Leaders in the fields of human-rights law, bioengineering, athletics, broadcasting, business and philanthropy will receive honorary degrees at the University of Michigan’s 2026 Spring Commencement in Ann Arbor. The ceremony will be May 2 at Michigan Stadium.

Jalen Rose, founder of the Jalen Rose Leadership Academy, sports analyst, and former U-M and NBA player, will be the main speaker at the commencement ceremony. He will receive a Doctor of Humane Letters.

Others approved for honorary degrees are:

• Shirin Ebadi, Iranian Nobel-winning human-rights lawyer, Doctor of Laws
• Ingeborg Hochmair, electrical engineer and cochlear implant pioneer, Doctor of Engineering
• Michael Phelps, world-champion swimmer and Olympic record-holder, Doctor of Laws
• Ron Weiser, businessman, philanthropist and U-M regent emeritus, Doctor of Laws

Hochmair will deliver the address at the Rackham Graduate Exercises on May 1 at the Crisler Center.

The Board of Regents approved the degree recipients at its March 19 meeting.

The following biographical descriptions were drawn from information provided by University and Development Events.

Jalen Rose

Born and raised in Detroit, Rose first captured the national spotlight in the early 1990s as a key member of U-M’s iconic Fab Five.

In 1994, he was selected in the first round of the NBA draft, where he played 13 seasons. He was named the NBA’s Most Improved Player in 2000 and helped the Indiana Pacers reach the NBA Finals that same year.

Since retiring from basketball, Rose has assumed many roles, creating a blueprint for how athletes can catapult professional sports careers into successful corporate and philanthropic work.

One of his biggest contributions off the court was founding the Jalen Rose Leadership Academy in 2011. The open-enrollment, tuition-free public charter high school located in the Detroit neighborhood where he grew up now serves more than 400 students annually and over 1,000 alumni, with a 95% graduation rate and 100% college and postsecondary acceptance.

Today, Rose is also a driving force for the cultural resurgence of Detroit as co-founder and CEO of the recently launched Same Page Entertainment. The Detroit-based multimedia production company develops, produces, finances, and distributes scripted and unscripted film, television and podcasts. Founded alongside Tom Gores, chairman and founder of Platinum Equity and owner of the Detroit Pistons, Same Page Entertainment is rooted in building stories that celebrate culture and spark conversations that bring communities closer together.

In other entertainment work, Rose produced the critically acclaimed documentary “The Fab Five” for ESPN’s “30 for 30” franchise.

Before it was common for active athletes to work in media, Rose was the first active NBA player to serve as a basketball analyst, appearing on “The Best Damn Sports Show Period” for FOX Sports and covering the NBA Playoffs for TNT. Rose later helped launch ESPN’s “Get Up” as an original host, while contributing as an analyst across “SportsCenter” and “NBA Countdown.”

Currently a college basketball analyst for TNT Sports and making guest appearances on “Inside the NBA,” he spent 18 years as a lead analyst for ABC/ESPN, most notably as co-host of the award-winning “Jalen & Jacoby” podcast.

In 2015, Rose released his New York Times bestseller, “Got to Give the People What They Want: True Stories and Flagrant Opinions from Center Court.”

Rose is also a member of the National Basketball Players Association Foundation, and has been honored with a number of awards, including the NBA’s Bob Lanier Community Impact Award, the National Civil Rights Museum’s Sports Legacy Award, the Inaugural Charter School Trailblazer Award from the National Alliance of Charter Schools, the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame’s Mannie Jackson Basketball Human Spirit Award, and the University of Michigan’s President’s Medal of Excellence.

He was inducted into the Detroit High School Hall of Fame and the Michigan Basketball Hall of Fame, was named Team ESPN Commentator of the Year, and was awarded the 2025 Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame Ice Cube Impact Award.

Shirin Ebadi

Ebadi is the first Muslim woman and first Iranian to become a Nobel Peace Prize laureate. She is known for her defense of women, children and political prisoners in Iran, and her career is a testament to the role of law in protecting human dignity.

Ebadi grew up in Tehran, where she earned a law degree in 1968. She was appointed a judge in 1969 and was named chief justice of a district court six years later, the first woman and youngest lawyer to hold this position.

After the Iranian Revolution of 1979, Ebadi was dismissed as a judge because the newly formed government forbade women from holding decision-making roles in government. Demoted to a clerk in the very court she once presided over, she applied for early retirement.

After having her application to practice law rejected for years, Ebadi finally successfully obtained her license in 1992 and established a private law practice devoted to defending human rights. In defiance of Iranian authoritarianism, she took on highly visible, politically sensitive cases, including pursuing justice for an Iranian-Canadian journalist killed in prison and a student killed during the 1999 Tehran University protests.

Authorities arrested her in 1999 for “spreading falsehoods against the Islamic Republic.” She served 18 months in prison and had her law license suspended for five years.

In 2003, the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded her its Peace Prize for her advocacy for human rights. With funds from the Nobel Prize, she established the Defenders of Human Rights Center in Iran. However, in 2008, the center was raided and closed by security forces.

Given the ongoing repression and the imprisonment of other activists, Ebadi decided in 2009, while on a trip to Spain, not to return to Iran. Authorities seized her personal property, including her Nobel award. Today, Ebadi lives in London, and she is the author of four books, including “Iran Awakening” and “Until We Are Free.”

Ingeborg Hochmair

Hochmair is an electrical engineer and medical-device manufacturing executive who co-created the first micro-electronic multi-channel cochlear implant, which enabled the deaf to hear. In developing this tool, Hochmair expanded options for countless individuals with hearing loss.

Hochmair, a native of Austria, knew at age 13 that she wanted to be a biomedical engineer. In 1975, she was attending the Technical University of Vienna and poised to become the first woman in Austria to earn a Ph.D. in electrical engineering when she was invited by her friend (and future husband), Erwin Hochmair, and a surgeon colleague, Kurt Burian, to participate in a project focused on developing a cochlear implant that would become the foundation for her dissertation.

Two years later, the first multi-channel device they developed was successfully implanted. Her dissertation began what she describes as an “urgent,” lifelong quest to expand access to sound and communication for those with severe hearing loss. In 1979, after completing her Ph.D., a Fulbright Fellowship took her to Stanford University’s Institute for Electronics in Medicine.

She returned to the University of Innsbruck’s Institute of Applied Physics Electronics in 1986, where she resumed and expanded her research on multichannel cochlear implants, helping advance the technology from experimental development toward clinical application.

In 1989, Hochmair and her husband left the university to found MED-EL, a global medical technology company aiming to continue improving hearing devices. MED-EL now operates in 175 countries and offers solutions for every type of hearing loss.

Because of Hochmair’s efforts, deaf children, even those under a year old, have increased access to cochlear implant technology, expanding their options for communication and learning across a range of educational settings.

Hochmair holds 40 patents and has received numerous honors, including the Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award (2013) and the Russ Prize for Bioengineering (2015), both of which recognize the impact she has made on society to improve the human condition.

Michael Phelps

Phelps is the most decorated athlete in Olympic history — earning 23 gold medals and 28 medals total, the most ever awarded to one individual. Today, Phelps works to advance water safety and healthy living for children and families worldwide.

Phelps, a Baltimore native, trained and studied sports marketing and management at U-M from 2004-08. He arrived on campus as the world’s youngest world-record holder in the 200-meter butterfly, a record set at the U.S. Spring Nationals when he was 15. While Phelps did not swim for U-M, having already turned professional, he did serve as a volunteer assistant swim coach. He also acted as an honorary football captain in U-M’s game against Penn State in 2022.

Phelps participated in five consecutive Summer Olympics from 2000 to 2016: Sydney, Athens, Beijing, London, and Rio de Janeiro. He set records for the most gold medals in individual events and achieved a singular historical triumph with eight gold medals in Beijing 2008.

In 2008, Phelps also founded the Michael Phelps Foundation to promote swimming as a way to educate children on water safety, as well as champion mental and physical health. An early advocate for athletes battling mental health challenges, Phelps became one of the earliest and strongest voices to join this conversation.

After becoming a Special Olympics global ambassador in 2011, Phelps helped launch the IM Program, a global collaboration between the Michael Phelps Foundation and Special Olympics. To promote inclusion, personal growth, and a lifelong love of swimming, the IM Program became the official swimming program for the Special Olympics and has reached thousands of people across 38 countries.

Ron Weiser

Weiser, a graduate of the Stephen M. Ross School of Business, is a real estate entrepreneur, a regent emeritus of U-M, a former ambassador to Slovakia, and a strategic philanthropist. What unites these roles is Weiser’s commitment to public service: to community at the local, state, federal and international levels, as well as to his alma mater.

Weiser earned his Bachelor of Business Administration at U-M in 1966 and pursued graduate work in business and law before founding McKinley Associates two years later. Since then, the Ann Arbor-based firm has become a national real estate investment company.

He served as chairman and CEO until 2001, when President George W. Bush appointed him ambassador to the Slovak Republic. At the time, the Central European country was in the process of transitioning to a democracy. As ambassador, Weiser was responsible for the well-being of all Americans in the country, including the intelligence services, the FBI, and the military. He visited 138 cities to advocate for democracy and guide the nation’s admittance to NATO and the European Union.

After his ambassadorship, the Ross School honored him with the David D. Alger Outstanding Alumni Award. He was also named Citizen of the Year by Chelsea, Michigan, and Distinguished Citizen of the Year by the Great Sauk Trail Council of the Boy Scouts of America.

In 2016, he was elected a U-M regent and served for eight years. A lifelong philanthropist, he has also donated over $300 million to U-M, supporting specialized medical centers, academic centers and athletic programs — including wrestling, track, and basketball — the engineering program at UM-Dearborn, and scholarship programs at UM-Flint.

He has volunteered and/or has led numerous nonprofit organizations, including United Negro College Fund of Washtenaw County, the Purple Rose Theater, Gerald R. Ford Presidential Foundation, and the Michigan Theater Foundation. Currently he is co-chair of the campaign to renovate and expand the Ronald McDonald House at Michigan Medicine’s Mott Children’s Hospital.

At U-M, he founded the Weiser Centers for Europe and Eurasia, Emerging Democracies, Diplomacy, and Real Estate. At the Medical Center, he founded the Centers for Food Allergy, Prostate Cancer, Breast Cancer, and the Diabetes Institute. He was also instrumental in the founding of the Chad Carr Pediatric BrainCancer Center and the Ginsberg Center for Service & Learning.