UMBC Honorary Degrees Awarded and Commencement Speakers


  • Keith T. Elder Ph.D ‘02, Provost and Executive Vice President of Mississippi College
    • Commencement Speaker
  • Paula Therese Hammond Ph.D, Institute Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Head of the Department of Chemical Engineering and a member of MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research
    • Degree Awarded: Science
  • Dr. Mustafa Al-Adhami M.S. ‘15, Ph.D. ‘20, Chief Executive Officer at Astek Diagnostics
    • Commencement Speaker
  • Ms. Stefanie Mavronis ’12, Interim Executive Director, Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement (Baltimore)
    • Commencement Speaker
  • Ricardo Zwaig ’77, Retired Associate Judge, District Court of Maryland
    • Degree Awarded: Laws
  • Kaitlyn Sadtler ’11, Investigator and Section Chief, National Institutes of Health
    • Degree Awarded: Science
  • Tiffany Holmes, M.F.A. ’99, Interim Vice President of Academic Affairs and Provost, Maryland Institute College of Art
    • Degree Awarded: Fine Arts
  • Kizzmekia Corbett ’08, M16, Assistant Professor, Harvard University
    • Degree Awarded: Science
  • Kafui Dzirasa ’01, M8, K. Ranga Rama Krishnan Associate Professor, Duke University, Chief Vision and Values Scientist, Collective for Psychiatric Neuroengineering
    • Degree Awarded: Science
  • Mark Doms ’86, Chief Economist, Congressional Budget Office
    • Degree Awarded: Public Service
  • Sarah Rosen Wartell, President, Urban Institute
    • Degree Awarded: Public Service
  • Christopher P. Austin, CEO-Partner, Flagship Engineering
    • Degree Awarded: Science
  • Victoria D’Souza, Ph.D. ’02, Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biology, Harvard University
    • Degree Awarded: Science
  • Nora D. Volkow, MD., Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)
    • Degree Awarded: Science
  • Marin Alsop, Music Director, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra
    • Degree Awarded: Fine Arts
  • The Honorable John A. Olszewski, Jr, Ph.D. ’17, Baltimore County Executive
    • Commencement Speaker

Name:

  • Ted Mitchell
  • Paula Johnson
  • Erin K. O’Shea

Degree Awarded:

  • Public Service
  • Science
  • Science

Name:

  • Stephanie Cole Hill ’86
  • Ralph D. Semmel, Ph.D. ’92

Degree Awarded:

  • Public Service
  • Science

Name:

  • Drew Gilpin Faust
  • James P. Clements ’85, M.S. ’91, Ph.D. ’93

Degree Awarded:

  • Public Service
  • Public Education

Name:

  • Andrea Mitchell
  • Luz Vega-Marquis

Degree Awarded:

  • Public Service
  • Public Service

Name:

  • Mary Schmidt Campbell

Degree Awarded:

  • Fine Arts

Name:

  • Roger W. Ferguson, Jr.
  • Nancy Cantor

Degree Awarded:

  • Public Service
  • Science

Name:

  • Subra Suresh
  • Rebecca M. Blank

Degree Awarded:

  • Science
  • Public Service

Name:

  • Marie M. Klawe
  • Jeffrey R. Immelt
  • Rodney C. Adkins

Degree Awarded:

  • Public Service
  • Public Service
  • Science

Name:

  • The Honorable Steny H. Hoyer Hoyer
  • G. Wayne Clough

Degree Awarded:

  • (Spoke, did not receive degree)
  • Science

Name:

  • Shirley Tilghman
  • Thomas Friedman
  • Karen Davis
  • Peter Agre

Degree Awarded:

  • Science
  • Humane Letters
  • Public Service
  • Science

Name:

  • Claude Steele
  • Paul S. Sarbanes
  • Franco Einaudi
  • Virginia Dresher

Degree Awarded:

  • Science
  • Public Service
  • Science
  • Public Service

Name:

  • Betsy and George Sherman
  • Judith Rodin
  • William Brody

Degree Awarded:

  • Public Service
  • Humane Letters
  • Science

Name:

  • Soloman H. Snyder
  • Alan Lightman
  • Richard Broadhead

Degree Awarded:

  • Science
  • Humanities
  • Humane Letters

Name:

  • Mary Ann E. Mears

Degree Awarded:

  • Fine Arts

Name:

  • William A. Haseltine
  • William Foege
  • Ursula M. Burns

Degree Awarded:

  • Science
  • Science
  • Engineering

Name:

  • Elias A. Zerthouni
  • William “Brit” Kirwan

Degree Awarded:

  • Science
  • (Spoke, did not receive degree)

Name:

  • John C. Erickson
  • Joseph Bordogna

Degree Awarded:

  • (Spoke, did not receive degree)
  • (Spoke, did not receive degree)

Name:

  • The Honorable Howard Rawlings
  • Robert E. Kahn
  • The Honorable Barbara Hoffman
  • Marian Wright Edelman

Degree Awarded:

  • Public Service
  • Science
  • Public Service
  • Public Service

Name:

  • Mayo Adams Shattuck, III
  • Jeong H. Kim
  • Robert W. Deutsch
  • Thomas R. Chech

Degree Awarded:

  • Public Service
  • (Spoke, did not receive degree)
  • Science
  • Science

Name:

  • Sargent Shriver
  • Eunice Kennedy Shriver
  • Darielle Dunn Lineman
  • Earl Louis Linehane 
  • Nancy A. Erickson
  • John C. Erickson
  • Rita Rossi Colwell

Degree Awarded:

  • Public Service
  • Public Service
  • Arts
  • Arts
  • Public Service
  • Public Service
  • Science

Name:

  • Daniel Saul Goldin

Degree Awarded:

  • Science

Name:

  • Donna E. Shalala
  • Ira C. Magaziner
  • John H. Gibbons
  • Carl Djerassi

Degree Awarded:

  • Public Service
  • Public Administration
  • Science
  • Science

Name:

  • J. Robert Kerrey
  • Purnell W. Choppin
  • Stephen M. Case

Degree Awarded:

  • Public Service
  • Science
  • Science

Name:

  • Harold Eliot Varmus
  • Otto Ludwig Piene
  • Edward Ray McCracken

Degree Awarded:

  • Science
  • Fine Arts
  • Science

Name:

  • Harold H. Wolf
  • Carole Simpson
  • Lisbeth Bamberger Schoor
  • William Donald Schaefer
  • Nelson John Sabatini
  • William C. Richardson
  • William Hackerman
  • Louis J. Goldstein
  • M. Joycelyn Elders
  • Shirley Sears Chater

Degree Awarded:

  • Laws
  • Humane Letters
  • Humane Letters
  • Laws
  • Public Service
  • Humane Letters
  • Engineering
  • Humane Letters
  • Commencement Speaker
  • Humane Letters

Name:

  • Barbara A. Mikulski
  • Robert E. Meyerhoff
  • Peter D. Lax
  • R. Charles Avara

Degree Awarded:

  • Letters
  • Humane Letters
  • Science
  • Public Service

Name:

  • Emmett Paige, Jr.
  • Nancy Graves
  • Henry Cisneros

Degree Awarded:

  • Laws
  • Fine Arts
  • Public Service

Name:

  • Enolia McMillan
  • Arthur Kornberg
  • Ralph Gibson
  • Robert Coles

Degree Awarded:

  • Public Service
  • Science
  • Fine Arts
  • Humane Letters

Name:

  • Gwendolyn Stewart King
  • Eli Solomon Jacobs
  • Taylor Branch

Degree Awarded:

  • Public Service
  • Humane Letters
  • Humane Letters

Name:

  • Max Roach
  • Kou-ting Li
  • Frances Morton Froelicher
  • Paul Duke

Degree Awarded:

  • Music
  • Science
  • Public Service
  • Laws

Name:

  • Hiltgunt Margret Zassenhaus
  • Walter Sondheim, Jr.
  • Benjamin A. Quarles
  • Lyn P. Meyerhoff

Degree Awarded:

  • Humane Letters
  • Public Service
  • Humane Letters
  • Fine Arts

Name:

  • Charles McC. Mathias, Jr.
  • LaSalle D. Leffall, Jr.

Degree Awarded:

  • Science
  • Science

Name:

  • John G. St. Clair Drake
  • Walter Rosenblum
  • Rudolph G. Penner
  • Pauline Oliveros
  • Reg Murphy
  • James P. Grant

Degree Awarded:

  • Letters
  • Fine Arts
  • Public Service
  • Music
  • Public Service
  • Public Service

Name:

  • Chia Chen Tan
  • Maxine Frank Singer
  • Alice Gwathney Pinderhughes
  • Dorothy Kent Hill
  • Robert M. Ball

Degree Awarded:

  • Science
  • Science
  • Public Service
  • Humanities
  • Public Administration

Name:

  • Roger Rosenblatt
  • Raymond V. Haysbert, Sr.
  • Stephan Jay Gould
  • Robert Todd Duncan

Degree Awarded:

  • Humane Letters
  • Public Service
  • Science
  • Fine Arts

Name:

  • William Arthur Lewis
  • Albin O. Kuhn
  • Lotte Jacobi
  • John L. Crew, Sr.
  • Donald D. Brown

Degree Awarded:

  • Laws
  • Public Service
  • Fine Arts
  • Public Service
  • Science

Name:

  • Rosalyn S. Yalow
  • Maxim Shostakovich
  • John M. Sheehan
  • Tom L. Freudenheim

Degree Awarded:

  • Science
  • Fine Arts
  • Public Service
  • Fine Arts

Name:

  • Jon Franklin
  • Sterling A. Brown

Degree Awarded:

  • Humane Letters
  • Humanities

Name:

  • Donald A. Henderson
  • Lucille Clifton
  • Ernst L. Boyer

Degree Awarded:

  • Science
  • Humane Letters
  • Public Service

Name:

  • C.L.R. James
  • Peter Gay

Degree Awarded:

  • Humane Letters
  • Letters

Name:

  • Ola Belle Reed
  • Halden Keffer Hartline
  • John Barademas

Degree Awarded:

  • Humane Letters
  • Science
  • Laws

Name:

  • Albert S. Sabin
  • Richard Lattimore
  • Louis Kaplan

Degree Awarded:

  • Science
  • Humane Letters
  • Letters

Name:

  • James S. Ackerman

Degree Awarded:

  • Humane Letters

Name:

  • Alice Mitchell Rivlin

Degree Awarded:

  • Laws

Name:

  • Malcolm Charles Moos

Degree Awarded:

  • Laws

Name:

  • B.F. Skinner

Degree Awarded:

  • Humane Letters

Name:

  • King V. Cheek

Degree Awarded:

  • Laws

Name:

  • Patricia Roberts Harris

Degree Awarded:

  • Laws

Name:

  • Howard K. Smith

Degree Awarded:

  • Humane Letters

 

 

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