Family, friends, loved ones, faculty and — most importantly — today’s honorees, the graduating class of 2025: Congratulations! You’ve made it!
This moment marks the culmination of years of late nights, early mornings, countless exams — and for some, I suspect, untold amounts of caffeine. But however you arrived at today, I hope you feel immense pride in all that you’ve accomplished and excitement for the incredible journey ahead.
On behalf of our graduates, I want to thank the mentors, colleagues and loved ones who have supported them along their journeys. Your guidance, encouragement and belief in their potential has helped bring them to this day. This celebration belongs to you, also.
Today, we mark a transition — from student to graduate, from imagining the future to making it possible.
It’s only natural, on a day like this, to think ahead — to your next steps and perhaps even further along. Many of you have been planning and preparing for years and, understandably, you’re eager to move forward.
But I want to offer a gentle caution: Be careful not to get swept away in the rush to reach the next milestone. Not every moment needs to be a part of a master plan. And not every success will come from moving quickly. Because the world you are stepping into will always ask you to do more, and faster.
There’s a moment in Lewis Carroll’s famous novel Through the Looking Glass, when the Red Queen says: “It takes all the running you can do, to stay in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!”
It’s a vivid metaphor for how many of us approach modern life — and modern medicine and modern biomedical research. Always striving. Always accelerating. Rarely pausing.
In fact, it can feel unnatural to stop, or to pause. Especially in a world that seems to be moving faster every day.
New technologies are shaping entire fields of study and industries. The fields of artificial intelligence and data science are reshaping the ways we think about research, patient care and education; opening new possibilities and raising new concerns. In biomedicine, the pace of discovery is astonishing. Every year, there are new tools, new findings, new expectations. It can feel like the only way to keep up is to run harder, push further and do more.
And while at times that may be true, I want to suggest another approach.
Because if you spend your life simply trying to keep pace — checking the next box, chasing the next achievement — you may miss what gives your work — and your life — meaning.
I believe a better path isn’t about running faster but about paying closer attention. That by pausing, even just occasionally, we have much more to gain.
Today, I want to introduce an idea — to seek awe in your lives. Not awe as a vague sense of wonder, but as a real embodiment of experience. One that shifts how you see the world and your place in the world. One that reminds us of what truly matters.
For me, awe happens in moments — sometimes big, but oftentimes small — when we encounter something so striking, so vast or so intricate that it opens us up. It pulls us out of our thoughts and notions and into something larger and more connected.
I’m sure each of you can recall moments like that. A star-filled sky. A powerful piece of music. The birth of a child. The quiet dignity of a patient facing the unknown.
As you embark on your careers, you’ll find that moments of awe like this are abundant — if you choose to notice them.
Whether comforting a patient, peering into a microscope, poring over a dataset, solving a problem no one has cracked before, your careers will bring you face to face with mystery, beauty and humanity.
But only if you make space for it. And you should!
Research shows that experiences of awe have measurable, positive effects on the body and the brain. They can reduce stress and even our perception of time. In fact, studies from Stanford’s Graduate School of Business have shown that awe increases our sense of having enough time — while also making us more patient, more generous and more fulfilled.
Awe helps us step outside ourselves, and see our work, our worth, more clearly. It rejuvenates our soul and our spirit.
I vividly remember one moment of awe from my undergraduate days. It was during an engineering course. The professor presented studies that used relatively straightforward mathematical models to explain how we perceive balance and movement. I was captivated — not just by the science, but by the elegance of the experiments and the ways in which the data were interpreted and analyzed. These intricate systems, honed over millions of years, regulating our bodies without us even thinking about them. It was humbling. And it was beautiful then and now.
Awe expands our view. It brings us closer to the truth. And it doesn’t always require a lecture or a laboratory. Sometimes it’s a small act of kindness. A stranger helping someone across the street. Or it can come from a question that leads to a new insight. Even those moments can inspire awe.
Marie Curie once described science as an endeavor that goes beyond mere technical work, viewing it instead as an opportunity to encounter nature with the wonder and curiosity that a child shows a fairy tale.
That’s the kind of attention I hope you will bring to your lives and your careers.
So today, I want to leave you with this: Resist the urge to sprint through every chapter. Take time to pause. Let yourself be moved. Let yourself be changed.
Because awe is not a distraction; it’s a compass. It reminds us of why we chose this path and who we hope to become along the way.
Congratulations, Class of 2025. May you find inspiration in the work ahead, connection in the people around you, and awe in both the extraordinary and the everyday.
Thank you.
