Duke to award seven honorary degrees at 2017 commencement ceremony

Duke will present seven honorary degrees at its commencement ceremony this year, the University announced Monday.

The recipients will be:

• Clayton Christensen, a professor of business administration at the Harvard Business School whose first book “The Innovator’s Dilemma” was named one of the six most important books on business by "The Economist" in 2011.
• George Church, a Duke alum and professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School who is known for his work in personal genomics and synthetic biology.
• Deborah Lee James, a Duke alum who served as secretary of the Air Force from 2013-17.
• Loretta Lynch, the first African-American woman to serve to serve as attorney general of the United States.
• Stanley Nelson, who has made more than 20 documentaries on the African American experience and was awarded the National Medal in the Humanities by President Barack Obama in 2013.
• Marilynne Robinson, a novelist and essayist known for her books “Housekeeping," “Gilead," “Home" and “Lila."
• Luis von Ahn, a Duke alum and MacArthur Fellow who founded a subdiscipline of computer science called human computation.

“I’m delighted that Duke will have the opportunity to welcome and honor these extraordinary individuals,” said President Richard Brodhead in a Duke Today release. “As students receive their degrees and look toward their futures, they will be inspired by the distinguished contributions these women and men have made in fields from the arts and the sciences to business and public service.”

This year's commencement ceremony will take place May 14 and will feature a commencement address by David Rubenstein, Trinity '70 and chair of the Board of Trustees.