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Jessica Mathews, the president of theCarnegie Endowment for International Peace, will deliver the commencementaddress at Hamilton College on Sunday, May 24.

The ceremony, which marks the close of the college's 186th academic year, willbegin at 10:30 a.m. on the Main Quadrangle in front of the Burke Library. Inthe event of inclement weather, the ceremony will be held in the Margaret BundyScott Field House.

"Dr. Mathews' career represents the highest ideals of citizenship and servicethat we seek to foster among our students," said Hamilton President Eugene M.Tobin. "Her message will be timely as our students seek to apply the knowledgeand commitment they have acquired here in service to their professions, theircommunities and their world."

Mathews' career includes posts in the executive and legislative branches ofgovernment, in management and research in the non-profit field and injournalism.

A 1967 magna cum laude graduate of Radcliffe College, Mathews receivedher Ph.D. degree in molecular biology from the California Institute ofTechnology in 1973. She subsequently moved to Washington where she began acareer in public service as a congressional science fellow for the AmericanAssociation for the Advancement of Science. She continued in Congress as aprofessional staff member of the House Interior Committee, and in 1975-76served as national issues director for Congressmen Morris Udall's presidentialcampaign.

From 1977 to 1979, Mathews was director of the Office of Global Issues on thestaff of the National Security Council at the White House. Herresponsibilities included nuclear proliferation, conventional arms salespolicy, chemical and biological warfare and human rights. She spent the nextthree years as a member of the editorial board of The Washington Post,covering energy, the environment, science, technology, arms control, health andother issues.

For the next 11 years, beginning in 1982, Mathews was director of research andthen vice president for the World Resources Institute, an internationally knowncenter for policy research on domestic and international environmental andnatural resource management issues. She returned to government service for ayear in 1993 as deputy to the undersecretary of state for global affairs andthen served from 1993 to 1997 as a senior fellow at the Council on ForeignRelations, researching the role of non-state actors in international relationsand later serving as acting director of the Council's Washington program.

Mathews co-edited The Earth as Transformed by Human Action: Global andRegional Changes in the Biosphere Over the Past 300 Years and co-authoredand edited Preserving the Global Environment: The Challenge of SharedLeadership. In addition to The Washington Post, she has writtenfor The New York Times, Foreign Affairs, and other scientific andforeign policy journals.

A New York City native, Mathews is currently a trustee of the BrookingsInstitution, the Inter-American Dialogue and the Surface Transportation PolicyProject, a national coalition of groups working on domestic transportationissues, of which she is a co-founder. She previously served on the boards ofRadcliffe College, The Rockefeller Brothers Fund and the Joyce Foundation,among others, and is currently a member of the Environmental Advisory Committeeof Air Products Corporation, the Council on Foreign Relations and theTrilateral Commission.

In addition to speaking, Mathews will be presented for an honorary degree.Approximately 415 students will receive bachelor's degrees at the ceremony.

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