Valerie Jarrett, a former senior advisor to President Barack Obama, the chief executive officer of the Obama Foundation, and a member of its board of trustees, will deliver the 2025 commencement address on June 8. Esther Duflo, a Nobel laureate and professor of poverty alleviation and development economics at MIT, will deliver the College’s baccalaureate address on June 7.
Both Jarrett and Duflo will receive honorary degrees from the College at commencement. Unlike last year’s ceremony, where four people received honorary degrees, only the two speakers will be awarded honorary degrees this year. The baccalaureate ceremony invites seniors to reflect on their academic careers before receiving degrees and takes place on the evening before commencement.
Jarrett has led the Obama Foundation since 2021, a role she assumed after serving as a senior advisor to Obama from 2009 to 2017, the longest term for a senior advisor to the president since the role’s formal establishment in 1993. In that role, Jarrett chaired the White House Council on Women and Girls and oversaw the Offices of Public Engagement and Intergovernmental Affairs.
Before her work in the White House, Jarrett was the CEO of the Habitat Company — a real estate management and development company based in Chicago. She also served as Commissioner of Planning and Development for the city of Chicago and Deputy Chief of Staff for Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley. She is also a New York Times bestselling author for her 2019 book Finding My Voice: My Journey to the West Wing and the Path Forward.
In 2013, Time named her one of its 100 most influential people, and in 2024, she made the Forbes 50 over 50 list.
Jarrett is also a member of the board of trustees at The University of Chicago, where she is a senior distinguished fellow at the law school. She holds a bachelor’s degree from Stanford and a law degree from the University of Michigan. At commencement, she will receive a Doctor of Humane Letters, an honorary degree, in recognition of her humanitarian contributions in public service.
Duflo was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in economics in 2019, along with collaborators Abhijit Banerjee — who is her husband — and Michael Kremer, “for their experimental approach to alleviating global poverty,” according to the Nobel Foundation’s website.
Duflo, alongside Banerjee and Kremer, pioneered the use of randomized control trials in development economics to provide strong empirical evidence for the evaluation of poverty interventions. Along with Banerjee and Sendhil Mullainathan, Duflo co-founded the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab — often referred to as “J-PAL” — one of the world’s leading centers of developmental economic research based at MIT. It is a network of over 1,000 researchers working around the world to study and reduce global poverty, according to its website. The pair serve as J-PAL’s co-directors, along with Ben Olken.
Duflo is also the chair of poverty and public policy at the Collège de France and is a member of the National Academy of Sciences. Duflo received her bachelor’s from the École Normale Supérieure in Paris and her doctorate from MIT. She will be awarded an honorary Doctor of Science degree in recognition of her contributions to economic research.
