2025 Commencement Speaker Announced

We are honored to announce our Friedman School Commencement Speaker for 2025, Danielle Nierenberg. Danielle is a world-renowned researcher, speaker, and advocate of issues related to our food and agriculture systems. 

In 2013, Danielle co-founded with Bernard Pollack the 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, Food Tank, focused on building a global community for safe, healthy, nourished eaters. Food Tank is a leading food and agriculture convener, a thought-leadership organization, and an unbiased creator of original food systems research. Danielle has conducted extensive on-the-ground research in more than 70 countries across Sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, and Latin America, and has met with thousands of farmers, scientists, policymakers and government leaders, academics, and journalists to document what is working to help alleviate hunger and poverty while protecting the environment. 

Danielle is an alumna of the Friedman School, holds an M.S. in Agriculture, Food, and Environment, and volunteered for two years with the Peace Corps in the Dominican Republic. She is the recipient of the 2017 Friedman School Leadership and Expertise Award and is the recipient of the 2020 Julia Child Award.