Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute President Shirley Ann Jackson will be the speaker and will join Paychex chair and founder Thomas Golisano and Nobel Prize-winning economist Robert Solow in receiving an honorary degree during the University of Rochester's commencement ceremonies for graduates in the College of Arts, Sciences, and Engineering on Sunday, May 20.

The College's 157th commencement ceremony will start at 9 a.m. on the Eastman Quadrangle on the River Campus and will also include the presentation of two University awards. Edmund Hajim, chairman and chief executive officer of MLH Capital, LLC, will receive the Charles Force Hutchison and Marjorie Smith Hutchison Medal, the highest honor given to an alumnus in recognition of outstanding achievements and service to community, state, or nation. John Tarduno, professor of geophysics and chair of the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, will be presented with the Edward Peck Curtis Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching.

Golisano, who will receive the honorary degree Doctor of Laws, has been consistently recognized for his entrepreneurial and civic accomplishments and philanthropic works. His company has grown to nearly 11,500 employees and more than half a million customers since he started it in 1971. Among his honors, Golisano has been included three times on the Forbes list of top 10 business leaders in the United States, received the "Master Entrepreneur" award from Ernst & Young, and has been named Outstanding Philanthropist by the Association of Fundraising Professionals. Paychex has appeared on the "Forbes 500" and "Best Managed Companies in America" lists and has been named four times to Fortune's "100 Best Companies to Work for In America" list.

Jackson, who will receive the honorary degree Doctor of Science, has held senior leadership positions in government, industry, research, and academe. A theoretical physicist, she worked at Fermilab and the AT&T Bell Laboratories in New Jersey and was on the faculty of Rutgers University. In 1995, President Bill Clinton appointed Jackson chair of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. She became the 18th president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1999. Jackson is past president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and former chair of its board of directors, a member of the National Academy of Engineering, and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Physical Society, and AAAS.

Solow is known for his analysis on the theory of economic growth, including the development of a mathematical model showing how various factors contribute to economic growth. He also worked on capital theory and on linear programming. Solow received the American Economic Association's John Bates Clark Award in 1961, the Nobel Prize in 1987, and the National Medal of Science in 1999. He is Institute Professor, Emeritus, and Professor of Economics, Emeritus, at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Solow served on the Council of Economic Advisers and the President's Commission on Income Maintenance, and is currently on the Advisory Board for the Center for Economic and Policy Research. He is receiving the honorary degree Doctor of Laws.

Hajim, whose long investment career has included senior positions at E.F. Hutton, Lehman Brothers, Kuhn Loeg Furman Selz LLC, and ING Aeltus Group, is currently chairman and chief executive officer of MLH Capital, LLC. He serves or has served on the investment committees of the Brookings Institution, the University of Rochester, and the Greenwich Hospital Association. Hajim is also well-known and respected for his engagement in community and philanthropic endeavors. He is a founder of the Nantucket Golf Club, which awards two college scholarships each year; serves on the Nantucket Conservation Foundation; and is active in the Ocean Reef Foundation in Florida. At the University of Rochester, he endowed the Edmund A. Hajim Scholarship Fund and made a major gift to help fund construction of the Robert B. Goergen Athletic Center that includes the Edmund A. Hajim Alumni Gymnasium. He received a Bachelor of Science degree in chemical engineering from the University in 1958 and an MBA with distinction from Harvard Business School in 1964.

Tarduno is professor of physics and chair of the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences. A recipient of a 2006 Guggenheim Award for his work on how the earth's magnetic field functions and has changed over time, Tarduno takes his students to sites ranging from California to the Arctic to do hands-on work and gain field experience. He joined the Rochester faculty in 1993 and established the Paleomagnetic Laboratory at the University the same year.

During its diploma ceremonies that day, the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences will present its 2007 Distinguished Alumnus Award to Francis L. Price, who received both his bachelor's degree in economics in 1974 and his MBA in finance in 1975 from the University. Price is president and CEO of Q3 Industries, a multifaceted supplier to the transportation industry. He is also the president of Interact Performance Systems, a producer of video-based employee-training programs, and serves on the board of the Population Reference Bureau in Washington, D.C.

There are 898 candidates for a bachelor's degree and 203 candidates for a master's degree in the College.

Commencement ceremonies and highlights for other divisions:

There are 84 candidates for medical doctor degrees.

The speaker is Michael S. Gottlieb, who will also receive the Charles Force Hutchison and Marjorie Smith Hutchison Medal, the highest honor given to an alumnus in recognition of outstanding achievements and service to community, state, or nation. As a first-year assistant professor at the University of California at Los Angeles in 1981, Gottlieb wrote the first official description of HIV. Since then, he has been a pioneer in both the clinical care of patients with AIDS and investigations into more effective treatments. He helped launch the American Foundation for AIDS Research, was instrumental in founding the Pediatric AIDS Foundation, and is a trustee of the Global AIDS Interfaith Alliance. Gottlieb received his M.D. in 1973.

A total of 247 doctoral degrees (Ph.D., D.M.A., Ed.D.) will be awarded.

Henry Kyburg, the Gideon Webster Burbank Professor of Moral and Intellectual Philosophy, will receive the University Award for Lifetime Achievement in Graduate Education. A respected authority on philosophy problems in the study of science and mathematics, Kyburg has been at the forefront of work in probability, machine cognition, and uncertain inference, which is the human process of reaching conclusions. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the American Association for Artificial Intelligence. He joined the Rochester faculty in 1965 and holds appointments in both the philosophy and the computer science departments.

Robert Bambara, chair and professor of biochemistry and biophysics, will receive the William H. Riker University Award for Excellence in Graduate Teaching. In his laboratory, Bambara studies DNA replication and recombination, looking for clues that might unlock secrets to new anticancer and antiviral therapies. He joined the Rochester faculty in 1977, after completing his Ph.D. at Cornell and working at Stanford University as a fellow of the Jane Coffin Childs Fund.

The Rochester Distinguished Scholar Medal, awarded to doctoral graduates who have gone on to distinguished careers in academia, industry, or government, will be presented to Ernest Courant. His work on charged particle acceleration, including his role inventing alternating gradient focusing, paved the way for the development of high-energy accelerators, which allow scientists to investigate the fundamental structure of matter. Courant earned his degree in physics from the University in 1943 and is a member of the National Academy of Sciences.

There are 91 candidates for a master's degree.

Nancy Ares, assistant professor of teaching and curriculum, will receive the University's G. Graydon '58 and Jane W. Curtis Award for Excellence in Teaching by a Nontenured Member of the Faculty. She joined the faculty in 2003 and teaches doctoral level courses in learning and teaching theories and research methods. She previously taught at the University of Utah, where she was twice nominated for the school's College of Education Teaching Award.

There are 120 candidates for a medical master's degree.

There are 115 candidates for a bachelor's degree and 90 candidates for a master's degree.

Christopher Seaman, one of the world's leading conductors and music director of the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, will be the speaker and will receive the Eastman School's Luminary Award. The award recognizes individuals who have given extraordinary service to music and the arts at the community and national levels. Seaman has become an integral part of the RPO and the greater Rochester community, and is recognized as having raised the artistic level of the Orchestra to its present excellence. He is highly sought-after as a guest conductor throughout the world and noted for his strong command of a broad repertoire.

There are 147 candidates for a bachelor's degree and 50 candidates for a master's degree.

Beverly Malone, chief executive officer of the National League for Nursing, will be the keynote speaker. Malone has served as deputy assistant secretary of health in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing, and president of the American Nursing Association.

There are 357 candidates for a master's degree in the current academic year.

Total number of degrees to be awarded in all schools: 2,402 bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees.