant for the deputy surgeon general of the Navy from 2010 to 2011. As executive director of the Defense Health Board, she led the Department of Defense’s federal advisory committee on health in the development of two comprehensive reports on pediatric health care and low-volume, high-risk surgical procedures. From 2019 to 2021, she served as chief medical officer of Naval Medical Center San Diego.

Althoff received her M.D. degree from the Wright State Boonshoft School of Medicine, a master’s degree in public health from the Uniform Services University, a master’s degree in national security and strategic studies from the Naval War College and a bachelor’s degree from Ohio Wesleyan University.