Graduate School speakers to emphasize community, connection at Commencement Bardiya Akhbari, a Ph.D. graduate in biomedical engineering, and Sonya Brooks, a master’s graduate in urban education policy, will speak about the power of human connection, especially in the midst of a global pandemic. PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Bardiya Akhbari and Sonya Brooks, both soon-to-be-graduating Brown University students, live 3,000 miles away from one another and may never meet. But they have something profound in common: Amid the global COVID-19 pandemic and the isolation it has mandated ...