The Marshall University Joan C. Edwards School of Medicine will present 61 Doctor of Medicine degrees at the school’s annual investiture ceremony May 6 at the Keith-Albee Performing Arts Center

The ceremonies are a long-time academic tradition to honor scholarly achievement. Marshall president Jerome A. Gilbert, Ph.D., will bestow the students’ degrees at the School of Medicine ceremony.

The guest speaker for the investiture is Myron E. “Max” Essex, D.V.M., Ph. D., chair of the Harvard AIDS Initiative, the Mary Woodard Lasker Professor of Health Sciences at Harvard University and chair of the Botswana Harvard AIDS Institute Partnership.

Essex has published more than 600 scholarly papers, edited 12 books and trained 35 doctoral research students and 80 postdoctoral fellows. Essex has received nine honorary degrees, countless awards and is one of the world’s leading AIDS researchers. Essex will be awarded an honorary Doctor of Science degree at the Marshall ceremony.

The class of 2016 graduates will include five students who have maintained perfect 4.0 GPAs during their four years of medical school. According to the press release, this graduating class features student who have matched into highly competitive residency specialties, like orthopedics, emergency medicine, radiology, ophthalmology and urology, as well as students paired into prestigious primary care programs across the country.

Admission for the ceremony is by invitation only. The ceremony will also include recognition of graduates from Marshall’s Biomedical Sciences program and the announcement of the School of Medicine Alumni Association’s Honorary Alumnus for 2016. The event will be streamed live online.

Other graduation week activities include:

Monday, May 2, 5:30 p.m. – Senior Awards Banquet, Byrd Clinical Center Auditorium

Tuesday, May 3, 11 a.m. – 18th Annual School of Medicine Golf Classic, Silo Golf Course, Lavalette   

Logan Parkulo can be contacted at [email protected].