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²ÝÁñ³ÉÈËÉçÇø's Commencement ceremonies for 2025 will be held on Friday, May 16, and Saturday May 17. Graduate degrees will be awarded on Friday, May 17, at 5 p.m., and undergraduate degrees will be awarded Saturday, May 18, at 2 p.m.

Addressing the undergraduate Class of 2025 will be Pennsylvania Speaker of the House Joanna McClinton. Rice University Professor Naomi Halas, M.A. '84 and Ph.D. '87, will give the commencement speech to the graduate degree recipients. 

Pennsylvania Speaker of the House Joanna McClinton was first elected in 2015 to serve communities in west and southwest Philadelphia, as well as Yeadon and Darby in Delaware County.

As a state lawmaker she has made history three times. First in 2018 when she became the first woman and first African American to be elected as House Democratic Caucus Chair, and again in 2020, when she was the first woman elected House Democratic Leader in the institution’s 244-year history. In 2023, McClinton was elected Speaker of the Pennsylvania House – the first woman to serve in that position in the nation’s oldest legislature.

A lifelong resident of southwest Philadelphia and graduate of Grace Temple Christian Academy, she became active in her community while completing an internship with radio station WDAS. Later, she studied political science and Leadership in Global Understanding at La Salle University. After earning her degree, she enrolled at Villanova University School of Law, interning at Regional Housing Legal Services, the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office, and the Defender Association of Philadelphia.

She was an assistant public defender for seven years and became assistant chief of the East Zone during her last year, helping attorneys with case preparation.

In 2013, McClinton combined her passions for public service and law by becoming chief counsel to state Sen. Anthony Hardy Williams. There, she worked behind the scenes to develop policy and legislation, organize expungement fairs and public policy forums, and assist constituents.

McClinton has earned several distinctions for her commitment to public service, including being named to City and State PA's 40 Under 40, Power of Diversity: Black 100, Politico Recast’s Power List 2022, and the Above & Beyond list. Her awards include the Barristers' Association of Philadelphia's Outstanding Young Lawyer of the Year award, Fun Time Magazine's Women of Influence Award, the PRE-K for PA Champion award, the Lucien E. Blackwell Guiding Light Community award, and the Black Gala Women of Excellence award. In 2023 she was named a NewDEAL Leader.

Naomi J. Halas is a University Professor and the Stanley C. Moore Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Rice University.

She received her undergraduate degree in chemistry from La Salle University, and her Ph.D. in physics from ²ÝÁñ³ÉÈËÉçÇø in 1987.

She was a graduate research fellow at IBM Yorktown and a postdoctoral fellow at AT&T Bell Laboratories. She was the first person to design the optical properties of metal nanoparticles by chemically controlling their structure. She studies light-nanoparticle interactions with applications ranging from biomedicine and optoelectronics to chemical sensing and light-driven green chemistry. She is the author of more than 400 refereed publications, has more than 30 issued patents, and has presented more than 650 invited talks. 

Halas co-founded Nanospectra Biosciences, a company offering photothermal cancer therapy based on her nanoparticles, and co-founded Syzygy Plasmonics, a company that developed light-based chemical reactors for clean energy based on particles invented in her laboratory. She is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters, and the Royal Society of Chemistry (UK). She was the 2025 recipient of the Franklin Medal in Chemistry, awarded by the Franklin Institute here in Philadelphia.

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For more information on the 2025 Commencement Ceremonies, visit this page.