Dr. Sally Kornbluth, president of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, will give the John E. Whitmore Lecture commencement address at Baylor College of Medicine's commencement ceremony in May. Along with Kornbluth, two others will receive honorary degrees: Dr. Rochelle Walensky, senior fellow in the Women and Public Policy Program at Harvard Kennedy School, and Charles Hall, senior tax practitioner at Norton Rose Fulbright.
"This year's honorary degree recipients are leaders in science, medicine and philanthropy, and we are pleased to recognize their contributions to the advancement of their fields," said Dr. Paul Klotman, president, CEO and executive dean of the College. "I look forward to hearing their advice for our graduates at the ceremony in May."
The commencement ceremony for the School of Medicine, the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences and the School of Health Professions Genetic Counseling Program will be held May 27 at Smart Financial Centre in Sugar Land.
Kornbluth became MIT's 18th president in January 2023. She has led several key initiatives during her tenure, including the Climate Project at MIT, to help solve the interlocking crises of climate change; the MIT Human Insight Collaborative, to foster new collaborations between faculty across disciplines; the MIT Health and Life Sciences Collaborative, to accelerate and deliver solutions to society's most urgent health challenges; and the MIT Generative AI Impact Consortium, to explore how generative AI can help solve real-world problems with broad societal benefit. She received a B.A. in political science from Williams College, a B.A. in genetics from Cambridge University and a Ph.D. in molecular oncology from Rockefeller University. She became a faculty member at Duke University in 1994 and went on to become vice dean for basic science at the Duke School of Medicine. In 2014, she was named provost at Duke. Kornbluth has published extensively on cell proliferation and programmed cell death.
Walensky served as the 19th director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from 2021-23. She previously was a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases at Massachusetts General Hospital. She is an infectious disease clinician whose research has focused on infectious diseases and HIV/AIDS policy, including cost-effective strategies for HIV screening, treatment and prevention, both in the U.S. and around the globe. While at the CDC, she led the nation and the world through the COVID-19 pandemic. She currently is a senior fellow in the Women and Public Policy Program at the Harvard Kennedy School.
Kornbluth and Walensky will receive the Doctor of Letters in Medicine from Baylor. This degree is awarded to leaders who have excelled in academia through teaching, research or public service and whose acts have brought credit or advancement to Baylor or the profession of academic medicine.
Hall has decades of experience in federal, state and local taxation matters, including corporate, estate planning and general business issues. A dedicated supporter of Baylor College of Medicine, Hall has been deeply involved with the M.D. Anderson Foundation, where he served as president until 2022 and remains an active board member. The foundation has played a pivotal role in Baylor's success, including its historic move to Houston in 1943.
Hall will receive the Doctor of Humanities in Medicine, awarded to individuals who have provided exceptional support or service, either directly or indirectly, to Baylor College of Medicine or to academic medicine as a whole and to the community at large.
