Each year at Commencement, Dartmouth confers honorary degrees on distinguished individuals who are leaders in their respective fields. This year, the seven honorands include a comedian, a playwright, a philanthropist, a free speech activist, a computer scientist, a diplomat, and a former surgeon general of the United States.
“These luminaries have had a tremendous impact in their fields and on the world,” says President Sian Leah Beilock. “They represent excellence in the arts and sciences, the importance of diplomacy and public service, the commitment to public health, and the values of free speech and equal access to educational opportunities. It is our great honor to recognize their accomplishments.”
Each fall, members of the Dartmouth community nominate honorary degree candidates for review by the Council on Honorary Degrees. The council then forwards a slate of candidates from a broad range of fields for final selection by the president and the Board of Trustees.
This year’s recipients include:
- Commencement speaker Rachel Dratch ’88, Tony-nominated actor, comedian, and writer
- Karen Evans ’76, playwright, educator, and arts advocate
- Maria Klawe, educator, mathematician, computer scientist
- Gary Love ’76, philanthropist and public servant
- Greg Lukianoff, free speech advocate
- Alfred Moses ’51, attorney, philanthropist, and diplomat
- Vivek Murthy, former U.S. surgeon general
About the 2026 honorary degree recipients
Rachel Dratch ’88 (Doctor of Arts)
The creator of Saturday Night Live’s buzz-killing character Debbie Downer, Rachel Dratch first considered the possibility of a career in comedy as a member of the Dartmouth improv group Said and Done. That experience led her to Chicago’s Second City Theater, where for four years she co-wrote and performed on the main stage. She then wrote and performed for seven seasons on SNL.
Dratch has had numerous roles on television, including appearances on King of Queens, 30 Rock, Shameless, Parks and Recreation, Inside Amy Schumer, Portlandia, And Just Like That, and others. She has also lent her voice to Bob’s Burgers, Harley Quinn, Teen Titans Go!, and Grimsburg with Jon Hamm. Her film work includes Down with Love, Click, Just Go With It, Sisters, Wine Country, and the romcom movie parody A Clüsterfünke Christmas, which she co-wrote with Ana Gasteyer.
Stage credits include Love’s Labour’s Lost at Shakespeare in the Park, Privacy at the Public Theater with Daniel Radcliffe, and her Broadway debut in POTUS: Or, Behind Every Great Dumbass Are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive, which earned her a Tony nomination. She is currently playing the Narrator in a production of The Rocky Horror Show at Broadway’s Studio 54.
Her memoir, Girl Walks Into a Bar . . .: Comedy Calamities, Dating Disasters, and a Midlife Miracle was published in 2012. For the past three years she has hosted the podcast Woo Woo With Rachel Dratch, in which she and a range of comedy friends discuss stories of the supernatural.
Karen Evans ’76 (Doctor of Arts)
An award-winning playwright, educator, and arts activist whose work has been published and presented by Meriwether Publishing, Applause Theater Books, The Discovery Channel Magazine, American Showcase Theatre, and PBS, Karen Evans is founder and president of the Black Women Playwrights’ Group, which mentors women playwrights of color at all stages of their careers and provides advocacy within the larger theater community.
Among other accomplishments, she helped develop 12@12NOON and 12@12NOON en Español—free mobile apps that deliver 12-line scenes written by award-winning playwrights to subscribers every weekday at noon. A free live performance series stages these scenes in casual performance venues such as bookstores, coffee houses, and schools.
Previously she was the first director of education at Arena Stage in Washington, D.C., and spent eight years as managing director of the Young Playwrights’ Theatre, from which she has received the Giving Voice Award.
She has received individual fellowships in playwriting from the National Endowment for the Arts and the DC Commission on the Arts & Humanities and has spoken as a panelist for both organizations. She has also advocated for the arts in testimony before Congress. The recipient of the John F. Kennedy Center Front & Center Award, she has been nominated for a Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding New Play and was a finalist at the Sundance Institute.
Evans majored in drama at Dartmouth and went on to earn her MFA in playwriting from the Catholic University of America.
Maria Klawe (Doctor of Science)
Mathematician and computer scientist Maria Klawe, a longtime champion for expanding access and inclusion in STEM, will deliver the keynote address for Thayer School of Engineering’s investiture ceremony on June 13.
Klawe is currently president of Math for America, a nonprofit organization that supports K-12 math teachers in New York City and beyond, which she joined in 2023 after 17 years as president of Harvey Mudd College in Claremont, Calif.
During her tenure at Harvey Mudd, Klawe ranked 17 on Forbes’ 2014 list of the World’s 50 Greatest Leaders for “leading the charge to bring more women into science, technology, and engineering.”
Her research contributions include foundational work in discrete mathematics, theoretical computer science, and human-computer interaction.
Before Harvey Mudd, Klawe served as dean of engineering and professor of computer science at Princeton University and in various roles at the University of British Columbia, IBM Research in California, and the University of Toronto. She earned her bachelor’s and doctoral degrees in mathematics from the University of Alberta.
She is a member of the boards of Phenome Health and the nonprofits Museum of Mathematics and the Institute for Computational and Experimental Research in Mathematics, as well as chair of the Conference Board of the Mathematical Sciences and a trustee emerita for the Simons Laufer Mathematical Sciences Institute. She was also a founding advisory board member of Parity.org and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Gary Love ’76 (Doctor of Humane Letters)
Drawn to public service after a successful career in finance and consulting, Gary Love was recruited by the mayor of the city and county of San Francisco to become director of strategy, a role he filled for a decade. He previously served on the board of Alonzo King LINES Ballet and as chairman of the board of The East Bay School of Berkeley. An economics major at Dartmouth, he earned an MBA from Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management.
For Dartmouth, he has been president of the Black Alumni of Dartmouth Association and first vice president of the Alumni Association as well as serving on the Alumni Council, College Relations Group, Deans Council, Young Alumni Awards Committee, Dartmouth Alumni Awards Committee, Rockefeller Center Board of Overseers, President’s Leadership Council, and his class executive and reunion giving committees.
Dartmouth philanthropic efforts have included establishing and funding the Duane Gibbs ’76 and William Rice ’76 Memorial Book Fund, EE Just Chair in Biological Sciences, the Admissions Office Dartmouth Bound program (originally “Gary’s Kids”), the Tucker Foundation’s Mentors, Movers, and Models speaker series, the African and African American Studies Award for the most outstanding scholarship and senior thesis, and the Dean of Faculty Venture Fund.
He has also supported the Rockefeller Center, the President Jim & Susan Wright Fund, Dartmouth Institute for Black Intellectual and Cultural Life, and the Hanlon Scholars Program. Dartmouth has honored him with the Young Alumni Distinguished Service Award, the Class of 1976 Spirit Award, the Dartmouth Alumni Award, and the BADA Granite Award.
Greg Lukianoff (Doctor of Laws)
The president and CEO of the free speech advocacy organization Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, Greg Lukianoff is the bestselling author of three books, including Unlearning Liberty: Campus Censorship and the End of American Debate, Freedom From Speech, and FIRE’s Guide to Free Speech on Campus.
He is also co-author of The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure, with Jonathan Haidt; The Canceling of the American Mind: Cancel Culture Undermines Trust and Threatens Us All—But There Is a Solution, with Rikki Schlott; and The War On Words: 10 Arguments Against Free Speech—And Why They Fail, with Nadine Strossen.
He served as an executive producer of the documentary Can We Take a Joke?, which explores the collision of comedy, censorship, and outrage culture on- and off-campus, and of Mighty Ira: A Civil Liberties Story, an award-winning feature-length film about the life and career of Ira Glasser, former executive director of the ACLU.
In 2008, Lukianoff—who earned his undergraduate degree from American University and his JD from Stanford Law School—became the first-ever recipient of the Playboy Foundation’s Freedom of Expression Award, and in 2024, of the Russell Kirk Center’s Richard D. McLellan Prize for Free Speech and Expression.
He has testified before the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives about free speech issues both within and outside of American higher education.
Alfred Moses ’51 (Doctor of Laws)
After Dartmouth, Alfred Moses studied at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs before serving three years in the U.S. Navy. He became a full lieutenant on the staff of the Chief of Naval Operations in Washington, D.C., while attending law school at night at Georgetown University. After his service, he joined the law firm Covington & Burling.
In 1976 Moses brokered the agreement with the Business Roundtable on the text of legislation that prohibited the participation by American companies in Arab countries’ economic boycott of Israel. President Jimmy Carter appointed him special advisor to the president, and he later served as special counsel to the president during the so-called “Billygate hearings” involving Carter’s brother’s dealings with Libya.
Following efforts to persuade Romania’s then-Communist government to allow the emigration of Romanian Jews to Israel, President Bill Clinton nominated Moses to be ambassador to Romania—service for which he received the Marc Cruc Medal from the post-Communist Romanian government, its highest honor. He also served as special presidential envoy during the Cyprus conflict of 1999-2001.
Moses, who has written four books and whose writings have appeared in major newspapers and journals throughout the world, served four terms as president of the American Jewish Committee and 19 years as chair of U.N. Watch in Geneva, Switzerland. He has served as a trustee or director of numerous charitable and educational institutions and received three honorary doctorates.
Among his philanthropic endeavors, he has supported the construction of the Washington, D.C., headquarters for Planned Parenthood; the establishment of a Freedom House program to liberate political prisoners around the world; the photography collection at National Gallery of Art; a program providing musical instruments for grade school students in public schools; the purchase and donation of the Sassoon Codex, the oldest nearly complete Hebrew Bible, to ANU Museum of the Jewish People in Tel Aviv; endowed scholarships for Georgetown Law School students committed to a career in public service; and scholarships enabling Ethiopian refugees in Israel to receive university educations.
Vivek Murthy (Doctor of Science)
As the 19th and 21st surgeon general of the United States, Vivek Murthy helped shine a light on the epidemic of loneliness in America and the impact of social media on youth mental health. In 2025, his final act as surgeon general was to publish “Parting Prescription for America,” a vision for rebuilding community as the key to health, happiness, and fulfillment.
He also served as Vice Admiral of the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, commanding a uniformed service of 6,000 public health officers.
Following his tenure as surgeon general, Murthy founded The Together Project, a national initiative to prioritize social connection and community building in America. As part of this effort, he hosts Staying Human, a podcast and Substack community exploring how we can live fulfilling lives when forces such as technology are eroding relationships, human compassion, and the commitment to the common good.
Murthy is the author of the 2020 New York Times bestseller Together: The Healing Power of Human Connection in a Sometimes Lonely World.
Raised in Miami and an ardent lover of mangoes, Murthy earned his bachelor’s degree at Harvard University and went on to receive his MD from the Yale School of Medicine and his MBA from the Yale School of Management. He trained in internal medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School.
Important Commencement dates
Saturday, May 9
9 a.m. Geisel School of Medicine Investiture, Lebanon Opera House, Lebanon, N.H. Odette Harris ’91 will deliver the keynote address. Harris is the Paralyzed Veterans of America Endowed Professor of Spinal Cord Injury Medicine at Stanford University School of Medicine and a member of the Dartmouth Board of Trustees.
Saturday, June 6
10 a.m. Tuck Investiture, Tuck Hall steps. The keynote speaker will be Debi Brooks, Tuck ’86, chief executive officer and co-founder of The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research.
Friday, June 12
2 p.m. Geisel Health Sciences Education Investiture, Spaulding Auditorium, Hopkins Center for the Arts. Carlos del Rio, executive associate dean of the Emory School of Medicine and Grady Health System and a distinguished professor of medicine in Emory’s Division of Infectious Diseases, will deliver the keynote address.
Saturday, June 13
9:30 a.m. Thayer School of Engineering Investiture, Dartmouth Green. Computer scientist, and educator Maria Klawe, president of Math for America and former president of Harvey Mudd College, will deliver the keynote address.
10 a.m. Senior Class Day, the Bema.
2 p.m. Baccalaureate, a multifaith, multicultural celebration for graduates and their families, Rollins Chapel.
4 p.m. Guarini School of Graduate and Advanced Studies Investiture, the Green. Reception to follow on the Class of 1978 Life Sciences Center Lawn.
Sunday, June 14
9 a.m. Academic procession to the Green. The Commencement ceremony begins at 9:30 a.m.
