Journalist and cancer research fundraiser Katie Couric will deliver the 50th commencement address at UMass Chan Medical School in Worcester next year.
Couric, decorated and lauded for her journalism career, co-founded the Los Angeles-based nonprofit Stand Up To Cancer in 2008, which has to date raised more than $746 million to advance cancer research, UMass said in its announcement Tuesday.Â
The disease has touched Couric’s life personally. In the late 1990s, her husband, Jay Monahan, died of colon cancer at the age of 42. Couric’s sister died from pancreatic cancer three years later. In September, Couric announced she was in treatment for early-stage breast cancer.Â
UMass Chan will award honorary degrees to Tania Issa Semaan, co-founder and director of The Semaan Foundation in Lebannon, and Luke O’Neill, chair of biochemistry at Trinity College Dublin’s School of Biochemistry and Immunology in Ireland. The Semaan Foundation supports educational and cultural enrichment across the globe and in 2017 endowed two chairs at UMass Chan. O’Neill, among other accolades, was named by Thomson/Reuters among the top 1% of scientists in his field based on citations.
The 2023 UMass Chan commencement will take place on June 4.Â
Â
