Dartmouth 2011 Honorary Degree Recipient: Roz Chast (Doctor of Arts)

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Staff cartoonist at The New Yorker magazine

Roz Chast began contributing to The New Yorker in 1978 and became a staff cartoonist in 1979. Since then, she has contributed more than 1,000 cartoons and several covers to the magazine.

She attended Rhode Island School of Design and graduated with a BFA in painting in 1977. Her cartoons have also been published in Scientific American, Harvard Business Review, Redbook, Men’s Vogue, Travel & Leisure, as well many other magazines from Mother Jones to Town & Country.

Chast has also illustrated several children’s books, most notably with the humor writer Patricia Marx. Her most recent cartoon collection is Theories of Everything: Selected, Collected, and Health-Inspected Cartoons of Roz Chast. In 2007, she illustrated The Alphabet from A to Y, With Bonus Letter, Z!, a children’s book written by the actor Steve Martin, and last year, the first children’s book which she wrote as well as illustrated was published: Too Busy Marco.

She has illustrated theater posters and CD covers and periodically develops craft obsessions such as decorating Pysanky eggs, origami, knitting, sewing tiny books, and making clay miniatures of household appliances, foods, etc.

In 1998, Chast was awarded an honorary doctorate from Pratt Institute and in 2004 was awarded the Museum of Cartoon and Comic Art in NYC Festival Award. In 2008, she was a Montgomery Fellow at Dartmouth College.

She was born in Brooklyn, N.Y., and currently lives in the suburbs with very mixed feelings about cars, houses, and the outdoors.

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Susan J. Boutwell