Five People Receive Honorary Degrees in 2022

The University presented honorary degrees to five people at the 2022 Commencement ceremony:

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Courtesy of Princeton University

FRED DAVID GRAY, a civil-rights attorney, won landmark rulings for school desegregation in the South and represented Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, and victims of the Tuskegee syphilis study. King called Gray “the chief counsel for the protest movement.”

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Courtesy of Princeton University

AMY GUTMANN, a Princeton professor emerita and former provost, was the longest-serving president of the University of Pennsylvania (2004–22). She recently became the U.S. ambassador to Germany. 

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Courtesy of Princeton University

BRENT HENRY ’69, a health-care lawyer, was honored for both his professional accomplishments and his service to Princeton, according to his degree citation, which noted his leadership of the Association of Black Collegians and his contributions as a University trustee.

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Courtesy of Princeton University

EVE MARDER, a biology professor at Brandeis University, has helped to shape neuroscience with her pioneering studies of neural circuits. She also has been an advocate for women in the sciences and a mentor to researchers in her field.

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Courtesy of Princeton University

FREDERICK W. SMITH, the founder, chairman, and CEO of FedEx, first proposed his idea for an overnight courier service as an undergraduate at Yale. After service in the Marine Corps, he built one of the world’s leading companies.