Moderna co-founder Dr. Robert Langer, Marlin Miller awardees to speak at Commencement

ALFRED, NY—Alfred University will hold its 186th Commencement on Saturday, May 14, beginning at 10 a.m. in the Galanis Family Area, McLane Center. World-renowned biomedical engineering researcher Dr. Robert S. Langer, co-founder of more than 40 biotechnology companies including COVID-19 vaccine maker Moderna, will deliver the keynote address. The 2022 Marlin Miller Outstanding Senior Award winners, Merveille Bulonza and Makenzie Cashmer, will also give remarks.

Langer is a professor in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Departments of Chemical Engineering and Biological Engineering. As a faculty member in the David H. Koch Institute of Integrative Cancer Research, he is one of 13 Institute Professors at MIT; being an Institute Professor is the highest honor that can be awarded to an MIT faculty member.

Renowned for his contributions to medicine and biotechnology, Langer is viewed as the founder of the field of tissue engineering in regenerative medicine, and is the pioneer of hundreds of technologies, including controlled release and transdermal drug delivery systems, which allow the non-invasive administration of drugs through the skin.

He holds more than 1,400 granted or pending patents, which have been licensed or sublicensed to more than 400 companies. The author of more than 1,500 articles, he is one of the world’s most highly cited scholars, with more than 363,000 citations, and is the most cited engineer in history and fourth most cited individual in any field. Langer is also a prolific entrepreneur, having participated in the founding of more than 40 biotechnology companies including Cambridge, MA-based Moderna, which pioneered messenger RNA (mRNA) therapeutics and vaccines. He also founded Microchips Biotech, a venture-backed biotech company for which Alfred University alumna and trustee Dr. Cheryl Blanchard ’86 once served as president and CEO.

Langer is the recipient of more than 220 awards and is one of just three living individuals who have received both the United States National Medal of Science (2006) and the United States National Medal of Technology and Innovation (2011). He is also a recipient of the Charles Stark Draper Prize (considered the equivalent of the Nobel Prize for engineers), the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering, Albany Medical Center Prize, Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences, Kyoto Prize, Wolf Prize for Chemistry, Millennium Technology Prize, Priestley Medal (the highest award of the American Chemical Society), Gairdner Prize, Hoover Medal, Dreyfus Prize in Chemical Sciences, and the BBVA Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Biomedicine.

Langer earned his bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from Cornell University and his doctoral degree, also in chemical engineering, from MIT. He is recipient of 36 honorary degrees and has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, National Academy of Medicine, and the National Academy of Inventors. His sister, Katherine, earned a master’s degree in school psychology from Alfred University in 1974.

Marlin Miller Outstanding Senior Award recipients Merveille Bulonza and Makenzie Cashmer will offer remarks to their fellow graduates.

Bulonza, from Cheektowaga, NY, is a biology/pre-med major with a minor in chemistry. She has a cumulative grade-point average of 3.79 and has been named to the Dean’s List six times. A former president of the Alfred University Student Senate, Bulonza has been enrolled in the Alfred University Honors Program since Spring 2019. She aspires to attend medical school after graduation.

Cashmer, from Weedville, PA, majors in mechanical engineering with minors in mathematics and computer science. She has a cumulative grade-point average of 3.86 and has been named to the Dean’s List seven times. Cashmer is attending Alfred University on a four-year U.S. Army Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC) scholarship and upon graduation will commission as a Second Lieutenant in the U.S. Army.

Winners of the Marlin Miller Outstanding Senior Award are chosen based on scholarship, extracurricular achievement, personal character and conduct, and nominations by faculty, students, staff, and alumni. The award was established to honor Alfred University alumnus Marlin Miller ’54, H ’89, H ’19 one of Alfred University’s most generous supporters. Miller has been a member of Alfred University’s Board of Trustees since 1972 and is a former Board chair.

Alfred University will award 303 baccalaureate degrees, 65 master’s degrees and five doctoral degree to graduates who completed their degree requirements in May 2022. The University has already conferred 121 baccalaureate degrees, 28 master’s degrees, and four doctoral degrees to August 2021, December 2021, and 2022 Allen Term (January) graduates.