Celebrating Stanford: Baccalaureate
The Office for Religious & Spiritual Life celebrates life’s big moments at Stanford by hosting our University's annual Baccalaureate celebration.
Baccalaureate (pronounced “bak-uh-lawr-ee-it”) at Stanford is a celebratory gathering for graduating seniors, graduate students, and professional students, as well as their families and friends. This gathering is part of Commencement weekend and is a bookend to the Opening Convocation held four years earlier.
Lerone A. Martin
Dr. Lerone A. Martin is the Martin Luther King, Jr. Centennial Professor in Religious Studies and African and African American Studies at Stanford University, where he also serves as Director of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute. As only the second faculty director in the Institute’s history, Dr. Martin is the Senior Editor of the Martin Luther King Jr. papers project, leading the ongoing work of editing and digitizing King’s sermons, speeches, correspondence, and unpublished papers, making them accessible to scholars and the public worldwide through a searchable online database. Dr. Martin is an award-winning author whose scholarship explores the intersections of American religion and politics. His latest book, Young King: The Making of Martin Luther King, Jr. (HarperCollins, May 2026), chronicles the overlooked adolescence and calling of Martin Luther King, Jr., revealing how struggle, mentorship, and self-discovery shaped the man before the movement. Dr. Martin’s commentary and writing have been featured on NBC’s Today Show, CNN, The History Channel, PBS, NPR, and C-SPAN, as well as in The New York Times, Boston Globe, and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He served as an advisor on the PBS documentary series Gospel.
Lamya Sikandar Butt
Lamya Butt is a senior from Dubai and Toronto, majoring with Honors in Economics and minoring in South Asian Studies. Her honors thesis explores the financial case for climate-resilient schools in Pakistan, bridging her interests in education equity, development economics, and finance. On campus, she has served for four years on the Stanford Women in Business executive board and co-organized its largest leadership conference for low-income high school students. She also serves as Vice President of Pakistanis at Stanford, Resident Assistant at 675 Lomita, TA for courses at the GSB and d.school, and Financial Officer for Alpha Phi. Outside the classroom, she enjoys running the campus loop, exploring Palo Alto's restaurant scene, and FaceTiming her family. After graduation, Lamya will move to New York City to join Evercore as an Investment Banking Analyst.
Anushka Vijay
Anushka Vijay, from India and the Philippines, is graduating with a bachelor's degree in Earth Systems, concentrating in Human Environmental Systems, and a minor in Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. She is passionate about environmental justice, community health, and people-centered conservation, and has worked across global research, NGO, and public sector spaces on environmental policy and sustainable development initiatives. At Stanford, Anushka served as a counselor and fundraising coordinator for Camp Kaleidoscope, supporting children impacted by a parent's cancer. Anushka worked with the Stanford Office of Sustainability to launch Stanford's new university-wide Climate Action Plan. She also led philanthropy and diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives within Tri Delta, taught environmental science to local children through Sprout Up, and was an active member of the cooperative house Columbae. Outside of academics and advocacy, Anushka enjoys spending time outdoors hiking, scuba diving, and practicing yoga, as well as creating art, reading, and baking desserts. She hopes to build a career at the intersection of environmental conservation, public health, and equity, working to advance solutions that protect both people and the planet.
Jeannette Wang
Jeannette Wang is graduating with a B.A. in Political Science. Her work focuses on strengthening the functioning of democracy in congruence with emerging technologies. At Stanford, her most memorable experiences have come from serving as Chair of Democracy Day 2024, Stanford's annual election day of civic celebration; working as a journalist while studying abroad in Cape Town; serving as Campaign Coordinator on a U.S. Congressional Campaign; Stanford in Washington; and finding on-campus family through the Stanford Democracy Hub and Haas Center for Public Service (where she spends most of her free time.) Upon graduation, she will pursue an MSc in International Political Economy at the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Nolawit Elias
Nolawit Elias is graduating from Stanford University with a B.S. in Bioengineering. Throughout her undergraduate experience, she conducted research with the National Institutes of Health, NASA, and Pfizer, earning distinction as both a Space Life Sciences Training Program scholar—one of only twelve students selected nationwide—and a Pfizer Breakthrough Fellow, awarded to just twenty students across the country.
A Thrive Scholars scholar, Nolawit, is a recipient of fellowship opportunities from L.E.K. Consulting, EY-Parthenon, and D. E. Shaw Group. She will begin her post-graduate career in private equity in San Francisco.
At Stanford, Nolawit served as a Residential Assistant in EAST House and Suites. She is also a member of the Omicron Chi chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Incorporated.
As a first-generation college student and daughter of Ethiopian immigrants, Nolawit is deeply committed to uplifting historically marginalized communities. Driven by equal parts ambition and service, Nolawit strives to bridge the gap between high-level capital and community-level impact.
Avanti Ramraj
Avanti Ramraj is a Stanford undergraduate studying Human Biology with a concentration in Medically Informed Public Policy. Inspired in part by a family legacy in medicine, she arrived at Stanford on a pre-med path, but her time on the Farm expanded her understanding of healing beyond the clinic. After training as an EMT, publishing research with Stanford Medicine, and working across health policy, legal advocacy, and public service, she has come to see healing not only as a matter of medicine but as a question of whom our systems are built to reach, protect, and serve. Avanti serves on California’s Youth Empowerment Commission and has studied AI Ethics and Health Policy at Oxford. After Stanford, she plans to attend law school and build a career in health law and technology regulation, working to ensure that innovation serves the public good.
Eric Markarian
Eric Markarian is a senior at Stanford University studying Bioengineering and Health Systems Design, with a minor in Global Studies focused on Iranian Studies, from Glendale, CA. On campus, he serves as President of the Armenian Students Association and volunteers with Cardinal Free Clinics. Eric has been recognized as a Terman Engineering Scholar and is a member of Phi Beta Kappa and Tau Beta Pi, the national academic and engineering honor societies. His academic and professional interests span medicine, design, and technology, with a focus on building more human-centered healthcare tools. In his free time, he loves to cook (without a recipe) and play intramural basketball. After graduating from Stanford, Eric will pursue his M.D. at Harvard Medical School, where he hopes to continue exploring the intersections of medicine and innovation.
Nevaeh Nichols
Nevaeh is a graduating senior at Stanford University, completing her Bachelor of Arts in International Relations with specializations in International Security and Comparative International Governance. Her academic work is matched by an equally expansive record of civic engagement: she completed four Cardinal Quarters through the Haas Center for Public Service, serving with the Tucker Community Foundation in her hometown and in a U.S. Senator’s office, experiences that deepened her understanding of policy, community, and the work of government from the ground up. She also studied abroad through Stanford in Washington and Stanford in Florence, building both a professional and a global perspective across her undergraduate years.
On campus, Nevaeh led as President of the Inter-Sorority Council, where she represented nearly a thousand women to the Stanford administration, and served as HR Director of Kappa Alpha Theta. After graduation, she will move to Los Angeles to work as a paralegal focused on mass torts and class action litigation, including wildfire cases — work that sits at the intersection of corporate accountability and community harm. With a long-term commitment to service and justice, Nevaeh plans to attend law school to continue advocating for those most impacted by systemic and environmental failures.
Rubina Shrestha
Rubina Shrestha is graduating with a B.S. in Symbolic Systems with a concentration in Human-Centered AI, and a minor in Data Science. She is from Salinas, CA. She is interested in learning about how humans drive the progression of technology and how the progression of technology impacts human behavior, and in turn, society as a whole.