The University of California, Davis, will begin its graduation season this week with commencement addresses from a California appellate justice and a physician-educator known for using social media to support and empower medical learners.
Justice Shama Mesiwala, an associate justice on California’s Third District Court of Appeal and a 1998 graduate of the UC Davis School of Law, will address the law school’s commencement ceremony at 10 a.m. Saturday, May 9.
Mesiwala is a native Californian who was born in 1974 and raised in Cupertino in Silicon Valley. Her father immigrated from India in the 1960s for the educational opportunities available in the United States. Mesiwala devoted much of her legal career to public service before transitioning to work within the judiciary.
Paul Tran, an assistant professor at the University of Arizona College of Medicine-Phoenix and a pediatric gastroenterologist at Phoenix Children’s Hospital, will speak at the School of Medicine commencement ceremony at 10 a.m. May 16.
The ceremonies featuring both Mesiwala and Tran will take place at the Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts on the Davis campus.
UC Davis will hold eight professional school and Graduate Studies ceremonies on the Davis campus through June 12, along with five undergraduate ceremonies at the Golden 1 Center in Sacramento from June 12-14.
In addition, nine cultural and affinity celebrations will be held from May 29 through June 13. These graduation celebrations are geared toward different communities, with all students and their peers welcome to attend. The cultural celebrations include Chicanx/Latinx, Middle Eastern, North African and South Asian, Lotus Mana, Native American, Black, and Filipinx graduations. More information on these events and commencements, including ticket information, is available on the commencement website.
Justice Shama Mesiwala has served on the bench of the Third District Court of Appeal since 2023. She has maintained a strong commitment to public service, representing indigent criminal defendants early in her career. In 2004, she began working for the appellate court, first as a central staff attorney and later as a chambers attorney.
In 2017, Mesiwala was appointed commissioner of the Sacramento Superior Court and became a judge 10 months later. She presided over a variety of court calendars, including criminal and civil trials. Mesiwala also created Northern California’s first Indian Child Welfare Act courtroom and served as its judge. In that courtroom, she worked to ensure the civil court complied with the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Additionally, Mesiwala is the co-founder of the South Asian Bar Association of Sacramento and has received numerous awards for her community service.
Paul Tran, the speaker for the School of Medicine commencement ceremony, is a medical educator with a strong online following. Tran has served as clerkship co-director at the Arizona Medical College since 2023 and as pediatric specialty adviser at Creighton University School of Medicine since 2025. Tran seeks to “inspire learners to grow, embrace challenges and advocate for themselves while fostering encouragement and kindness within medical education.”
On social media, Tran is known as Alimentary School. He has hundreds of thousands of followers on TikTok, YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram, where he uses the platforms to empower, educate, and entertain medical students and trainees.
In a keynote address at the American Medical Association’s Medical Student Advocacy Conference in March, Tran told medical students, “We don’t say it enough. Thank you for what you do. Thank you for what you’re doing today to take care of someone who’s depending on you tomorrow. You are seen. You are important. You are enough.”
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