Graduation

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.

Harvard and HMS/HSDM Class of 2025 Graduation Celebrations and Ceremonies

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Determined To Improve Quality of Life, Patient by Patient and Systemwide

Graduating MD/PhD student Emily Rencsok journeys through bioengineering, epidemiology, rehabilitation

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Finding an Identity in Sports Psychiatry With Compassion and Commitment

Graduating MD student Jowan Watson on helping others through medicine, faith, love

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Using AI to Power the Study and Treatment of Hearing Loss

For graduating PhD student Chris Buswinka, an interest in music and the ear led to an unexpected career

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Master’s Student Empowers Medical Educators With AI Tools

Neuroscientist Judy Sng explores technology integration for training future doctors, nurses, scientists

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The Boy Had Just Lost His Dad to Cancer. Jett Crowdis Listened.

Graduating MD student found his calling in a connection forged while serving as camp counselor

A giant toothbrush embossed Harvard held by grads in regalia

Finding Fulfillment Through Dentistry

Get to know dental graduates through stories and reflections that highlight their journeys, achievements, what lies ahead

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‘The Goal Is To Understand Who You Are.’

Studying neuroscience gives graduating PhD student Nghia Nguyen insights into ‘technical, tangible’ reasons for the things he does every day

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From Cells to Self

Curiosity about how organisms develop led graduating PhD student Hannah Tam to study organ-level regeneration

A woman stands in front of an exhibit with a sign behind her saying Prescriptions for Peace.

Documenting Cold War Efforts That Received a Nobel Peace Prize

Graduating HMS student Katie Blanton helped design a Countway Library exhibit on physician anti-nuclear activism involving Harvard-affiliated doctors

Naeema Hopkins-Kotb

Hopkins-Kotb researched attitudes and behaviors of primary care providers toward patients with hepatitis B and C in the Philippines.

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Peter Bensen

Bensen interviewed frontline health care workers in Ghana about the benefits and challenges of drone-based blood delivery.

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Tarun Ramesh

Ramesh evaluated the World Health Organization’s efforts to increase the number of physicians in low-to-middle income countries facing severe physician shortages.

Ceremony Keynote Speakers

Paula Johnson Named Class Day Speaker

Photo of woman in blue dress with arms crossed outside in front of archway — Paula Johnson.

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.

A women with gray braided hair, wearing a scarf, and in glasses smiles at the camera. — Linda Villarosa. Image: Nic Villarosa

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.

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