Brown’s 2011 Honorary Degree Recipients
Katie King Crowley ’97
Now the Boston College women’s hockey head coach, Crowley is Brown’s all-time leading women’s hockey scorer and was part of the U.S. Olympic team that won a gold medal in the 1998 Olympics, a silver in 2002, and a bronze in 2006. She was also on the U.S. team that won nine consecutive silver medals in the World Championships, as well as a gold in 2005.
Arianna Huffington
The president and editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post Media Group, Huffington built the news and opinion website the Huffington Post into one of the most widely read media sites on the Internet. She has also written thirteen books and was an independent gubernatorial candidate in California during the 2003 recall election.
Nicholas Kristof
An op-ed columnist for the New York Times, Kristof won the Pulitzer Prize twice, once with his wife, Sheryl WuDunn, for their coverage of events in Tiananmen Square and once for his columns on the genocide in Darfur.
David Mumford
A Brown professor emeritus of applied math at Brown, Mumford is known for fundamentally changing algebraic geometry and contributing to string theory. He has been honored with a Fields Medal, the most prestigious award in math; a MacArthur Foundation genius award; and the National Medal of Science, the highest national scientific honor.
Jack Nicholson
One of the greatest film actors of his generation, Nicholson has more Oscar nominations than any othermale actor. He won best actor Oscars for One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and As Good As It Gets and best supporting actor for Terms of Endearment. He also earned a Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Film Institute.
Lynn Nottage ’86
A MacArthur Foundation fellow, Nottage is one of the most acclaimed playwrights of her generation. Most of her plays focus on the lives of women, particularly women of African or African American descent. Her newest play, By the Way, Meet Vera Stark, premiered in New York City in April.
Lisa Randall
A Harvard physics professor, Randall is one of the world’s most prominent theoretical physicists. Her work has improved our understanding of the Standard Model of particle physics, supersymmetry, baryogenesis, cosmological inflation, and dark matter. Randall’s research also explores ways to experimentally test and verify ideas. Her current research focuses in large part on the Large Hadron Collider and dark matter searches and models.
Kenneth Roth ’77
As executive director of Human Rights Watch for the past eighteen years, Roth has both presided over and been a catalyst for the transformation of human rights work from an idealistic pastime into a legitimate profession. He has also been a prosecutor in New York City and on the Iran-Contra investigation in Washington, D.C.
David Scott
With more than 5,600 hours spent flying aircraft, in 1971 Scott was the spacecraft commander for Apollo 15, becoming the seventh man to walk on the moon. Scott logged eighteen and a half hours on the lunar surface. He has also formed several corporations and holds fifteen patents.
Zhenkai Zhao
Under the pen name Bei Dao, Zhao is one of China’s most important contemporary authors. He cofounded the literary magazine Jintian (Today), which banned by the government in 1980. His work profoundly influenced the student demonstrators in Tiananmen Square. His is currently a professor of humanities at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
