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The Johns ��ѻ��ý recognized the Class of 2025 during its convocation ceremony on Wednesday, May 21, at Homewood Field on Johns Hopkins University’s Homewood campus.

As of May 21, the Class of 2025 had 1,194 graduates from 61 countries, including the U.S. There were 136 doctoral degrees and 1,058 master’s degrees conferred. 

Ellen J. MacKenzie, PhD, ScM, dean of the Bloomberg School, spoke about how the class of 2025 is graduating at a time when public health is under threat, but that their education had prepared them to take on challenges.

“Realize the power in all that you learned here—and remember that your education will be a constant throughout your life, no matter what challenge is before you,” Dean MacKenzie said. “For those of you who aspired to a job at NIH or USAID, for those who work in hard-hit fields such as transgender health or environmental justice, I know how difficult this moment might feel. But you can still blaze new trails. You can find spaces to do the work that is closest to your heart—work that the world needs now more than ever before.” 

This was Dean MacKenzie’s eighth and last time presiding over convocation. She announced last fall that she would step down as dean at the end of June, and stay on as a Bloomberg School faculty member. 

An internationally recognized public health practitioner specializing in trauma care, MacKenzie has spent more than 50 years at the Bloomberg School, including as a biostatistics graduate student and a faculty member after earning her PhD in 1979. 

“I want you to remember this: You will not be defined by this moment, but by how you rise to meet it,” Dean MacKenzie said. “If you can find a way to change your path if needed, you can find a way to change the world.” 

Following Dean MacKenzie was nutrition expert and author Marion Nestle, PhD, MPH, who in her keynote speech encouraged graduates to fight for the public good. 

“The job of public health is to confront entrenched political power on behalf of those who can’t,” said Nestle, the Paulette Goddard Professor of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health Emerita at New York University. 

“For populations to be healthy, everyone, everywhere needs adequate food, clean water, clean air, and decent housing, education, and health care. I’m guessing—just a wild guess—that you chose this field because you want everyone, everywhere to have these things. I’m guessing that you chose public health because you think it will give you a life of meaningful work, and I can’t think of anything more important. You want a life in which what you do every single day contributes to better lives for everyone, everywhere,” Nestle said. “To do public health work, you’re going to need courage, and lots of it.”

During the ceremony, Dean MacKenzie honored Nestle with the Dean’s Medal, the highest recognition the Bloomberg School confers on public health leaders. 

Nestle, one of the most prominent voices in public health and food policy, is the author, co-author, or co-editor of 15 books, three of which received the James Beard Foundation Award: Food Politics (2003), What to Eat (2007), and Soda Politics (2016). She served as editor of the 1988 Surgeon General's Report on Nutrition and Health, the first federal report on food policy.

Nestle earned a PhD in molecular biology from the University of California, Berkeley in 1968. At age 50, she earned a Master of Public Health from Berkeley and became a senior nutrition policy adviser in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. After serving as editor of the 1988 Surgeon General’s report, which emphasized the importance of reducing fat from the American diet, her research and writing focused on both the socioeconomic and scientific influences on food choice, obesity, and food safety, with an eye on the food industry’s role.

“If you want health for all, you will be confronting power,” Nestle told the graduates. “Speak out. Act. Find a way to advocate that works for you. Remember that public health is not just about health. It’s about democracy and democracy in action. We have never needed it more. Go out and make trouble. If you don’t do it, who will?”

Following a longstanding tradition, faculty and students recited the International Declaration of Health Rights. Bloomberg School students, faculty, and alumni drafted the declaration in 1991 as a commitment “to advocacy and action to promote the health rights of all human beings.”

The Bloomberg School Class of 2025 will join a network of more than 28,000 Bloomberg School alumni in at least 115 countries. The Bloomberg School has been rated #1 by its peer schools and programs since U.S. News & World Report began ranking them in 1994.

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Media contacts: Kris Henry khenry39@jhu.edu and Barbara Benham