# Commencement Archive

**Source**: https://commencement.caltech.edu/commencement-speaker/commencement-archive
**Parent**: https://commencement.caltech.edu/

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Commencement Archive

# Commencement Archive

2025 - [Walter Massey](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8X2efUBtO30), Chair of the Giant Magellan Telescope Organization, President Emeritus of Morehouse College and of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago

2024 - [Jensen Huang](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qXDdToZHzE), Founder and CEO of NVIDIA

2023 - [Danielle Allen,](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TW7A8K2Ui24) James Bryant Conant University Professor at Harvard, director of Harvard's Edmond & Lily Safra Center for Ethics, author

2022 - [Jad Abumrad](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGXNtpnQEWY) (Founding Producer, RadioLab)

2021\* - [Robert L. Behnken](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JpkzbiXye7U) (MS '93, PhD '97, NASA Astronaut) - *\*Fall in-person makeup celebration event*

2021 - [Norman R. Augustine](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eu06VHQtvEs) (Retired Chairman and CEO, Lockheed Martin Corporation)

2020 - [various alumni appearances](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htDEdAxwXAE)

2019 - [France Córdova](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TxdBFBWJ8U) (PhD '79, Director of the National Science Foundation)

2018 - [John Lewis](https://commencement.caltech.edu/archive/speakers/2018_speaker) (U.S. Congressman and Civil Rights Leader)

2017 - [Mae Jemison](https://commencement.caltech.edu/archive/speakers/2017_speaker) (first African American woman in space)

2016 - [Atul Gawande](https://commencement.caltech.edu/archive/speakers/2016_speaker) (surgeon, writer, and public health researcher)

2015 - [Genevieve Bell](https://commencement.caltech.edu/archive/speakers/2015_speaker) (cultural anthropologist, VP of Intel)

2014 - [Daniel Yergin](https://commencement.caltech.edu/archive/speakers/2014_speaker) (Pulitzer Prize-winning author)

2013 - [Mary Sue Coleman](https://commencement.caltech.edu/archive/speakers/2013_speaker) (president, University of Michigan)

2012 - [Elon Musk](https://commencement.caltech.edu/archive/speakers/2012_speaker) (entrepreneur)

2011 - [Ahmed Zewail](https://commencement.caltech.edu/archive/speakers/2011_speaker) (Nobel Laureate, Caltech Professor)

2010 - Charles Bolden (NASA Administrator)

2009 - Steven Chu (Secretary of Energy)

2008 - Robert Krulwich (science correspondent)

2007 - Jared Diamond (author)

2006 - David Baltimore

2005 - Sandra Tsing-Loh (alumna and author/performer)

2004 - Carlton Fiorina (chairman and CEO, HP)

2003 - Harold Varmus (Nobel laureate; president & CEO, Memorial Sloan - Kettering Cancer Center)

2002 - Alan Alda (actor)

2001 - Gordon Moore (trustee)

2000 - Ray Bradbury (author)

1999 - Tom Brokaw (journalist)

1998 - Bill Nye (The Science Guy)

1997 - David Ho (trustee; AIDS researcher)

1996 - Bobby Ray Inman (trustee)

1995 - Mark Wrighton (alumnus; chancellor, Washington University in St. Louis)

1994 - Thomas Everhart and Ruben Mettler (100th Commencement)

1993 - Jewel Plummer Cobb (trustee)

1992 - David Gardner (president, UC)

1991 - George H. W. Bush (President of the United States)

1990 - Frank Rhodes (president, Cornell)

1989 - James Duderstadt (alumnus; president, University of Michigan)

1988 - Robert Sinsheimer (former faculty; former chancellor, UCSC)

1987 - David Hamburg (president, Carnegie Corporation)

1986 - Arnold Beckman (trustee)

1985 - Ralph Landau (trustee)

1984 - Thomas J. Watson, Jr. (trustee)

1983 - James Michener (author)

1982 - Hans W. Liepmann (faculty)

1981 - Shirley Hufstedler (trustee)

1980 - Murph Goldberger (president)

1979 - Bruce Murray (faculty; director, JPL)

1978 - Max Delbruck (faculty)

1977 - Lee DuBridge (president emeritus)

1976 - John Knowles (president, Rockefeller Foundation)

1975 - Harry Gray (faculty)

1974 - Richard Feynman (faculty)

1973 - no commencement speaker (Beckman stepping down as chairman)

1972 - John Hogness (president, Institute of Medicine, NAS)

1971 - James Fletcher (administrator, NASA)

1970 - Philip Handler (president, NAS)

1969 - Herbert York (professor of physics, UCSD)