Carnegie Mellon University will award honorary degrees to four individuals at its 2026 Commencement(opens in new window) ceremony set for Sunday, May 10 in Gesling Stadium. The recipients will be recognized for their contributions to business, the arts, research and engineering.
Jensen Huang, the electrical engineer, philanthropist and business executive who co-founded NVIDIA, will be the Commencement speaker and receive an Honorary Doctor of Science and Technology degree.
College of Fine Arts alumna Jamie deRoy, a producer, performer and television host, will receive an Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree. Samuel Hazo, founder of the International Poetry Forum, will receive an Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree. Thomas Sargent, the William Berkley Professor of Economics at New York University, will receive an Honorary Doctor of Science and Technology degree.
“It is a Carnegie Mellon tradition to award honorary degrees to exemplary leaders whose lives and work inspire our community. This year’s recipients have made extraordinary contributions in their fields and remind our graduates that leadership and progress are most powerful when guided by purpose and humanity. We are thrilled to spotlight and celebrate their profound impact on our world at our Commencement,” said CMU President Farnam Jahanian(opens in new window).
Additionally, Simi Olusola-Ajayi, a graduating master’s student in Human-Computer Interaction(opens in new window), will serve as the student speaker at Commencement. Simi has focused on responsible innovation and the governance of emerging technologies and is a member of the Center for AI Safety Initiative (CASI) and recently co-won the UC Berkeley AI Hackathon for her work on election and democracy integrity. Her research, in collaboration with the Carnegie Mellon Institute for Strategy and Technology(opens in new window), examines international treaty precedents and their implications for the governance of emerging technologies.
Read more about the 2026 honorary degree recipients.
Jensen Huang
Cofounder, NVIDIA
Honorary Doctor of Science and Technology
Carnegie Mellon confers an honorary degree in recognition of Jensen’s extraordinary contributions as a visionary founder and technology leader. Since founding NVIDIA in 1993, Jensen has helped redefine what computing can do — from pioneering high-performance graphics to advancing the invention and evolution of the modern GPU — and enabling new eras of accelerated computing that have become foundational to today’s AI revolution.
What makes this recognition especially meaningful for our community is that Jensen’s leadership exemplifies something we value deeply at CMU: turning bold ideas into transformative impact. The technologies NVIDIA has helped bring to the world are now fueling breakthroughs across disciplines, from scientific discovery and engineering design to medicine, creativity and the future of work.
Read more about Jensen Huang here(opens in new window)
Jamie deRoy (CFA 1967)
Producer, Performer and Television Host
Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts
Carnegie Mellon will confer an honorary degree on alumna Jamie deRoy, an accomplished producer and performer whose extraordinary career has made her one of the most influential champions of American theater.
A Pittsburgh native who studied drama at Carnegie Mellon, Jamie has built a remarkable legacy as a Broadway and off-Broadway producer, performer and arts advocate. Over the course of her career she has co-produced more than 170 Broadway and off-Broadway productions and earned 15 Tony Awards, along with numerous Drama Desk, Drama League and other industry honors.
Her productions have included acclaimed and award-winning works such as “Angels in America,” “A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder,” “Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike,” and “The Ferryman.”
Read more about Jamie deRoy here(opens in new window)
Samuel Hazo
Founder, International Poetry Forum
Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters
Carnegie Mellon will confer an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters on Samuel John Hazo, founder of the International Poetry Forum and a distinguished poet, translator and educator, whose work has enriched literary culture and civic life for more than half a century.
Through the International Poetry Forum, founded in Pittsburgh in 1966, Sam created one of the nation’s most vibrant venues for poetry and public dialogue, bringing many of the world’s leading poets to the city and elevating the role of poetry in public life.
Read more about Samuel Hazo here(opens in new window)
Thomas J. Sargent
Nobel Laureate in Economic Sciences
Honorary Doctor of Science and Technology
Carnegie Mellon will confer an honorary Doctor of Science and Technology on Thomas J. Sargent, whose scholarship has shaped modern macroeconomics and deepened our understanding of cause and effect in the macroeconomy.
Thomas earned the 2011 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences, shared with Christopher Sims, for pioneering empirical research that transformed how economists analyze the relationship between economic policy and real-world outcomes.
Read more about Thomas Sargeant here(opens in new window)
“Carnegie Mellon University is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The institution was originally established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical School. In 1912, it became the Carnegie Institute of Technology and began granting four-year degrees.”
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