‘Doctorates without Borders’ panel highlights 150th anniversary of Ph.D.

Yale became the first university in North America to grant a Ph.D. in 1861. Yale’s legacy of graduate education will be the focus of the Association of Yale Alumni annual assembly on Thursday, Nov. 17.

The assembly brings over 400 alumni leaders to campus, representing regional Yale clubs, college classes, graduate and professional school alumni, and shared-interest groups. 

A highlight of the assembly will be a panel titled “Doctorates without Borders,” featuring a discussion of the challenges facing graduate school alumni in the 21^st century and leadership opportunities within and beyond academia for Ph.D. degree recipients. 

Watch “Doctorates without Borders” on Yale’s LiveStream channel on Thursday, Nov. 17, at 4:30 p.m. EST.

Panelists include:

• Jonathan Fanton ’65 B.A.,’78 Ph.D., former president of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and Franklin D. Roosevelt Visiting Fellow at Hunter College;
• Eric R. Fossum ’84 Ph.D.; inventor of the CMOS image sensor that operates digital cameras and professor of engineering at the Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth;
• Ann Temkin ’91 Ph.D., the Marie-Josée and Henry Kravis Chief Curator of Painting and Sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City;
• Joan Hinde Stewart ’70 Ph.D., president of Hamilton College; and
• Ernesto Zedillo ’81 Ph.D., director of the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization and president of Mexico from 1994 to 2000.

Thomas Pollard, dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, will give opening remarks and Yale Provost Peter Salovey will moderate. The panel can be viewed on the Yale LiveStream channel on Thursday, Nov. 17, at 4:30 p.m. EST.