Washington University in St. Louis will confer seven honorary degrees during its 165th Commencement Friday, May 15.
Nearly 5,000 members of the Class of 2026 also will receive their degrees during the ceremony.
Emmy Award-winning host, producer and author Andy Cohen will deliver the Commencement address and receive an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters.
The other honorary degree recipients are:
Kwofe Coleman, president and CEO of the Municipal Theatre Association of St. Louis (The Muny), Doctor of Fine Arts;
Deborah E. Lipstadt, retired ambassador and the University Distinguished Professor at Emory University, Doctor of Humane Letters;
Michael McDonald, five-time Grammy Award winning musician and lead vocalist for the Doobie Brothers, Doctor of Fine Arts;
Marcus E. Raichle, Sr., MD, the Alan A. and Edith L. Wolff Distinguished Professor of Medicine at WashU Medicine, Doctor of Medicine;
Anabeth C. Weil, longtime philanthropist and former Forest Park executive for St. Louis, Doctor of Fine Arts;
John D. Weil, investor, philanthropist and emeritus trustee, Doctor of Fine arts.
Cohen is an Emmy Award-winning host, producer, and author best known as the host and executive producer of “Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen,” Bravo’s late-night, interactive talk show. The series is the only live show on late-night television and consistently makes headlines with bold interviews viewers don’t see anywhere else. Cohen also serves as one of the executive producers across Bravo’s “The Real Housewives” franchise. He also has two personally curated channels on SiriusXM, “Radio Andy” and “Andy Cohen’s Kiki Lounge,” as well as his own book imprint, Andy Cohen Books. He is a five-time time New York Times bestselling author and annually co-hosts CNN’s New Year’s Eve Live special, alongside Anderson Cooper.
In his 10 years as an executive at Bravo, he has been responsible for a dynamic slate of unscripted series and specials including hits such as “Top Chef,” “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy,” “Project Runway,” “Shahs of Sunset,” the “Million Dollar Listing” and “The Real Housewives” franchises, among others. Cohen received a Primetime Emmy for “Top Chef” in 2010 and has been nominated for 18 additional Emmy Awards. In 2019, Cohen was awarded the Vito Russo Award by GLAAD, and in June 2020, was recognized in THR and Variety’s Most Powerful LGBTQ Players in Hollywood lists. Additionally, Cohen received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2022. Born in St. Louis, Cohen resides in New York City with his son, Benjamin Cohen, and daughter, Lucy Cohen.
Coleman is president and CEO of The Muny. After beginning his Muny career in 1998 as an usher, he advanced through the administrative ranks, working as staff accountant, house manager, digital communications manager, director of marketing and communications and managing director. He was named president of the nation’s oldest and largest outdoor musical theater in 2021.
Under his leadership, The Muny received the 2025 Regional Theatre Tony Award in recognition of its “continuous level of artistic achievement contributing to the growth of theatre nationally.”
Coleman leads The Muny into its 108th season of producing live musical theater on a grand scale. He maintains overall responsibility for the management of the business of The Muny in accordance with its mission. He embraces and articulates the theater’s artistic and institutional vision, developing progressive income streams and new strategic initiatives to deepen the organization’s community engagement, plus educational and outreach efforts. Coleman was instrumental in navigating The Muny through the pandemic. He also played a key role in the successful $100 million Second Century Capital Campaign and in 2024 led efforts to revive live concerts at The Muny.
Coleman is board president emeritus of the National Alliance for Musical Theatre and is an active contributor to the St. Louis community, serving on the Commerce Bank advisory board, St. Louis University High School board of trustees, and as a founding board member of Atlas School. He also serves on the board of directors for the Saint Louis Club and supports various social service organizations.
Coleman was recognized among the St. Louis Magazine “Business 500” and the St. Louis Business Journal “40 Under 40,” and is a recipient of the St. Louis American’s Salute to Young Leaders Award. In addition to his work at The Muny, Kwofe consults for various concerts, artist development, and management and production projects, including serving as executive producer since 2022 for the annual Confluence Music Festival at World Wide Technology Raceway and for “A New Holiday” (2020), a short musical film created by LIFE Creative Group and broadcast on local PBS channels.
Lipstadt is the University Distinguished Professor at Emory University. From 2022–2025 she was the U.S. State Department’s special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism, with the rank of ambassador. As special envoy, she led efforts to advance U.S. foreign policy to counter antisemitism throughout the world. Ambassador Lipstadt has a storied career as a historian, academic and author. Her numerous, award-winning books include “Golda Meir: Israel’s Matriarch”; “The Eichmann Trial”; “Denial: Holocaust History on Trial”; “Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory”; and “Beyond Belief: The American Press and the Coming of the Holocaust, 1933–1945.” She received the National Jewish Book Award three times, most recently in 2019 for “Antisemitism: Here and Now.”
Ambassador Lipstadt is probably best known for having been sued for libel by David Irving, one of the world’s leading Holocaust deniers. The case, which lasted for six years and was heard in court in a 12-week trial, resulted in Irving being declared by the court to be “a right-wing polemicist,” who engages in antisemitism, racism, and misogyny. That trial was depicted in the 2016 film “Denial,” which was based on her book. She was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2024) and was chosen by Time as one of the “100 Most Influential People” (2023). She was a historical consultant to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, helping design the section of the museum dedicated to the American response to the Holocaust. She has held a presidential appointment to the United States Holocaust Memorial Council (from Presidents Clinton and Obama) and was asked by President George W. Bush to represent the White House at the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. She is currently writing a memoir of her time as special envoy.
McDonald remans an enduring force in popular music, with a career that encompasses five Grammys, numerous chart successes and personal and professional accolades, as well as collaborations with some of the world’s most prominent artists,.
Hailing from St. Louis, McDonald arrived in Los Angeles in the early 1970s, honing his talents as a studio musician before becoming an integral part of Steely Dan. In the mid-’70s McDonald was invited to join the Doobie Brothers as the band redefined their sound with McDonald serving as singer, keyboardist and songwriter on such Top 40 singles as “Takin’ It to The Streets,” “It Keeps You Runnin’,” “Minute by Minute,” and “What A Fool Believes.” Throughout the ’80s and ’90s McDonald’s solo career took off with a string of hits including “I Keep Forgettin’ (Every Time You’re Near),”“Sweet Freedom,” “On My Own” (with Patti LaBelle), and the Grammy-winning James Ingram duet “Yah Mo B There,” plus he co-wrote the Van Halen hit “I’ll Wait.” McDonald has performed with a who’s-who of critically acclaimed artists across a number of genres, including Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, Elton John, Joni Mitchell, Willie Nelson, Jackson Browne, Vince Gill and Grizzly Bear.
In 2020, McDonald was elected to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the Doobie Brothers. In celebration of the group’s 50th anniversary, McDonald toured with the band for the first time in nearly 25 years on an extensive run of U.S. and international dates and continues to tour with the band into 2026. Also, McDonald was inducted into the Songwriter’s Hall of Fame in 2025 along with his Doobies bandmates, Patrick Simmon and Tom Johnston. In 2024, McDonald published his autobiography, “What a Fool Believes,” co-written with his friend and actor Paul Reiser; the book reached #7 on the New York Times Bestsellers list. This year, McDonald has the honor of being inducted into the Musicians Hall of Fame.
McDonald’s other recent collaborations include his work on the critically acclaimed track “Show You the Way” with multigenre bassist, singer and producer Thundercat and Kenny Loggins, as well as performances with Solange Knowles, Susan Tedeschi and Derek Trucks, Charlie Puth, Lalah Hathaway, Jacob Collier, and members of Snarky Puppy and Vulfpeck, to name a few. “Wide Open,” McDonald’s first full length record of all new music in nearly a decade, came out in 2017 and received extensive critical acclaim from NPR “Weekend Edition,” NPR Music, Rolling Stone, Pitchfork, the Los Angeles Times and many more.
Raichle Sr., the Alan A. and Edith L. Wolff Distinguished Professor of Medicine, has served on the WashU faculty for more than 50 years.
In 1964, Raichle graduated from the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle. Subsequently, he served as an intern and resident in medicine at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore and trained as a neurologist at the Cornell University School of Medicine in New York City, where he began his first studies of the human brain and the effect of changes in regional blood flow and metabolism with development, aging and disease.
After serving two years as a flight surgeon in the U.S. Air Force at the School of Aerospace Medicine in San Antonio, Raichle joined the faculty of WashU Medicine in 1971 in the laboratory of Michel Ter-Pogossian in radiology, where the focus of his work was on the use of cyclotron-produced radionuclides for the study of the human brain. Raichle currently has appointments in neurology and in biomedical engineering.
The introduction of X-ray computed tomography (X-ray CT) to the medical world had an immediate effect on the work in the Ter-Pogossian laboratory, which led to the development of the world’s first positron emission (PET) scanner using the radionuclides produced by the cyclotron in the basement of the WashU Medicine Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology. In the course of the lab’s work with PET, it was discovered that when the brain is challenged with a task (i.e., a typical neuroscience and psychology approach), there is a brisk increase in regional blood flow that exceeds the increase in oxygen consumption. This results in a rise in blood oxygen which, it turned out, has a measurable effect on the magnetic field in which this is happening. Based on this research, Raichle’s friends working in magnetic resonance imaging realized an MRI would pick this up as well. This led to what is now called functional magnetic resonance imaging or fMRI. According to PubMed there are now more than 1,600 papers on the subject providing a remarkable amount of new, unique information on the organization of the human brain. In 2014, Raichle was awarded the Kavli Prize in Neuroscience for his groundbreaking work.
Investor and emeritus trustee John Weil and his wife, Anabeth Weil, are longtime supporters of WashU. John earned his bachelor’s degree from Amherst College and began work as a trainee at the St. Louis Union Trust Company. He remained there for 10 years, rising to become vice president for investment research. John then left to manage the family’s investments.
Anabeth is the former Forest Park executive for St. Louis, where she developed and implemented a master plan for the park’s restoration. Before her work with Forest Park, she worked at Pantheon Corporation, where she was involved with the restoration of the Fabulous Fox Theatre, the Lammert Building, the Lennox Hotel and housing in the Central West End. She earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Arkansas.
John joined the WashU Board of Trustees in 2003 and was elected as an honorary emeritus trustee in 2013. He is a member of the Sam Fox School National Council, serving as chair from 2006 to 2019, and he is the former chair of the Architecture National Council. He previously served as a member of the Danforth Circle Eliot Society Committee.
Anabeth is a life member of the Women’s Society of WashU and has been a member of the WashU Sam Fox School National Council since 2006. She has held numerous leadership roles across the Sam Fox School and Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, including service on the Art Collections Committee (2006–2022), chair (2010–2019); the Women and the Kemper Board (2011–2018); and the Sam Fox School 10th Anniversary Committee (2015–2016).
Together, Anabeth and John served as co-chairs for the Sam Fox School’s Leading Together campaign and as members of the campaign executive committee from 2012 to 2018. In recognition of their service and philanthropy, they received the Eliot Society Search Award in 2013, the Robert S. Brookings Award in 2014 and the Harris Community Service Award in 2016. Beyond WashU, the Weils have supported numerous St. Louis institutions, including the Central Institute for the Deaf, New City School, Forest Park Forever and the Saint Louis Art Museum, where they served as commissioners.
The Weils are members of the William H. Danforth Leadership Society and became charter members of the Danforth Circle Chair Level in 2026. Their philanthropy has had a lasting impact on the Sam Fox School, including naming Anabeth and John Weil Hall, the school’s newest building dedicated in 2019. They also established two endowed scholarships for Sam Fox School students: the Georgia Binnington Scholarship and the John and Anabeth Weil Endowed Scholarship. Most recently, they created an endowment to support the green wall in Weil Hall’s Kuehner Court and for the long-term preservation of the building.
