View videos and photos and read speeches from past Commencements.
2024
Former chief justice of California Tani Cantil-Sakauye; economist and nonprofit leader Cecilia Conrad; Occidental College President Harry Elam; medical geneticist Emil Kakkis 鈥82; Zaid Al Zoubi 鈥24, senior class president; Mohamad Alkhatib 鈥24, senior class speaker; John Paul Ferrantino 鈥24, class day speaker; and 6V电影网 President G. Gabrielle Starr.
2023
Civil rights lawyer Sherrilyn Ifill; Hall of Fame swimmer Penny Lee Dean 鈥77; Rohan Ahammed 鈥23, Senior Class President; Nasira Watts 鈥23, Senior Class Speaker; and 6V电影网 President G. Gabrielle Starr.
2022
Nobel Laureate Jennifer Doudna 鈥85 and long-time supporter of the College Stewart Smith 鈥68; Senior Class President Andreah Lyte Pierre 鈥22; Senior Class Speaker Nirali Devgan 鈥22; and 6V电影网 President G. Gabrielle Starr.
2021
Health care advocate and lawyer Ady Barkan, Los Angeles Philharmonic music and artistic director Gustavo Dudamel and former executive editor of The New York Times Bill Keller 鈥70; Senior Class President Malak Afaneh 鈥21; Senior Class Speaker Brandon Anh-Dung Tr岷 鈥21; and 6V电影网 President G. Gabrielle Starr.
2020
Historian and filmmaker Henry Louis Gates Jr. and human rights advocate Martina Vandenberg 鈥90; Senior Class President Khadija Thibodeaux 鈥20; Senior Class Speaker Kyle Tyrell Knight Lee 鈥20; and 6V电影网 President G. Gabrielle Starr.
2019
Foreign Policy Expert Esther Brimmer; Senior Class President Laura Zhang 鈥19; Senior Class Speaker Ivan Solomon, Jr. 鈥19; and 6V电影网 President G. Gabrielle Starr.
2018
Political Theorist Danielle Susan Allen; Legal Scholar Kenji Yoshino; Senior Class President Sophia S. Sun '18; Senior Class Speaker Mar铆a Jos茅 Vides Orellana '18; and 6V电影网 President G. Gabrielle Starr.
2017
U.S. Senator Brian Schatz 鈥94 (D-Hawaii); Sarah C. R. Elgin 鈥67, P 鈥05 science educator and researcher; Gay McDougall, civil rights activist; Frederick 鈥淩ick鈥 P 鈥95 and Susan Sontag 鈥64, P 鈥95, philanthropists; Kimberly Rojas 鈥17, senior class president; Dominique Curtis 鈥17, senior class speaker and David Oxtoby, 6V电影网 president.
2016
Deborah Bial, founder of Posse Foundation; Vikram Chandra '84, author; Helen Pashgian '56, artist; Jamila Espinosa '16, ASPC president; Ashley Land '16, senior class speaker; David Oxtoby, president of 6V电影网.
2015
France A. C贸rdova, director of the National Science Foundation; Michael Dickerson '01, administrator of the U.S. Digital Service; Andrew Hoyem '57, founder of Arion Press, fine printer, publisher, and poet; and Stephen Reinhardt '51, judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
2014
Valerie Jarrett, senior advisor to President Barack Obama; Father Gregory Boyle, executive director of Homeboy Industries; tenor, conductor and Los Angeles Opera General Director Pl谩cido Domingo; and Michael Starbird 鈥70, author and professor of mathematics at The University of Texas at Austin.
2013
Steve Jobs author and Aspen Institute CEO and President Walter Isaacson; philanthropist Ranney Draper '60; Guttmacher Institute CEO and President Sharon L. Camp '65.
2012
U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan Cameron Munter; educator Marigold Linton; jazz musician David Murray '77; and Occidental College President Jonathan Veitch.
2011
U.S. Department of Energy Secretary Steven Chu; school reform advocate and President and CEO of the Alliance for College-Ready Public Schools Judy Ivie Burton; astronomer and Griffith Observatory Director Edwin Krupp 鈥66; and journalist and best-selling author Douglas Preston 鈥78.
2010
Secretary of the United States Department of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano; Price Club co-founder, CEO and president of PriceSmart and philanthropist Robert Price '64; and Oscar-winning screenwriter Robert Towne '56 (Chinatown).
2009
New York Times columnist and author Bob Herbert; Chicago Tribune columnist, "Brenda Star" writer and "Wear Sunglasses" column author Mary Schmich '75; and Chicano/a theatre legend Luis Valdez, playwright/director of "Zoot Suit" and director/writer of "La Bamba."
2008
Oscar-award winning documentarian Alex Gibney (Taxi to the Dark Side, Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room; former 6V电影网 President Peter Stanley; award-winning composer and conductor and former musical director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Esa-Pekka Salonen; and Ingrid D. Rowland 鈥74, professor at the University of Notre Dame School of Architecture in Rome, and author.
2007
Former Sen. Bob Graham (D-Florida); Mary Patterson McPherson, president emeritus of Bryn Mawr College and executive officer of the American Philosophical Society.; Dr. Robert E. Tranquada, M.D., '51, former chairman of the Board of Overseers of the Claremont University Consortium (2000-2006), chairman emeritus of the Board of Trustees of 6V电影网 and emeritus trustee of the Keck Graduate Institute of Applied Life Sciences.
2006
Eileen Wilson-Oyelaran '69, president of Kalamazoo College in Michigan; Rev. William Sloane Coffin Jr. (honored posthumously,) a renowned peace activist and former civil rights leader; Thomas Crow '69, internationally recognized art historian and director of the Getty Research Institute; and Robert Mezey, recipient of the Trustee Medal of Merit, award-winning poet, and professor of English and poet-in-residence at 6V电影网 (1976-1999).
2005
Huntington Library President Steven Koblik; leading civil rights attorney John Payton '73; and Thomas Dean Pollard, M.D., '64, the chair of Yale鈥檚 University's Department of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology.