2023: Angélique Kidjo, five-time Grammy Award winning singer and performer, as well as a goodwill ambassador for UNICEF and OXFAM.
2022: Terron L. Hillsman, director of the ecological sciences division for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Services.
2020 & 2021: Brandon M. Scott ’06, the 52nd mayor of Baltimore, Maryland.
2019: Erin Gloria Ryan, host of Crooked Media’s “Hysteria” podcast, a writer for “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia,” and a senior editor at The Daily Beast.
2018: Wanda Q. Draper, executive director of the Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History and Culture.
2017: W. Neil Irwin ’00, senior economic correspondent at The New York Times and author of “The Alchemists: Three Central Bankers and a World on Fire” (Penguin Press, 2013). As senior economic correspondent at The New York Times, Irwin writes for The Upshot, the Times’ website for analytical reporting on politics, economics, and everyday life.
2016: Kojo Nnamdi, host of “The Kojo Nnamdi Show,” a daily news program produced by American University’s WAMU 88.5. In addition, he is host of WAMU’s “The Politics Hour.”