Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania
MD Program

Historical Graduation Speakers

Historical Graduation Speakers

1996  Dr. Michael Brown, Nobel Laureate; Paul J. Thomas Professor of Medicine and Genetics, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center

1996  Dr. Louis Sokoloff, Chief, Laboratory of Cerebral Metabolism, National Institutes of Mental Health

1997  Dr. Philip R. Lee, former Assistant Secretary for Health, DHHS

1998  Dr. Francis S. Collins, Director, National Human Genome Research Institute of the NIH

1998  Dr. Stanley B. Prusiner, Professor of Neurology at UCSF and winner of the 1997 Nobel Prize for Medicine

1999  Dr. Kenneth I. Shine, President, Institute of Medicine, National Academy of Sciences

2000  Dr. Jordan J. Cohen, President, Association of American Medical Colleges

2001  Dr. Michael S. Brown, C'62, M'66, Nobel Laureate; Paul J. Thomas Professor of Molecular Genetics; Director, Jonsson Center for Molecular Genetics, University of Texas Southwestern Medical School

2002  Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, Director, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, NIH

2003  Dr. Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, President and CEO, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

2004  Dr. Henry W. Foster, Jr., Professor Emeritus and former Dean, School of Medicine, Meharry Medical College and Clinical Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Vanderbilt University

2005  Dr. Helene D. Gayle, Director of the HIV, TB, and Reproductive Health Program, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

2006  Dr. Jeffrey M. Leiden, Former President and Chief Operating Officer, Pharmaceutical Products Group, Abbott Laboratories

2007  Dr. Atul Gawande, Assistant Professor of Surgery, Harvard Medical School

2008  Dr. Jordan J. Cohen, President Emeritus, Association of American Medical Colleges, Professor of Medicine and Public Health, George Washington University

2009  Dr. Christine K. Cassel, President and CEO of the American Board of Internal Medicine and ABIM Foundation

2010  Dr. Arthur L. Caplan, PhD, The Emmanual and Robert Hart Director of the Center for Bioethics and the Sydney D. Caplan Professor of Bioethics, University of Pennsylvania

2011  Dr. Arthur H. Rubenstein, Executive Vice President and Dean

2012  Dr. Peter C. Agre, University Professor and Director, Johns Hopkins Malaria Research Institute, Bloomberg school of Public Health

2013  Dr. Nicole Lurie, Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response RADM, U.S. Public Health Service, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

2014  Dr. Elizabeth G. Nabel, MD, President, Brigham and Women’s Healthcare, Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School

2015  Dr. Gaetano Thiene, Professor of Pathology, University of Padua Medical School

2016  Dr. Michael S. Brown, Regental Professor, University of Texas Southwestern Medical School

2017  Dr. Robert M. Wachter, Distinguished Professor, Chair of the Department of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco

2018  Dr. Gail Morrison, William Maul Measey President’s Distinguished Professor in Medical Education, Special Advisor to the EVP/Dean, Executive Director Innovation Center for Online Medical Education

2019  Dr. Reed V. Tuckson, Managing Director of Tuckson Health Connections, LLC

2020  Dr. Katrina A. Armstrong, Jackson Professor of Clinical Medicine at Harvard Medical School, Chair of the Department of Medicine
             and Physician-in-Chief of Massachusetts General Hospital

2021  Dr. Rajiv Shah, President of the Rockefeller Foundation

2022  Dr. Vanessa Northington Gamble, University Professor of Medical Humanities, Professor of Health Policy and American Studies, and Professor of Medicine at The George Washington University

2023  Dr. Holly J. Humphry, President of the Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation, Chair of the Kaiser Permanente Bernard J. Tyson School of Medicine’s Board of Directors