Tommy Evans ’99

Alumnus Thomas (Tommy) Evans ’99, National Public Radio’s Managing Editor for Editorial Review, will deliver the 2025 address at the University-wide Commencement Ceremony on Friday, May 16. The 175th ceremony will be held in Fauver Stadium at the Brian F. Prince Athletic Complex on the River Campus and will mark the conferral of academic degrees for both undergraduate and graduate students.

“I am very excited to have Tommy Evans return to campus as our 2025 Commencement speaker,” said University President Sarah Mangelsdorf. “With a degree from Rochester, a strong work ethic, and an ever-curious mind, he has worked all over the world to shape the reporting of the most significant national and global news stories of our time. I look forward to our graduates hearing from a leader who is achieving such success.”

As managing editor, Evans is responsible for ensuring NPR maintains and strengthens its status as a trusted source of news and information for the American public. He and his staff of senior editors give all NPR news content a final editorial review before it goes on air or online, working to showcase NPR’s nuanced approach to journalism as rigorous and wide-ranging in its subject matter.

Prior to NPR, Evans was CNN’s vice president of international newsgathering and London bureau chief, overseeing investigative and enterprise newsgathering outside the United States and Canada. He was responsible for all CNN output from Europe, the Middle East and Africa and oversaw all CNN bureaus in these regions, as well as special projects out of Asia Pacific. He was also responsible for the cyber security and physical security for all CNN staff outside the United States. Evans led CNN’s coverage of several major news events of the recent years, including the Taliban’s return to power in Afghanistan, the COVID-19 pandemic, Brexit, the numerous terror attacks across Europe, the war in Ukraine, the European refugee crisis and the conflicts in Syria and Yemen.

He started at CNN as a producer for AC360 with Anderson Cooper and has also headed up the network’s Baghdad and Kabul bureaus. Prior to becoming the London bureau chief, Evans was CNN International’s Senior Director of Coverage for Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Evans has received numerous honors throughout his career, including multiple Emmy Awards; Edward R. Murrow, DuPont, and Peabody awards; and a Bayeux Calvados-Normandy Award for war correspondents.

As a double major, Evans earned a bachelor’s degree in political science and studio arts from Rochester. He went on to receive a master’s degree in international politics from London’s School for Oriental and African Studies.

Evans visited the University of Rochester in February 2017, meeting with students, faculty, and administrators, as well as lectured at the Humanities Center on the global view of the 2016 American presidential election.