The University of Colorado at Boulder will honor seven people at the May 9 spring commencement ceremony, set to begin at 8:30 a.m. in Folsom Stadium.
During the ceremony, CU-Boulder will present the University Medal to Norman Brownstein, and honorary doctoral degrees to Sister Helen Prejean, William E. "Bud" Davis, David L. DiLaura, David Wilson Jr., Long-Sheng Ma and Dale N. Hatfield.
A 1968 graduate of the CU Law School, Brownstein is a founding member and chairman of the board of the Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck law firm. He is nationally recognized for his experience in real estate law, commercial transactions and public policy advocacy, and was named one of the "100 Most Influential Lawyers in America" by the National Law Journal.
Outside of his legal work, Brownstein is well known for his commitment to the health and wellness of Colorado citizens. He has given to numerous charities in the health sciences disciplines and spent countless hours serving as current or past director of organizations such as the National Jewish Center for Immunology and Respiratory Medicine and Rose Medical Center.
Brownstein also has been a major supporter of CU's Anschutz Medical Campus, the CU Law School and other academic and athletic programs at CU. He will receive the University Medal in recognition of his significant contributions to the civic, cultural, political and business lives of Colorado citizens.
Prejean is an internationally-known death penalty opponent and author of the 1993 book "Dead Man Walking." In 1995, the book was made into an academy award-winning movie starring Sean Penn and Susan Sarandon. In October 2007, CU-Boulder's opera program staged the first college production of "Dead Man Walking," an opera based on the acclaimed book, for which Prejean visited campus and participated in a panel discussion. She will receive an honorary doctoral degree.
Davis's career includes more than 50 years of service in higher education, of which 31 years were spent as president or chancellor of several state universities or state systems of higher education. He earned his bachelor's and doctoral degrees from CU-Boulder, where he was student body president and played on the football team.
He is perhaps best known locally for his 1965 book "Glory Colorado! Volume 1: A History of the University of Colorado, 1858-1963." His second book on CU, "Glory Colorado! Volume II: A History of the University of Colorado, 1963-2000," was released in 2007. Davis will receive an honorary doctoral degree.
A long-time faculty member in CU-Boulder's civil, environmental and architectural engineering department who retired in 2007, DiLaura is nationally known for his career's work to improve the energy efficiency of lighting systems. He worked on such wide-ranging projects as airport lighting design, operating room surgery light and automotive headlight design.
DiLaura was instrumental in developing the civil, environmental and architectural engineering department's much praised specialty program in illumination. He is currently editor-in-chief of Leukos, the quarterly journal of the Illuminating Engineering Society of North America. He will receive an honorary doctoral degree.
Hatfield has influenced public policy in the telecommunications industry for four decades, both in the public and private sectors. His government service includes senior policymaking roles at the Office of Telecommunications Policy in the Executive Office of the President, the Federal Communications Commission and the U.S. Department of Commerce's National Telecommunications and Information Administration.
Hatfield currently is an independent consultant and an adjunct professor in the Interdisciplinary Telecommunications Program at CU-Boulder, where he has helped raise the program's national prominence. He will receive an honorary doctoral degree.
Long-Sheng is widely regarded as a world leader in laser spectroscopy and frequency measurement technology. He has been a frequent visitor to JILA, a joint institute of CU-Boulder and the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and has worked with Jun Ye, a fellow at JILA and NIST and CU professor.
Together they invented the most sensitive spectroscopy method yet devised for studying absorption of gases. Their technique has had a strong impact on the fields of trace detection and atmospheric monitoring, and fundamental studies on molecular dynamics and optical frequency metrology. Long-Sheng will receive an honorary doctoral degree.
Wilson is best known for his design of custom tools for the aerospace and manufacturing industries. He has developed eight different specialty tools for extravehicular activity on the space shuttle and the International Space Station, and is designing others for future missions to the moon and Mars.
He is CEO and president of Wilson Aerospace LLC and the American Power Tool Co. He holds eight patents and more are pending. Wilson will receive an honorary doctoral degree.
During the May 9 ceremony, 5,488 degrees will be conferred, including 4,293 bachelor's degrees, 792 master's degrees, 242 doctoral degrees and 161 law degrees.
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