Writer Kim Stanley Robinson Will Deliver 2026 Commencement Address
Kim Stanley Robinson, an acclaimed American writer, will deliver the 2026 Commencement address at Middlebury College on May 24. The author of the international best-selling Mars trilogy often focuses on ecological, cultural, and political themes featuring scientists as heroes.
A prolific author of more than 20 books, Robinson has won both the Hugo and Nebula Awards—the premier literary prizes for excellence in science fiction and fantasy. The New Yorker has called him “one of the greatest living science-fiction writers and one of the most important political writers working in America today.” His 2020 book The Ministry for the Future centers on a fictional UN body established to protect future generations from the negative impacts of climate change.
Because Robinson’s writing is considered as realistic as it is fantastical, he has been asked to speak at science and climate conferences including the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Glasgow, the UN’s Summit of the Future in 2024, and the 2025 UN Climate Change Conference (COP-30) in Belém, Brazil. In 1995 and 2016, he received National Science Foundation grants to travel to Antarctica, where he researched the continent’s environmental, scientific, and political landscape, resulting in his novel Antarctica.
Robinson earned a BA in literature from the University of California, San Diego in 1974 and an MA in English from Boston University in 1975. In 1982, he earned a PhD in English from University of California, San Diego. His work has been translated into 30 languages. In 2016, asteroid 72432 was named “Kimrobinson.” Robinson will receive a doctor of humane letters at Commencement.
Middlebury will also present honorary degrees to the following individuals at Commencement:
Shabana Basij-Rasikh ’11 is cofounder and president of the School of Leadership, Afghanistan (SOLA)—the first and only boarding school for Afghan girls, which operated in Kabul from 2016 to 2021, until the Taliban returned to power. In August 2021, she led the evacuation of her school community from Afghanistan to Rwanda, where SOLA reestablished its operations and continues to grow, receiving more than 5,300 applications in 2025. She expanded SOLA’s digital offerings with the launch of SOLAx, a WhatsApp-based online academy that now serves more than 33,000 learners.
In 2018, she was awarded the Malalai Medal, one of Afghanistan’s highest national honors, for her work promoting girls’ access to education. In 2023, she received the Rolex National Geographic Explorer of the Year Award from the National Geographic Society. Basij-Rasikh graduated magna cum laude from Middlebury. While a student she spent a summer in Afghanistan building wells as part of her Project for Peace proposal, “Giving Afghan People Access to Clean Water.” She holds a master’s degree in public policy from the University of Oxford and will receive an honorary Doctor of Humanities at Commencement.
Andrea Green, director of the Pediatric New American program and professor at the Robert Larner, M.D., College of Medicine at the University of Vermont, has spent her career providing high-quality medical care and advocating for policies and resources that support the health of children and their families. Her work emphasizes caring for children within the context of their family and culture, a commitment reflected in her leadership of the immigrant clinic at the University of Vermont Medical Center, where she addresses the needs of refugee and immigrant children and families.
In partnership with the Janet S. Munt Family Room, she and her team founded the Building Strong Families (BSF) Clinic, which offers preventive health care, education about child-rearing in a new country, and developmental monitoring for children ages one month to five years in immigrant families receiving care at the UVM Medical Center Children’s Primary Care Practice. Green holds a BA in neurobiology and behavioral sciences from Cornell University and an MD, CM from McGill University’s Faculty of Medicine. She will receive an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters at Commencement.
Angelo Lynn, owner, editor, and publisher of the Addison County Independent, has been a leader in the newspaper industry for more than 40 years. Under his leadership, the Independent has won eight General Excellence awards from the New England Newspaper & Press Association, including in 2024 and 2026. Lynn was inducted into the association’s Hall of Fame in 2019 and has received the Yankee Quill Award—New England’s highest journalism honor. He has also earned numerous awards for his editorial writing and political columns.
Lynn began his career by turning a small weekly newspaper in Kansas into a profitable, award-winning publication, later selling it and using the proceeds as a down payment to purchase the Independent in 1984. Addison Press, the parent company, has received several honors, including the Vermont Family Business of the Year Award from the UVM Grossman School of Business, Business of the Year from the Addison County Chamber of Commerce, and the Outstanding Business Award from United Way of Addison County. He also received the Bonnie and John McCardell Citizen’s Award in 2022. Lynn graduated from the William Allen White School of Journalism at the University of Kansas in 1976. He will receive an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters at Commencement.