Honorary Degrees and Speakers

Sanna Marin was appointed Prime Minister of Finland in December 2019, the youngest person, at the time of her appointment, ever to serve as a head of any government. First elected to Parliament in 2015, she is leading a parliamentary coalition entirely headed by women and a majority-woman cabinet. A stalwart opponent of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, she has been an outspoken advocate for her nation joining the NATO alliance. She has been credited with steady and effective leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic, and is a member of the vanguard of a new generation of European leadership. She was the first member of her family to go to college.

Carolyn Bertozzi is the Baker Family Director of Sarafan Stanford ChEM-H and the Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor of Humanities and Sciences in the Department of Chemistry at Stanford University. She is also an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Her research focuses on profiling changes in cell surface glycosylation associated with cancer, inflammation, and infection, and exploiting this information for the development of diagnostic and therapeutic approaches, most recently in the area of immuno-oncology. Most recently she was awarded the Wolf Prize in Chemistry, Dr H.P. Heineken Prize for Biochemistry and Biophysics, and Welch Prize in Chemistry. In 2022, she received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

Misty Copeland is a Principal Dancer with American Ballet Theatre, the first Black woman to be promoted to the position in the company's 75-year history in 2015. She has performed some of the most iconic classical ballet roles, including Odette/Odile in Swan Lake; Juliet in Romeo & Juliet; Giselle; Manon; Coppelia; Kitri in Don Quixote; and Firebird, to name a few. Copeland is an avid philanthropist and an ambassador of Boys & Girls Clubs of America and MindLeaps, an arts education program based in Rwanda. In 2022, Misty launched The Misty Copeland Foundation, with its first signature program BE BOLD, which aims to bring greater diversity, equity, and inclusion to dance. A New York Times bestselling author, she was named to Time Magazine's "Time 100." In 2021, Misty was the recipient of the Spingarn Medal, the NAACP’s highest honor.

Freeman A. Hrabowski served as The University of Maryland, Baltimore County president from 1992 to 2022. A member of the National Academy of Engineering, his research and publications focus on science and math education, with special emphasis on minority participation and performance. In 2012, Hrabowski was named by President Obama to chair the President’s Advisory Commission on Educational Excellence for African Americans. In addition, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute launched the Freeman Hrabowski Scholars Program ($1.5 billion) to help build a scientific workforce that more fully reflects our increasingly diverse country. In October 2022, Hrabowski was named the inaugural Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Commemorative Lecture Speaker by Harvard University.