The commencement speaker for Syracuse University’s 2019 graduation will be Mary Daly, president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, SU announced on Saturday.

Daly is a 1994 graduate of SU, where she earned a doctorate in economics at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, according to an SU News release. She dropped out of high school when she was 15, but later earned her GED and received a bachelor’s degree at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, as well as a master’s degree at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

After first joining the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco as an economist in 1996, Daly held various roles until being named executive vice president and director of economic research. In October 2018, Daly took over as president and CEO of San Francisco’s Federal Reserve Bank. The San Francisco district is one of the largest of the 12 Federal Reserve districts by both population and economy size, according to the release.

Daly has also served as the chair of the San Francisco Fed’s Diversity Council. She is currently a part of the Federal Open Market Committee, which discusses and determines United States’ monetary policy, per the release. Daly is a research fellow at the IZA Institute in Bonn, Germany, and has severed on multiple advisory boards — including boards of the Congressional Budget Office, the Social Security Administration and the Library of Congress.

The university will hold its commencement ceremony on May 12 in the Carrier Dome. Daly will be awarded an honorary degree while at SU.

Several individual schools and colleges have also announced their own commencement and convocation speakers:

• Doug Robinson, founder of the production company DRP Doug Robinson Productions, will speak at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications convocation.

• The School of Education’s convocation speaker will be Cerri Banks, dean of students and vice president for student affairs at Skidmore College.

• Mary Spio, CEO and founder of virtual and augmented reality company CEEK VR, will speak at the College of Engineering and Computer Science and the School of Information Studies convocations.

• The College of Law commencement speaker will be Girls Who Code CEO and founder Reshma Saujani.

• Michael Haynie, SU’s vice chancellor for strategic initiatives and innovation, will speak at the School of Architecture‘s graduation honors convocation.

• Chris Renaud, who directed movies including “Despicable Me,”  and “Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax,” will speak at the College of Visual and Performing Arts convocation.

Published on April 7, 2019 at 4:26 pm

Contact India: irmiragl@syr.edu