Award-Winning Climate Journalist, Elizabeth Kolbert, to Receive Honorary Degree at Winter Commencement on Sunday

ALBANY, N.Y. (November 28, 2011) -- Award-winning climate journalist and author Elizabeth Kolbert, will receive the honorary degree, Doctor of Humane Letters, the University's highest academic degree at UAlbany's winter commencement ceremonies at 1 p.m. on Sunday, December 4 at the SEFCU Arena.

Award-winning author Elizabeth Kolbert will receive the honorary degree, Doctor of Humane Letters for UAlbany's winter commencement ceremony.

An estimated 1,040 students are expected to receive degrees, including 577 undergraduates and 463 graduate students. Of the graduate students, 370 are receiving master's and advanced certificates of study, and 93 are receiving doctoral degrees. The undergraduate commencement class hails from the U.S. and seven foreign countries, while graduate students come from the U.S. and 23 foreign countries. Fifty-four percent of the undergraduates are women; the class includes nine military veterans.

Psychology, sociology, business, English and biology are the top majors for undergraduate degree candidates. The graduating class will become part of the global network of more than 155,000 living UAlbany alumni.

Also as part of the ceremony, Christopher Onuorah, '11, a member of the graduating class, will provide the student address. Onuorah, of Elmont, Long Island, is receiving his degree in Information Studies. His accolades include the Spellman Academic Achievement Award, Chi Alpha Epsilon Honor Society, National Society of Collegiate Scholars and Presidential Honor Society.

About Elizabeth Kolbert

A staff writer for The New Yorker since 1999, Kolbert has written dozens of pieces for the magazine, including profiles of Senator Hillary Clinton, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani. Her series on global warming, "The Climate of Man," appeared in The New Yorker in the spring of 2005 and served as the basis for her highly-acclaimed book, Field Notes from a Catastrophe: Man, Nature and Climate Change.

The book, which illustrates how climate change is connected to larger social and environmental activities, was selected as UAlbany's 2006-2007 "Campus Reading Project," affording the campus community the opportunity to come together and address the urgent issue of global warming. Her body of work has received widespread praise and garnered several prestigious awards, including the Heinz Award in 2010, which recognizes individuals addressing global change caused by the impact of human activities and natural processes on the environment.

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