2007 Commencement Colloquy

President Shirley Ann Jackson will host our honorary degree recipients and Commencement speaker as they address the Rensselaer community. SHIRLEY ANN JACKSON, Ph.D., moderator, is the 18th President of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, N.Y. Describing her as “a national treasure,” the National Science Board selected Jackson as its 2007 recipient of the prestigious Vannevar Bush Award for “a lifetime of achievements in scientific research, education, and senior statesman-like contributions to public policy.” Jackson is a former chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and past president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN is a three-time Pulitzer Prize winner. His most recent book, The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century, received the inaugural Goldman Sachs/Financial Times Business Book of the Year Award. Friedman joined The New York Times in 1981 as a financial reporter specializing in OPEC and oil-related news. Friedman graduated summa cum laude from Brandeis University with a degree in Mediterranean Studies and received a Master of Arts degree in Modern Middle East Studies from Oxford. DON HEWITT is executive producer of CBS News. Hewitt is best known for 60 Minutes, the groundbreaking news broadcast he created in 1968 and stepped down from as its executive producer in 2004. Among his many honors for television news is the Lifetime Achievement Award Emmy presented by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences in 2003. Hewitt began his career with CBS News in 1948. MAE C. JEMISON, M.D., is the founder of the Jemison Group, Inc. In 1988, Jemison became the first African- American woman astronaut in NASA. Jemison served in the Peace Corps as a medical officer after receiving a Doctor of Medicine degree from Cornell University in 1981. She also holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemical Engineering and a Bachelor of Arts degree in African American studies from Cornell University.

The Honorable Shirley Ann Jackson Ph.D., President, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

5/19/2007 8:00:00 AM