Dr. Rick Hodes, a physician who has dedicated his career to treating children with
life-threatening scoliosis in Ethiopia, has been selected as the commencement speaker at Brandeis’ 62nd Commencement ceremonies on May 19.

Hodes serves as the medical director for Ethiopia at the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee.

“Dr. Hodes exemplifies what one person can do to heal the world,” said President Fred Lawrence in a statement. “By helping thousands of children and working to ensure that many more get life-saving or life-changing medical treatment, he reminds us that social justice is personal and that every child is worth saving.”

Hodes will be one of six notable people who are receiving honorary degrees from Brandeis. The other honorees are Vartan Gregorian, former president of Brown University; Ellsworth Kelly, painter, sculptor and printmaker whose paintings are on display in The Rose Art Museum; Chaim Peri, former director of Yemin Orde Wingate Youth Village in Haifa, Israel; Elaine Schuster, co-founder of the Elaine and Gerald Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism at Brandeis and public delegate to the United Nations General Assembly; and Leon Weiseltier, literary editor of The New Republic, and fiction and nonfiction writer.