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Jensen Huang
Founder and CEO, NVIDIA
Doctor of Science and Technology

Jensen Huang founded NVIDIA in 1993 and has served since its inception as president, chief executive officer and a member of the board of directors. 

Since its founding, NVIDIA has pioneered accelerated computing. The company’s invention of the GPU in 1999 sparked the growth of the PC gaming market, redefined computer graphics and ignited the era of modern AI. NVIDIA is now driving the platform shift of accelerated computing and generative AI, transforming the world's largest industries and profoundly impacting society.

Under Huang’s leadership, NVIDIA generated record full year revenue of $215.9 billion in fiscal year 2026, driven by the global demand for AI infrastructure. Most recently, he has spearheaded the development of the Blackwell and Rubin GPU platforms, which have fundamentally lowered the cost and energy requirements of large-scale generative AI.

Huang has been elected to the National Academy of Engineering and is a recipient of the Semiconductor Industry Association’s highest honor, the Robert N. Noyce Award; the IEEE Founder’s Medal; the Dr. Morris Chang Exemplary Leadership Award; and honorary doctorate degrees from Taiwan’s National Chiao Tung University, National Taiwan University, and Oregon State University. He has been named the world’s best CEO by Fortune, the Economist and Brand Finance, as well as one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people and the recipient of the 2025 Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering.

Prior to founding NVIDIA, Huang worked at LSI Logic and Advanced Micro Devices. He holds a BSEE degree from Oregon State University and an MSEE degree from Stanford University.

Jamie deRoy (CFA 1967)
Producer, Performer and Television Host
Doctor of Fine Arts

Jamie deRoy is a producer, performer and television host, whose career began almost serendipitously, but quickly grew into the stuff of New York legend. Her role as a producer on more than 170 Broadway and Off-Broadway productions has earned her a staggering 15 Tony Awards. Her diverse list of credits ranges from beloved revivals like “Merrily We Roll Along” and “Company” to daring new works such as “Leopoldstadt,” “The Ferryman,” “Stereophonic,” and this season’s “Giant.”

Jamie’s reach extends into television, where she first hosted Cabaret Beat and then made a significant impact with her Telly Award-winning variety show, “Jamie deRoy & friends,” on the air for the last 36 years, bringing the best of New York’s nightlife and theater scene directly into viewers’ homes. She earned an Emmy nomination for her work at Channel Thirteen/CityArts.

She has also produced the acclaimed documentaries “Broadway: The Golden Age” and its sequel, “Broadway: Beyond the Golden Age.” Most recently, she is a producer on Rutanya Alda’s “Land of Moustaches.”

In addition to her Tony Awards, her mantel boasts numerous MAC Awards, Drama Desk, Outer Critics, Drama League and Audience Choice Awards. Her dedication to promoting and supporting theater has also earned her a place in the MJHI Manhattan Jewish Hall of Fame, various Lifetime Achievement recognitions, such as the Albert Einstein Spirit of Achievement and The York Theatre Founders’ Award.

Jamie deRoy’s decades-long career stands as a testament to her deep commitment to fostering the creative spirit of the city, making her an enduring and influential figure in New York’s live entertainment world. 

Samuel Hazo
Founder, International Poetry Forum
Doctor of Humane Letters

Samuel Hazo is the author of poems, novels, plays, essays and various works of translation. He has published more than fifty books with many of them available in multiple languages. 

Among his honors are the Griffin Award for Creative Writing from the University of Notre Dame; the Hazlett Award for Excellence in Literature when he was named the first State Poet of Pennsylvania by Governor Robert Casey in 1993; and being named a finalist for the National Book Award,. He has 12 honorary degrees,was twice named Pittsburgh’s Man-of-the-Year in the Arts and gifted with an honorary membership in Phi Beta Kappa. Hazo was also awarded the Forbes Medal for Outstanding Cultural Contributions to Western Pennsylvania, as well as the Smithsonian Institution’s James Smithson Bicentennial Medal and the Common Wealth Award for Distinguished Service.

A lifelong resident of Pittsburgh, Hazo received a scholarship to study at the University of Notre Dame, graduating in 1949. From 1950 to 1953 he served as an enlisted man and later an officer in the Marine Corps. He then continued with graduate study, earning a master’s degree from Duquesne University and a doctorate from the University of Pittsburgh. From 1955 until 1998 he taught at Duquesne, retiring with the title of McAnulty Distinguished Professor of English Emeritus. 

In 1966, Hazo founded the International Poetry Forum in Pittsburgh and served as its director and president until 2009. In forty-three years more than 390 poets from 38 countries, including Pulitzer and National Book Awardees as well as Nobel Prize winners, appeared at the Forum. 

Hazo’s work scrutinizes themes of family and faith, violence and creativity, mortality and love,  and the passage of time with what poet Naomi Shihab Nye describes as, “immense intelligence, lyricism and humanity.” Hazo will always be grateful to his late wife, Mary Anne, as well as their son and his family for their love and support.

Thomas J. Sargent
William Berkley Professor of Economics, New York University and Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University
Doctor of Science and Technology

Thomas J. Sargent is the William Berkley Professor of Economics at New York University. He received his B.A. from the University of California at Berkeley in 1964 and his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1968. His first academic appointment, in 1967, was as a Research Associate at Carnegie Institute of Technology—the institution now honoring him.

After two years of military service as an officer in the United States Army, he joined the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania and then the University of Minnesota, where he remained for 16 years. He subsequently held positions at the University of Chicago andStanford University before arriving at NYU in 2002.

His research has focused on macroeconomics, monetary and fiscal policy, and the application of dynamic programming and statistical methods to economic problems. He has written on inflation, government debt, unemployment and uncertainty in economic models. Much of his work has been collaborative—long-running partnerships with Lars Peter Hansen, Lars Ljungqvist and George Hall, among others, have shaped his research over several decades. He is a co-founder of QuantEcon, an open-source project that provides computational tools and teaching materials in economics.

He is a fellow of the Econometric Society, the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2011, he received the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, shared with Christopher Sims.

He has supervised many doctoral students and has taught at universities for nearly sixty years. He returns to Carnegie Mellon with particular pleasure, having started his career there when the institution was still known as Carnegie Institute of Technology.

Simi Olusola-Ajayi (SCS 2026)

Simi Olusola-Ajayi is a graduating Master's student in Human-Computer Interaction at ºÃÉ«ÏÈÉúTV's Human-Computer Interaction Institute.

With a background in psychology and more than seven years of professional experience in experience strategy, Simi approaches technology through a human-centered lens. Before coming to CMU, she led large-scale experiential and brand strategy for global technology companies, an experience that continues to inform her interest in how systems, interfaces and policies shape how people encounter institutions, power and emerging technologies.

At CMU, Simi has focused on responsible innovation and the governance of emerging technologies. She has advised on the School of Computer Science Dean Advisory Committee, serves as tech policy editor for the Carnegie Mellon Policy and Law Review, is a member of the Center for AI Safety Initiative (CASI) and recently co-won the UC Berkeley AI Hackathon for her work on election and democracy integrity. Her research, in collaboration with CMIST, examines international treaty precedents and their implications for the governance of emerging technologies.

She is equally committed to ensuring that conversations about technology and its impacts extend beyond academic spaces, making these issues relevant and accessible to broader audiences. Her public writing on technology and equity includes work published in PublicSource, a Pittsburgh civic media outlet.

Her next stop is law school, where she plans to deepen her exploration at the intersection of technology, design and governance.