Slaughter ’80, Gast GS ’84, Rubin ’65 to receive honorary degrees

Three University alumni — Anne-Marie Slaughter ’80, Alice Gast GS ’84, and Donald B. Rubin ’65 — will receive honorary degrees and speak at commencement ceremonies this May at Indiana University, the University of Notre Dame, and the University of Chicago, respectively.

Slaughter, former Dean of the Wilson School, will speak at Indiana University’s commencement. Slaughter is currently the President and CEO of New America, a nonpartisan think tank that works to combine research and outreach with political engagement. From 2009-2011 Slaughter served as the director of Policy Planning for the United States Department of State and was the first woman to hold the position. She is a professor emerita of politics and international affairs at the University. Slaughter was thrust into the public eye in 2012 when she wrote a widely-read article in The Atlantic titled “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All” concerning the complex obstacles faced by mothers who are in positions of power in their work environments.

Gast will speak at the University of Notre Dame’s commencement and receive an honorary degree in engineering. Gast earned both her master’s and doctorate degrees from Princeton and later conducted research at Stanford University. Her work has focused on understanding chemical reactions that occur on the surfaces of complex fluids. She is a co-author of the textbook “Physical Chemistry of Surfaces,” which has provided students with new ways to consider colloid phenomena. Gast served as Vice President for Research and Associate Provost at MIT and later as President of Lehigh University. She is currently the President of Imperial College London.

Rubin will receive an honorary degree from the University of Chicago at the school’s commencement ceremonies. Rubin’s work pioneered new statistical methods for analyzing incomplete data. Rubin’s findings, outlined in books like “Statistical Analysis with Missing Data” and “Multiple Imputation for Nonresponse in Surveys,” are well-known topics of study for statistics students all over the world. Rubin is currently a statistics professor at Harvard University, and completed his undergraduate studies at Princeton University, where he concentrated in psychology.