ISSUED: 11 April 2023
MEDIA CONTACT: Dana Costa
SHEPHERDSTOWN, WV — Shepherd University will celebrate its 150th Commencement on Saturday, May 6, with words of wisdom from Dr. Roberta L. DeBiasi, chief of the Division of Pediatric Infectious Diseases at Children’s National Hospital in Washington, D.C., and Lacy I. Rice, III, founding managing partner of Federal Capital Partners® (FCP), a privately held real estate investment company.
DeBiasi, a tenured professor of pediatrics and microbiology, immunology, and tropical medicine at George Washington University (GWU) School of Medicine, will speak at the undergraduate Commencement and will be awarded an Honorary Doctor of Science degree. Rice, who has 38 years of experience in real estate investment and corporate finance, will give the graduate Commencement address and will be awarded an Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree.
Dr. Roberta L. DeBiasi
After graduating Phi Beta Kappa from Boston University, DeBiasi received her Doctorate in Medicine at the University of Virginia School of Medicine and completed her pediatrics internship and residency at the University of California, Davis Medical Center. Her fellowship was in pediatric infectious diseases at the University of Colorado/Denver Children’s Hospital, and she served on the faculty for 10 years in Denver, prior to joining Children’s National/GWU in 2005.
DeBiasi treats normal and immunocompromised children who are hospitalized with severe infections at Children’s National Hospital (CNH). She interfaces with regional, national, and international authorities as co-lead of the CNH Emerging and Highly Contagious Infectious Disease Task Force (including Ebola and COVID-19), Acute Flaccid Myelitis Task Force, and CNH Congenital Infection Program (including Zika virus). She is designated as an op Doctor for Northern Virginia and by Washingtonian Magazine.
As a principal investigator in the Center for Translational Research within Children’s Research Institute, she serves as principal investigator for projects and clinical trials focusing on severe and emerging viral infections and Lyme disease. Research awards have included the Infectious Diseases Society of America Young Investigator Award and John Horsley Prize from UVA.
DeBiasi co-leads Zika-focused research in pregnant women and infants in the U.S. and South America. She is the institutional lead of the Lyme Clinical Trials Network, and principal investigator for a study focused on long-term outcomes in children with all stages of Lyme disease. She leads COVID-19 and Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome (MIS-C) research at CNH and is the principal investigator for a six-year comprehensive follow-up study of children with COVID-19 and MIS-C in collaboration with the National Institutes of Health.
She has authored more than 100 original peer-reviewed research and review articles and book chapters. DeBiasi greatly enjoys teaching and mentoring graduate and medical students, residents, and fellows in the classroom, the hospital wards, and in research. She is also actively engaged in continuing medical education for community physicians, outreach to the community, and educating the public via media appearances on NPR radio, local and national newspapers, and television.
Lacy I. Rice, III
As founding managing partner of the national real estate investment company Federal Capital Partners® (FCP), Rice manages FCP’s for-sale and for-rent residential acquisitions. Rice serves on FCP’s Investment Committee.
Prior to founding FCP in 1999, he was a principal at The Carlyle Group, where he helped raise and invest Carlyle’s first real estate private equity fund of $457 million. He served on the company’s real estate fund Investment Committee. Before joining Carlyle, Rice was a member of the investment banking group at Alex. Brown & Sons, where he was involved in $2.5 billion of real estate mergers and acquisitions and underwriting transactions. Rice also developed residential communities as a principal at Haas & Haynie Corporation and structured and closed loans, private placements, and interest rate swaps as a corporate account officer at Chemical Bank.
Rice serves on the boards of United Bankshares, Inc. and the Boys & Girls Club of Greater Washington.
In November 2020, Rice was recognized as one of the honorees at the Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Washington Youth in Real Estate event. Each year, the Youth in Real Estate event pays tribute to industry leaders, developers, and architects committed to strengthening the community by making significant contributions to youth and to Boys & Girls Clubs in the greater Washington, D.C. region. Rice’s commitment to the organization and the youth it serves has helped numerous boys and girls find pathways to success.
Rice is co-chair of the National Multifamily Housing Council’s Workforce Housing Committee Legislative Subcommittee, which aims to raise awareness and recommend solutions to the growing affordability problem for renters in this sector of the market. He is also a member of the Urban Land Institute.
He has served as board chair of American Community Properties Trust, a public real estate company FCP purchased and took private, and Boys & Girls Club of the Eastern Panhandle. He has been a member of the Shepherd University Board of Governors, West Virginia Economic Development Authority Board, BB&T D.C. Advisory Board, and Mercersburg Academy Alumni Council.
Rice, a Martinsburg, West Virginia, native who still spends a significant amount of time in the state with family and friends, received a Bachelor of Arts from Princeton University and a Master of Business Administration from Harvard Business School.
Shepherd University’s class of 2023 includes 530 undergraduate and 77 graduate students.
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