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Commencement Speakers (PDF)

Year Speaker Honorary Degree Recipient? Graduate School Speaker
1916 Hamilton Holt No
1917 Payson Smith No
1918 S.K. Ratcliffe No
1919 (Student speaker) No
1920 (Student speaker) No
1921 (Student speaker) No
1922 William Wallace McClench Yes
1923 Channing H. Cox Yes
1924 James Harvey Robinson Yes
1925 John Garibaldi Sargent Yes
1926 Alvin Tufts Fuller Yes
1927 Edith Nourse Rogers Yes
1928 Eva Le Gallienne Yes
1929 Frank Gilman Allen Yes
1930 (Student speaker) No
1931 Stanley Calef Wilson Yes
1932 Vivian Towse Pomeroy Yes
1933 A. Lawrence Lowell Yes
1934 Harold L. Ickes Yes
1935 Carter Glass Yes
1936 Robert Ernest Doherty Yes
1937 Van Wyck Brooks Yes
1938 Henry Merritt Wriston Yes
1939 George Horace Gallup Yes
1940 Alexander Loudon Yes
1941 Jay Pierrepont Moffat Yes
1942 Walter Nash Yes
1943 Claude Moore Fuess Yes
1944 Beardsley Ruml Yes
1945 Edward Lester Marshall Yes
1946 Luis de Florez Yes
1947 Kenneth Charles Morton Sills Yes
1948 John Nichols Brown Yes
1949 Wilhelm Munthe Morgenstierne Yes
1950 Samuel Tomlinson Arnold Yes
1951 Thomas Dudley Cabot Yes
1952 Henry Chauncey Yes
1953 William Clyde DeVane Yes
1954 Samuel Miller Brownell Yes
1955 Margaret Chase Smith Yes
1956 John Moors Cabot Yes
1957 Henry Bradford Washburn, Jr. Yes
1958 Erwin Dain Canham Yes
1959 Robert Chapman Sprague Yes
1960 Hiram L. Fong Yes
1961 Henri Peyre Yes
1962 Adlai E. Stevenson Yes
1963 Lyndon Baines Johnson Yes
1964 Jerrold Reinach Zacharias Yes
1965 Nicholas deBelleville Katzenbach Yes
1966 William Warren Scranton Yes
1967 Howard Wesley Johnson Yes
1968 John Kenneth Galbraith Yes
1969 Paul A. Freund Yes
1970 Patricia Roberts Harris and
Harris Llewellyn Wofford, Jr.
Yes
Yes
1971 Burton Crosby Hallowell, President No
1972 Burton Crosby Hallowell, President No
1973 Barbara Jordan in 1974
1974 Theodore M. Hesburgh Yes
1975 Frances Keppel No
1976 Philip Hauge Abelson Yes
1977 B.F. Skinner Yes Malcolm Toon (Fletcher)
Howard Spiro (Medical)
1978 Percy Qoboza Yes Edmund Gullion (Fletcher)
H. Richard Hornberger
1979 Francis Bellotti Yes Paul Tsongas (Fletcher)
Helen Caldicott (Medicine)
1980 Irene Worth Yes Silvio Conte (Fletcher)
Robert Lifton (Medicine)
1981 Sarah Caldwell Yes Thomas J. Watson Jr. (Fletcher)
Edmund Pellegrino (Medical)
1982 John G. Kemeny Yes C. Douglas Dillon (Fletcher)
David E. Rogers (Medicine)
Jean Mayer (Nutrition)
1983 Edward M. Kennedy Yes Frederick C. Robbins (Medicine)
Janet Norwood (Fletcher)
James Grant (Nutrition)
1984 John Kenneth Galbraith in 1968 Lawrence Altman (Medicine)
Philip Habib (Fletcher)
Joaquin Cravioto (Nutrition)
1985 Thomas P. (Tip) O’Neill, Jr. Yes Harrison Salisbury (Fletcher)
Joshua Lederberg (Medicine)
Finn Burdevold (Dental)
Lester Brown (Nutrition)
1986 Elie Wiesel Yes Sadruddin Aga Khan (Fletcher)
Bernard Lown (Medicine)
James Dunning (Dental)
Jane Goodall (Vet)
1987 Gloria Steinem Yes Winston Lord (Fletcher)
Jane Desforges (Medicine)
C.S. Loh (Dental)
Stanley Gershoff (Nutrition)
Bruce Ames (Vet)
1988 Clifton Wharton Yes Winston Lord (Fletcher)
Paul Volcker (Fletcher)
Samuel Thier (Medicine)
Charles McCallum (Dental)
Esther E. Peterson (Nutrition)
William Pritchard (Vet)
1989 Javier Perez de Cuelllar Yes Winston Lord (Fletcher)
Dante Caputo (Fletcher)
Frederick Torgbor Sai (Medicine)
Harold Carpenter Hodge (Dental)
Marian Wright Edelman (Nutrition)
Jean Mayer (Vet)
1990 Robert Coles Yes Thomas Pickering (Fletcher)
Henry Banks (Medicine)
Jean Mayer (Dental)
Robert Ballard (Vet)
Jean Mayer (Vet)
1991 Ted Turner Yes Cyrus Vance (Fletcher)
Oliver Sacks (Medicine)
William Sellers (Dental)
Harry Belafonte (Nutrition)
Mamphela Ramphele (Nutrition)
Dick Francis (Vet)
1992 Bernard Marshall Gordon Yes Sadako Ogata (Fletcher)
Louis Sullivan (Medicine)
Geraldine Morrow (Dental)
Doris Howes Calloway (Nutrition)
Jill Kerr Conway (Vet)
1993 Carlos Fuentes Yes
1994 Ted Koppel Yes Vaclav Klaus (Fletcher)
Joseph Kronman (Dental)
William Nack (Vet)
T. Berry Brazelton (Medicine)
1995 Doris Kearns Goodwin and
Richard N. Goodwin
Yes Marrack Goulding (Fletcher)
John DiBiaggio (Dental)
Eileen Kennedy (Nutrition)
Barbara Culliton (Vet)
G. Timothy Johnson (Medicine)
1996 Betty Bao Lord No Lloyd Miller (Dental)
Bill Richardson (Fletcher)
William Frist (Medicine)
Lester Crawford (Vet)
1997 William B. Richardson Yes Louis Bertonazzi (Dental)
Richard Holbrooke (Fletcher)
Peter Doherty (Medicine and Vet)
Quentin Young (Nutrition)
1998 Garry Trudeau Yes Dominich DePaola (Dental)
Rosario Green (Fletcher)
Jerome Kassirer (Medicine)
Carol Tucker Foreman (Nutrition)
Ray Powell (Vet)
1999 David Halberstam Yes Peter Ackerman (Fletcher)
Marcia Angell (Medicine)
Katherine Clancy (Nutrition)
Eric Chivian (Vet)
2000 William H. Cosby, Jr. Jim Boyd (Dental)
Robert Hormats (Fletcher)
David Michael Kent (Medicine)
Barbara Underwood (Nutrition)
Mary Beth Leininger (Vet)
2001 James Charles Lehrer Yes David Warsh (Dental)
Kofi Annan (Fletcher)
Daniel Federman (Medicine)
George McGovern (Nutrition)
Judith Vaitukaitis (Vet)
2002 Pamela Kerr Omidyar and
Pierre Omidyar
No Richard Valachovic (Dental)
Madeleine Albright (Fletcher)
Roderick MacKinnon (Medicine)
Daniel Glickman (Nutrition)
Roy Blount (Vet)
2003 The Hon. Margaret Hilary Marshall Yes Mohamed ElBaradei (Fletcher)
Irwin Rosenberg (Nutrition)
2004 Walter Isaacson Yes Nevin Scrimshaw (Nutrition)
2005 Kostas Karamanlis Yes Peter Walker (Nutrition)
2006 Lance Armstrong James Levinson (Nutrition)
Alfred Tauber (Medicine)
2007 The Hon. Michael R. Bloomberg Yes William Lockeretz (Nutrition)
2008 Meredith Vieira Yes Robert Russell (Nutrition)
Donald Wilson (Medicine)
2009 Deval Patrick Yes Thomas Hughes (Nutrition)
2010 Sol Gittleman Yes William Layden (Nutrition)
2011 Charles M. Vest Yes Edward M. Cooney (Nutrition)
2012 Eric Greitens Yes Peter R. Dolan (Nutrition)
2013 Claude M. Steele Yes Ram Shrestha (Nutrition)
2014 Anne-Marie Slaughter Yes Jody Adams (Nutrition)
2015 Madeleine Albright Yes Cristiana Falcone-Sorrell, F01, N01 (Nutrition)
2016 Hank Azaria Yes Arianna Huffington (Fletcher)
2017 Kenya Barris Yes Richard Engel (Fletcher)
Dr. David A. Kessler (Nutrition)
2018 Ellen J. Kullman Yes  José Andrés (Nutrition)
2019 Alfre Woodard Yes Susan Rice (Fletcher)
Jim McGovern (Nutrition)
Ioannis Miaoulis (Engineering)
Michael Tzannes (Engineering_grad)
2020 Neil Blumenthal Yes Amina J. Mohammed (Fletcher)
2021 Bryan Stevenson Yes Filippo Grandi(Fletcher)
Yvonne T. Maddox, Ph.D. (Nutrition)
Pritesh Gandhi, M.D., M.P.H., (Medicine)
2022 Erica Lee Yes Ambassador Ertharin Cousin, J.D (Nutrition)
2023 Amina J. Mohammed Yes Pekka Haavisto (Fletcher)
Sheldon Lloyd (Nutrition)
Francesco Svelto (Engineering)
Deborah Meshulam (Engineering_grad)
Michael Curry (Medicine)

June 2, 2023