U.S. labor secretary to speak at UB School of Public Health and Health Professions 2014 commencement ceremony

BUFFALO, N.Y. — Secretary of Labor Thomas E. Perez will speak at the 2014 commencement ceremony for the University at Buffalo’s School of Public Health and Health Professions (SPHHP).

The 12th annual SPHHP commencement will take place at 3 p.m. May 18 in the UB Center for the Arts on the North (Amherst) Campus.

The event is not open to the public as seating for the event is reserved for graduating students, family and friends. 

A Buffalo native and graduate of Canisius High School, Perez will address more than 200 graduates.

“We are honored to have Secretary Perez return to Buffalo to participate in our commencement,” said Dean Lynn Kozlowski, PhD. “Poverty undermines public health. Because of his understanding of labor, Secretary Perez knows that it is fundamental to public health that we have an economy that helps to provide meaningful jobs."

As secretary of labor, Perez heads the U.S. Department of Labor, whose mission is “to foster, promote and develop the welfare of the wage earners, job seekers and retirees of the United States; improve working conditions; advance opportunities for profitable employment; and assure work-related benefits and rights.”

Before being sworn in as the country’s 26th labor secretary on July 23, 2013, Perez was the assistant attorney general for the Division of Civil Rights of the Department of Justice. For his complete biography, visit http://www.dol.gov/_sec/.

The UB School of Public Health and Health Professions offers baccalaureate, master’s and doctoral degree-level programs and is the home to five departments: Biostatistics, Exercise and Nutrition Sciences, Community Health and Health Behavior, Rehabilitation Science, and Epidemiology and Environmental Health. It is one of only a handful of schools across the country that includes health-related professions as an integral component of the public health educational and research system. The school is located on Kimball Tower on the UB South Campus.

For more information about the school, visit www.sphhp.buffalo.edu.