Abraham Verghese, physician and bestselling author, named Commencement speaker

Abraham Verghese, bestselling author, Stanford professor, and infectious disease doctor, will be the principal speaker at Harvard’s 374th Commencement on May 29.

“Throughout his remarkable career, Dr. Abraham Verghese has followed his wide-ranging interests to carve a unique path distinguished by breathtaking creativity, outstanding achievement, and exemplary service and leadership,” said President Alan M. Garber. “He has pursued excellence across disciplines with an intensity surpassed only by his humanity, which shines brilliantly through his works of both fiction and nonfiction, as well as his work as a clinician and teacher. I count myself among his legion of admirers, and I cannot imagine a better individual to inspire the members of our Class of 2025 as they contemplate their futures.”

Verghese is the Linda R. Meier and Joan F. Lane Provostial Professor of Medicine in the Department of Medicine at Stanford University. Devoted to humanizing the physician-patient relationship, he is the founder of Presence, an interdisciplinary center at Stanford focused on championing the human experience in medicine. He’s also the founder of the Stanford Medicine 25, an initiative designed to foster bedside exam skills for learners and for medical professionals. Learning to “read the body,” as Verghese describes it, not only allows physicians to recognize phenotypic information that is before them but also serves as an important ritual that enhances the doctor-patient relationship. Verghese has devoted his academic career to teaching the next generation of physicians the critical importance of empathy, human connection, and compassion in healthcare.

In addition to his work as professor and physician, Verghese is an acclaimed writer. His first book, “My Own Country,” a memoir about his experience caring for patients in a rural community at the dawn of the AIDS epidemic, was a 1994 National Book Critics Circle Award finalist and a Time magazine best book of the year. His second memoir, “The Tennis Partner,” was a New York Times notable book. In 2009, he published “Cutting for Stone,” a novel that spent two years on the New York Times bestseller list and was picked as one of Amazon’s “100 Books to Read in a Lifetime.” In 2023, he published “The Covenant of Water,” a New York Times bestseller and Oprah’s Book Club selection that Netflix is adapting for an upcoming series. In addition to his memoirs and novels, Verghese’s work has been published in The Atlantic, The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and elsewhere.

Verghese was born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to Indian parents, both of whom were teachers. He completed his medical education in India at Madras Medical College. He moved to the United States to complete his medical residency at East Tennessee State University. Following a fellowship in infectious diseases at the Boston University School of Medicine, he returned to East Tennessee State as assistant professor of medicine and special fellow in pulmonary diseases.

In the early 1990s, he took time off from medicine to earn an M.F.A. at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. After Iowa, he returned to academia as professor of medicine and chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, El Paso, and published his first book. He went on to become the founding director of the Center for Medical Humanities and Ethics at the University of Texas Health Science Center, San Antonio, before moving to Stanford in 2007.

Verghese received the Heinz Award for outstanding contribution to arts and humanities in 2014. In 2016, he was awarded the National Humanities Medal by President Barack Obama for his focus on patient-centered healthcare and for contributing to the nation’s understanding of the humanities. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Verghese will receive an honorary degree during the Commencement ceremony in Tercentenary Theatre.