This year's commencement speakers have been announced one after another! As the most important moment of graduation season, North American universities have been gearing up and making ample preparations.
Although due to campus protests, a few universities like USC have canceled their main commencement ceremony originally scheduled for May 10th, most North American institutions will still hold grand graduation ceremonies as planned.
This year's commencement speakers have been announced one after another! As the most important moment of graduation season, North American universities have been gearing up and making ample preparations.
Although due to campus protests, a few universities like USC have canceled their main commencement ceremony originally scheduled for May 10th, most North American institutions will still hold grand graduation ceremonies as planned.
2024 U.S. University Commencement Speakers
MIT
Speaker: Noubar Afeyan
Class of 2024 Commencement: May 30
Afeyan is the founder and CEO of Flagship Pioneering, a venture capital firm. Since its founding in 2000, the company has been dedicated to building biotechnology platforms and has created over 100 technology-based enterprises; Flagship currently has more than 60 drugs in clinical development.
One of Afeyan's most notable successes is Moderna, which invented and produced an effective COVID-19 vaccine approved for deployment to billions of people in over 70 countries.
Duke University
Speaker: Jerry Seinfeld
Class of 2024 Commencement: May 12
Jerry Seinfeld is an American comedian. He is a groundbreaking entertainer and producer, and a gifted observer of humanity with an extraordinary ability to bring people together through humor.
Seinfeld and his wife are parents of Duke alumni and current Duke students, and he serves as national chair of the Duke Parents Committee. In 2001, he and his wife founded the Good+Foundation, a charitable organization dedicated to addressing family poverty.
Duke University will award Seinfeld an honorary Doctor of Letters degree at this year's commencement.
Stanford University
Speaker: Melinda French Gates
Class of 2024 Commencement: June 16
Melinda is the current co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the founder of Pivotal Ventures. She received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2016 and was listed on Forbes' annual 100 Most Powerful Women list last year.
Melinda's interest in technology began when her father bought her an Apple II personal computer. She earned a bachelor's degree in computer science and economics and an MBA from Duke University.
After graduation, she began her career at Microsoft, where she worked on developing popular multimedia products like Word and Expedia.
Northwestern University
Speaker: Kathryn Hahn
Class of 2024 Commencement: June 9
American actress and alumna Kathryn Hahn will deliver this year's commencement address to Northwestern University's Class of 2024.
Hahn co-starred in WandaVision as Agatha Harkness. Her outstanding performance earned her a 2021 Emmy nomination. Prior to that, she starred alongside Paul Rudd and Will Ferrell in the series The Shrink Next Door.
Most recently, Hahn appeared in the film Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery. The film was nominated for Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy at the 2023 Golden Globes and received Critics' Choice Award nominations for Best Acting Ensemble and Best Comedy.
University of Pennsylvania
Speaker: Siddhartha Mukherjee
Class of 2024 Commencement: May 20
Siddhartha Mukherjee, MD, DPhil, is a physician, researcher, and author. He is an associate professor of medicine at Columbia University and an oncologist at the university's medical center.
His book The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer won the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction and was named one of the 100 best non-fiction books of the last century by Time magazine. The Gene: An Intimate History won international awards and was hailed as one of the most influential books of 2016 by The Washington Post and The New York Times. Both works were adapted into PBS documentaries by acclaimed filmmaker Ken Burns.
Rice University
Speaker: Peggy Whitson
Class of 2024 Commencement: May 4
Over a 37-year career, Whitson has completed three NASA long-duration spaceflights and the Axiom Mission 2 (Ax-2), accumulating 675 days in space—more than any other American astronaut or female astronaut in the world.
During her three previous space missions to the International Space Station, Whitson performed 10 spacewalks, spending over 60 hours in space.
Throughout her career, she has contributed to hundreds of experiments in biology, biotechnology, physical sciences, and Earth sciences.
2024 North American University Commencement Schedules
Various universities have been gradually releasing commencement information. CheersYou（清柚教育） has summarized the times and locations of some North American universities' commencement ceremonies to help students who plan to attend prepare in advance.
Here, CheersYou（清柚教育） wishes the Class of 2024 a happy graduation! 🎓
