st<\/sup> Commencement will take place on Monday, May 19, at the DCU Center in Downtown Worcester. In a departure from last year, and in an effort to ensure the occasion is both intimate and memorable, two ceremonies will be held: Bachelor\u2019s degrees will be awarded at 10 a.m., and master\u2019s and doctoral degrees will be presented at 3 p.m.<\/p>\n\n\n\nCommencement gives us an opportunity to reflect and celebrate together, and I\u2019m looking forward to sharing this special day, and joyous milestone, with all our Clark graduates, families, and friends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In addition to recognizing the incredible achievements of graduating students, Clark will award honorary degrees to two highly accomplished individuals: a Nobel Prize-winning economist who has dedicated her career to understanding the lives of people living in poverty, and a journalist whose award-winning work has taken him from Air Force One to the Arctic Circle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Esther Duflo, the Abdul Latif Jameel Professor of Poverty Alleviation and Development Economics in the Department of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, will deliver the Commencement Address during the bachelor\u2019s degree ceremony.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dr. Duflo is co-founder and co-director of the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab at MIT, which promotes the use of randomized controlled trials in policy evaluation \u2014 more than 400 million people have been impacted by programs tested by the lab\u2019s affiliated researchers \u2014 and the chair of Poverty and Public Policy at the Coll\u00e8ge de France. Since 2024 she has also served as the president of the Paris School of Economics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Her research seeks to understand the economic lives of people living in poverty, with the aim of helping design and evaluate social policies. She has worked on health, education, financial inclusion, environment, and governance. In 2019, she, Abhijit Banerjee, and Michael Kremer received the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences \u201cfor their experimental approach to alleviating global poverty.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dr. Duflo has received numerous academic honors and prizes: the Princess of Asturias Award for Social Sciences, the A.SK Social Science Award, Infosys Prize, the David N. Kershaw Award, a John Bates Clark Medal, and a MacArthur \u201cGenius Grant\u201d Fellowship. With Abhijit Banerjee, she wrote Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty<\/em>, which won the Financial Times\/Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award in 2011 and has been translated into more than 17 languages, and Good Economics for Hard Times<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\nDuflo is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy, a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research, a board member of the Bureau for Research and Economic Analysis of Development, and the director of the development economics program of the Centre for Economic Policy Research.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Professor Junfu Zhang will present Dr. Duflo for the degree of Doctor of Laws.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Delivering the address at the graduate Commencement will be Ari Shapiro, an award-winning journalist who has hosted National Public Radio\u2019s flagship \u201cAll Things Considered\u201d news program since 2015.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Before joining \u201cAll Things Considered,\u201d Mr. Shapiro spent two years as NPR\u2019s international correspondent based in London, traveling the world to cover a wide range of topics. He was NPR\u2019s White House Correspondent for four years during the Obama Administration and was the Justice Correspondent during the George W. Bush Administration, covering debates around surveillance, detention, and interrogation in the years after Sept. 11.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mr. Shapiro\u2019s work has won three national Edward R. Murrow awards: one for a global series that connected the dots between climate change, migration, and far-right political leaders; another for his reporting on Breonna Taylor’s life and death; and a third for his coverage of the Trump Administration\u2019s asylum policies on the U.S.-Mexico border. In 2023, he was named Journalist of the Year by NLGJA, the association of LGBTQ+ journalists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Other honors include a laurel from the\u202fColumbia Journalism Review<\/em> for his investigation into disability benefits for injured American veterans; a Silver Gavel from the American Bar Association for exposing the failures of Louisiana\u2019s detention system after Hurricane Katrina; the first-ever American Gavel Award from the American Judges Association\u2019 for his\u202fwork on U.S. courts and the American justice system; and the Daniel Schorr Journalism Prize from WBUR and Boston University for an investigation of methamphetamine use and HIV transmission.<\/p>\n\n\n\nMr. Shapiro is also a singer and has performed in venues from Carnegie Hall to the Hollywood Bowl \u2014 and across the U.S. in \u201cOch and Oy: A Considered Cabaret\u201d with Tony Award winner Alan Cumming. He also makes frequent guest appearances with the \u201clittle orchestra\u201d Pink Martini. His debut memoir, \u201cThe Best Strangers in the World<\/em>,\u201d was an instant New York Times<\/em> bestseller. A magna cum laude<\/em> graduate of Yale University, Mr. Shapiro began his journalism career as an intern for NPR Legal Affairs Correspondent Nina Totenberg.<\/p>\n\n\n\nProfessor Eduard Arriaga-Arango will present Ari Shapiro for the degree of Doctor of Humane Letters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sincerely,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
David B. Fithian \u201987
President<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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