Master’s graduates rejoice as they process to the tent on the Quad.
Graduates ranged in age from 21 to 69 and hailed from 52 countries across five continents, including Africa, Asia, Europe, and North and South America.
Keynote speaker Linda Villarosa told the grads now is the time and moment “to step out into the world and do the hard work of thinking and healing.”
HMS master’s programs graduated 318 researchers in 9 areas of concentration.
Dean Daley encouraged the grads to use their newfound expertise to “shift tides and bridge divides.”
Master’s grads celebrate one another’s achievements at Convocation.
Celebrations include taking group photos and sharing videos.
Master’s grads celebrate each other’s achievements at Convocation.
The clinical investigation master’s degree graduates jump for joy on the Gordon Hall steps.
Each grad takes the stage to receive their degree — and congratulations — from their deans and degree program directors.
Celebrations include taking group photos and sharing videos.
HMS master’s grads plan to make the most of their opportunities to positively impact health care throughout the world.
Family and friends far and wide celebrate the grads’ accomplishments.
“We leave today with sharper minds, deeper empathy, and fuller hearts,” said Master’s Convocation student speaker Ons Kaabia.
Congratulations to the 2025 HMS master’s graduates!
The Harvard Medical School campus was filled with excitement on a near-perfect spring day as about 300 master’s degree candidates gathered with classmates, faculty, family, and friends to celebrate the culmination of their studies in fields such as immunology, bioethics, medical education, and medicine in the media.
Graduates and speakers at the Master’s Convocation ceremony on May 28 reflected on all they had learned at HMS and how they would bring that knowledge into the world to address some of the most challenging problems related to human health and well-being.
Keynote speaker Linda Villarosa, journalist and educator, wished the graduates courage and urged them to do what they know is right.
“I can say without a flicker of uncertainty that now, this moment, has never been a better time for all of you to step out into the world — the messy, messy world — and do the hard work of thinking and healing, fighting and enduring in order to make change for good,” she said. “This is the time and the moment of opportunity.”
Speakers acknowledged the threats to scientific research posed by U.S. federal funding cuts and growing mistrust and misunderstanding of the scientific process. Yet the mood was not dampened, as they stressed that HMS has prepared graduates to tackle these and other challenges facing the country and the world.
“Some of you might think that your degree won’t hold much leverage in this current climate, but you would be mistaken,” said HMS Dean George Q. Daley. “You will be the ones in a strategic position to stand up for scientists and for high-quality, equitable health care.”
Many paths toward service
This year, 318 students from more than 50 countries graduated from nine master’s programs at HMS: Bioethics, Biomedical Informatics, Clinical Investigation, Clinical Research, Clinical Service Operations, Global Health Delivery, Health Care Quality and Safety, Immunology, Medical Education, and Media, Medicine, and Health.
Students completed a variety of specialized research projects to cap their education, such as evaluating artificial intelligence in preclinical medical education, optimizing pediatric stroke evaluation, enhancing access to treatment for opioid use disorder, investigating novel biomarkers for cardiovascular disease, probing the bioethics of neural interfaces, and using machine learning to better understand the human gut microbiome.
Phebean Morgan, a graduating Master of Science student in Clinical Service Operations, studied ways to decrease waste and increase revenue in the use of intravenous treatments. She said she felt wonderful while waiting in the May sun for her group photo and will miss the intellectual stimulation that comes from being among peers like the ones she found at the School.
“Every day is a wealth of knowledge,” Morgan said. “I look forward to every day because I know I’m going to learn something new and remarkable.”
Kriti Joshi, a student in the same program, worked on a project to implement preventive dental care among high schoolers in East Boston. She was proud to celebrate with her classmates.
“This is a global program,” Joshi said. “I’ve so valued working and making connections with classmates from all around the world.”
Prateek Misra, a Master of Medical Sciences graduate in Clinical Investigation, had decorated his mortarboard as a tribute to his capstone project researching the effects of the peptide PR1P on fracture repair in bones. In white paint, Misra had stenciled a bone broken in two and next to it the letters DRV-QRQ-TTT-VVA: the amino acid sequence of the protein he studied.
“It increases blood healing and blood vessel growth in the bone,” he explained.
Misra plans to return to his work in the lab of Ara Nazarian, HMS associate professor of orthopedic surgery at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, to apply what he’s learned during his time at HMS.
“I built up a base, and now I want to push it forward,” Misra said.
The celebration begins
Before the ceremony, graduating students gathered on the HMS Quad for photographs of each program, laughing as they tried to arrange themselves for the photographer.
“You in the black cap, move over,” joked one student.
Graduates cheered as a late-arriving classmate made it to the steps of Gordon Hall just in time.
Others embraced, laughed, and cried as they waited to process under a grand white tent framed by the marble buildings of the Quad. The columned façade of Gordon Hall provided a stately background with banners representing Harvard University, HMS, Harvard School of Dental Medicine, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and the United States. The sound of birdsong from finches and sparrows was occasionally drowned out by a medevac helicopter at one of the nearby Harvard-affiliated hospitals.
Knowledge for the world
Speakers stressed how graduates’ experiences at HMS strengthened their skills in advocating for necessary change and conveying the promise and power of research for the betterment of all people, whether through public policy, industry, education, or communications.
Daley compared the graduates’ potential to the immune cells that protect the human body from harm.
“All of you have studied and trained in this special place — Harvard Medical School — which has equipped you to go back into the world and combat pernicious pathogens like misinformation, skepticism of science, distrust of academics and health care providers, and more,” Daley said.
“Here at HMS, you have incubated highly effective tools for addressing these challenges. Society needs you to deploy these tools to ensure the future of scientific discovery, clinical care, and service for the common good,” he said.
Johanna Gutlerner, HMS senior associate dean for graduate education, added in her closing remarks: “At a time when clarity and certainty are sometimes clouded by chaos and the path forward seems obscured, science teaches us how to navigate through complexity with integrity and empiricism.”
Student speaker Ons Kaabia, graduating with a Master of Medical Sciences in Clinical Investigation, reminded her fellow graduates how far they have come and the challenges that await them.
“As we prepare to leave this chapter behind, we step into a world that is complex, fragmented, and, at times, overwhelming,” Kaabia said. “But it is also a world deeply in need of what we’ve cultivated here: critical thinking, compassion, and courage.”
Strength in difference
At a time when the U.S. administration has threatened to revoke Harvard’s ability to enroll and sponsor international students and scholars, graduates remarked upon the strength their diversity of backgrounds provided.
“Among our student body, we’re reminded that science has always spoken many languages and that progress flourishes when we bring different minds, methods, and perspectives together,” said Gutlerner. “Collaboration is not optional; it’s essential.”
Kaabia reflected on how she and her peers grew through sharing the classroom with students from across the country and the world.
“Our backgrounds are diverse. We come from different countries, speak different languages, hold different beliefs, and carry different stories,” she said. “Yet, we are united by a shared purpose: to alleviate suffering, to champion equity, and to expand the boundaries of what is possible in health and science.”
“Let this be the legacy of our class: that we did not simply earn a degree — we earned a voice, and we used it well.”
Images: Steve Lipofsky
