Public health leader to receive an honorary degree at Carolina's spring commencement

Photograph of H. Jack Geiger

A human rights activist and public health leader whose efforts have twice won the Nobel Peace Prize will receive an honorary degree Sunday, May 13, at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s spring commencement.

H. Jack Geiger, a two-time winner of the Nobel Peace Prize and senior member in the National Academy of Science’s Institute of Medicine, will receive an honorary doctor of science degree.

For more than six decades, Geiger has championed issues of human rights and health. He established and served as director of the country’s first urban health center in Boston and the first rural health center in Mound Bayou, Miss.

Geiger is a founding member and past president of Physicians for Human Rights, an international organization that shared in the 1988 Nobel Peace Prize, and a member and past president of Physicians for Social Responsibility, the U.S. affiliate of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, which received the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize.

In 2005, Geiger presented at the 11th Annual Summer Public Health Research Institute and Videoconference on Minority Health, cosponsored by the UNC School of Public Health.

Geiger is the Arthur C. Logan Professor Emeritus of Community Medicine at the City University of New York Medical School.

Other honorary degree recipients will be:

• Madeleine Korbel Albright, a former U.S. secretary of state and a principal in The Albright Group LLC, who will receive an honorary doctor of laws degree;
• William Ivey Long, a Tony Award-winning Broadway costume designer, who will receive an honorary doctor of fine arts degree;
• Richard Wilson Riley, a former U.S. secretary of education and South Carolina governor and current university professor, who will receive a doctor of laws degree; and
• Dean Edwards Smith, legendary UNC men’s basketball coach and mentor, who will receive a doctor of laws degree.

The ceremony, presided over by Chancellor James Moeser, will begin at 9:30 a.m. in Kenan Memorial Stadium. Albright will be the featured speaker.

# # #

Related link:
http://www.unc.edu/commencement/

News Services contact: Clinton Colmenares, (919) 843-1991 or clinton_colmenares@unc.edu.

School of Public Health contact: Ramona DuBose, (919) 966-7467 or ramona_dubose@unc.edu.