2023 COMMENCEMENT
Distinguished Speaker
Andrew Hamilton
Andrew Hamilton is a distinguished chemist with an illustrious career in academia . He served as the 16th President of New York University from 2015 to June 2023 . He previously served as the vice-chancellor of Oxford University from 2009 to 2015 and as provost of Yale University from 2004 to 2008 . Before becoming an administrator , he was a chemistry professor at Yale , Princeton and the University of Pittsburgh . In addition to his record as an academic leader , Dr . Hamilton is an award-winning , widely published chemist , and he has continued to maintain his scholarly work — including an active research laboratory — while holding leadership positions .
Class of 2023 Student Speaker
Biological and Environmental Science and Engineering Walaa Khushaim
Walaa is the first female to graduate from KAUST with a Ph . D . in bioengineering , which she completed after receiving her master ’ s degree from the University of Oxford . Walaa worked under the supervision of Professor Khaled Salama on the development of sensitive biosensors for the rapid detection of heart-attack biomarkers . Her research has been published seven times in highly renowned journals . Walaa is currently pursuing her postdoctoral research at MIT where she is using biomolecular engineering techniques to build user-friendly rapid tests to measure disease biomarkers .