Congratulations to the HMS/HSDM 2025 graduates! The Master’s Convocation takes place on Wednesday, May 28. Class Day for MD/DMD graduates and the PhD Hooding Ceremony take place on Thursday, May 29. Harvard Commencement is Thursday morning, May 29.
Beginning in mid-April, please return to this page often to see advance news coverage of our graduation celebrations and profiles of our graduates. Watch the ceremony livestreams on this page on May 28 and May 29.
Ceremony Keynote Speakers
Paula Johnson Named Class Day Speaker
Harvard Medical School alumna and 14th president of Wellesley College Paula Johnson will deliver the keynote speech at the HMS/Harvard School of Dental Medicine Class Day Ceremony on May 29.
Johnson has advanced health, and well-being, especially for women, through her expertise and leadership in health care, public health, health policy, and education.
Linda Villarosa Named Master's Convocation Speaker
Journalist and educator Linda Villarosa will give the keynote address at the HMS Master’s Convocation on May 28.
Villarosa is a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine, where she covers health, medicine, race, and inequality. She has investigated such topics as Black maternal and infant health and mortality, the toll of Covid-19 on Black communities, the HIV epidemic, the environmental justice movement in Philadelphia, eugenics, and Black women’s physical and emotional health.
Her stories and books have received many honors and awards, including an essay in the New York Times’ Pulitzer-Prize-winning 1619 Project. Her latest book, Under the Skin: The Hidden Toll of Racism on American Lives and on the Health of Our Nation, was a Pulitzer Prize finalist.
Villarosa is guest lecturer in media and medicine at HMS and has been a journalism fellow at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. She is journalist-in-residence at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at the City University of New York and teaches at the City College of New York. Villarosa is former executive editor at Essence magazine.