Past Commencement Speakers

2025 - Walter Massey, 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, Founder and CEO of NVIDIA

2023 - Danielle Allen, James Bryant Conant University Professor at Harvard, director of Harvard's Edmond & Lily Safra Center for Ethics, author

2022 - Jad Abumrad (Founding Producer, RadioLab)

2021* - Robert L. Behnken (MS '93, PhD '97, NASA Astronaut) - *Fall in-person makeup celebration event

2021 - Norman R. Augustine (Retired Chairman and CEO, Lockheed Martin Corporation)

2020 - various alumni appearances

2019 - France Córdova (PhD '79, Director of the National Science Foundation)

2018 - John Lewis (U.S. Congressman and Civil Rights Leader)

2017 - Mae Jemison (first African American woman in space)

2016 - Atul Gawande (surgeon, writer, and public health researcher)

2015 - Genevieve Bell (cultural anthropologist, VP of Intel)

2014 - Daniel Yergin (Pulitzer Prize-winning author)

2013 - Mary Sue Coleman (president, University of Michigan)

2012 - Elon Musk (entrepreneur)

2011 - Ahmed Zewail (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)