Commencement and Class Day 2019 Roundup
Commitment to Healing
2019 HMS, HSDM grads celebrate, dedicate themselves to curiosity, compassion
Fresh Eyes
Class Day keynote speaker Mona Hanna-Attisha exhorts graduates to see and act on injustices that threaten health
From Students to Scientists
More than 100 receive doctoral hoods, join research professions as peers
For at our best, we don’t just doctor, we heal.
Stephen Berman, ’73, aka Samuel Shem
2009 Class Day keynote speaker
To the extent that we respond to the health needs of the most vulnerable among us, we promote the health of the nation as a whole.
Former U.S. Surgeon General David Satcher
1999 Class Day invited speaker
The central thing… is the sense of uniqueness and individuality of each patient… at every level from the neuronal to the spiritual.
Oliver Sacks
1989 Class Day guest speaker
The year 2000 and beyond will reveal a medicine of power and subtlety now difficult to imagine. But the relation between medicine and philosophy will not change.
Daniel Tosteson
1979 Class Day valediction
This is our dilemma: that life is short and the art long, the occasion instant, experiment perilous, decision difficult.
John Maltsberger III
1959 student speaker
Commencement Exercises at Harvard Yard
Thursday, May 30, 8:00 – 11:30 a.m.
President Bacow confers degrees on graduates of all Harvard University schools. Morning exercises are held rain or shine in Tercentenary Theatre and will be livestreamed on the Harvard home page. This year’s Harvard University Commencement speaker is Angela Merkel. Students receiving medical, dental, master's and doctoral degrees celebrate at Harvard Yard.
Class Day on the Quad
Thursday, May 30, 2 p.m.
Students are granted the MD or DMD degree and any other advanced degrees they have earned; they are hooded and receive their diplomas. Whether across campus or across the globe, friends and family of HMS and HSDM graduates can view the ceremonies via HMS livestream.
Information about specific timelines and other details are distributed directly to graduating students.
Flint Activist to be HMS Class Day Speaker
Mona Hanna-Attisha, the pediatrician, educator and public health advocate whose research exposed the lead crisis in the water supply in Flint, Michigan, in 2015, will be the keynote speaker. She has received the Ridenhour Prize for Truth-Telling and the PEN American Center James C. Goodale Freedom of Expression Award and was named a Union of Concerned Scientists 2016 "Got Science?" Champion, among other honors. Read more about Hanna-Attisha here.
Master's Graduation Ceremony
Keynote speaker: Margaret Hamburg, chair of the board, American Association for the Advancement of Science
Wednesday, May 29, 4 p.m.
Joseph B. Martin Conference Center Amphitheater
New Research Building
Harvard Medical School
77 Avenue Louis Pasteur
Division of Medical Sciences Hooding Ceremony
Thursday, May 30, 5:15 p.m.
Joseph B. Martin Conference Center Amphitheater
New Research Building
Harvard Medical School
77 Avenue Louis Pasteur
Harvard Chan School Convocation Ceremony
Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health convocation ceremony will be held on the HMS Quad on Wednesday, May 29, 11 a.m. - 2 p.m.
