Four Distinguished Alums to Receive Honors at Oberlin’s 2025 Commencement

Four distinguished Oberlin alums will be receiving prestigious honors at this year’s Commencement ceremony on Monday, May 26.

Investigative journalist and critically acclaimed author Sonia Shah ’90 will receive an honorary doctor of humanities degree before delivering the keynote address to Oberlin College and Conservatory’s class of 2025.

Jennifer L. Morgan ’86, a renowned historian and MacArthur Fellowship recipient whose groundbreaking work examines the intersections of gender and race in the early modern Black Atlantic, will also be receiving an honorary doctor of humanities. Dr. Timothy M. Uyeki ’81, a leading global health expert who serves as the chief medical officer in the Influenza Division at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), will be presented with an honorary doctor of science.

And Elizabeth (Liz) Burgess ’73, is receiving the Award for Distinguished Service to the Community for her decades-long impact in Oberlin and Lorain County, including as co-founder of the beloved Ginko Gallery & Studio.

The honorees at Oberlin’s 2025 commencement ceremony include:

Jennifer L. Morgan ’86, Honorary Doctor of Humanities

A leading historian whose groundbreaking work examines the intersections of gender and race in the early modern Black Atlantic, Jennifer Morgan earned one of the nation’s highest honors in 2024: a MacArthur Fellowship, commonly known as the “genius grant.” This year, she serves as an Andrew R. Mellon Fellow at the Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library.

A lifelong New Yorker, Jennifer is the Silver Family Professor of History in the Department of Social & Cultural Analysis and the Department of History at New York University and the author of several influential books. Reckoning with Slavery: Gender, Kinship, and Capitalism in the Early Black Atlantic (Duke University Press, 2011) won the Mary Nickliss Prize in Women’s History from the Organization of American Historians and the Frederick Douglass Prize awarded by the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition at Yale University. Jennifer also wrote Laboring Women: Reproduction and Gender in New World Slavery (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004) and co-edited Connexions: Histories of Race and Sex in America (University of Illinois Press, 2016).

Jennifer is now working on The Eve of Slavery, a project about slavery and freedom in the 17th century that centers around Elizabeth Key, a Black woman who successfully sued for her freedom in Virginia in 1656. In conjunction with that project, she served as executive producer for Key to Freedom, a narrative film project that was written and directed by Jennifer’s daughter, Zinha Morgan-Bennett.

As a student at Oberlin, Jennifer designed her own major in third-world studies and went on to earn a PhD in history at Duke University. She credits her extraordinary scholarship and her Genius Grant to the late Adrienne Lash Jones, the first tenured Black woman in Oberlin’s Africana Studies (then Black Studies) Department.

Dr. Timothy M. Uyeki ’81, Honorary Doctor of Science 

Tim Uyeki is the chief medical officer in the Influenza Division at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). A leading global health expert, he has dedicated his career to studying, preventing, and controlling influenza and other infectious diseases worldwide. His work has been instrumental in shaping public health policies, responses, and treatment guidelines to emerging disease threats, including COVID-19, Ebola, H1N1, and, most recently, the H5N1 avian influenza outbreak in dairy cattle.

Since joining the CDC in 1998, Tim has been at the forefront of global health efforts. As a consultant to the World Health Organization (WHO), he contributed to international responses to zoonotic and pandemic influenza outbreaks, and his expertise has informed critical governmental decisions and public health initiatives aimed at protecting the most vulnerable populations. Most recently, he served as clinical chair for the WHO’s 2024 influenza clinical practice guidelines, as chief medical officer for the CDC’s response to the multi-state outbreak of H5N1 infections, and as a member of the National Institutes of Health’s COVID-19 Treatment Guidelines Panel. 

Tim’s work on SARS in Vietnam was featured in the 2008 documentary The Virus Empire: Silent Killers and the 2006 WHO book SARS: How a Global Epidemic Was Stopped. His research on avian influenza in Vietnam and Indonesia was highlighted in CNN and NHK Japanese Public Television documentaries, as well as in books such as The Fatal Strain (Alan Sipress, 2009) and news articles like “The Flu Hunters” (New York Times Magazine, 2004). Tim also appeared in the Discovery Channel’s Invisible Killers series and additional NHK programs on SARS and pandemic flu. 

At Oberlin, Tim studied biology and environmental ecology and nurtured a lifelong love of the blues. He earned his medical degree at Case Western Reserve University, and later a Master of Public Health in epidemiology and a Master of Public Policy, both at the University of California, Berkeley. 

Beyond his scientific contributions, Tim is a committed mentor and advocate for public health education. He is a clinical professor of pediatrics at the University of California, San Francisco, and he played a key role in developing Oberlin’s global health concentration and its new global health major and minor. He also advises students pursuing public health and medicine careers. 

Elizabeth (Liz) Burgess ’73, Award for Distinguished Service to the Community 

Since her days as a college student in the 1970s, Liz Burgess has prioritized service to her community. Born in Troy, New York, Liz grew up in locales worldwide: Rensselaer, New York; Seoul, South Korea; and Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico. In 1969, she moved to Ohio to attend Oberlin, graduating in 1973 with a degree in psychology. She began a psychiatric social work and health care administration career at the W.G. Nord Community Mental Health Center. In 1989, she transitioned from social work to a career as an independent artist, working with textile techniques and sericulture.

In 1997, Liz and two other artists co-founded the Ginko Gallery & Studio in Oberlin, exhibiting and selling the work of local and regional artists. She became the sole proprietor in 2005, adding an art supply department and transforming the store into a vibrant base for various community activities. One of its most beloved features was the group of neonatal kittens Liz fostered in the back room—an ongoing attraction for college students and local families alike. She retired and closed the store in 2024.

Even as a student, Liz was involved in the larger community, organizing Lorain County’s first women’s hotline and domestic violence shelter. Over the years, she has served as a board member and president of organizations such as the Oberlin Consumers Cooperative (Co-op Bookstore), the Textile Art Alliance of the Cleveland Museum of Art, Main Street Oberlin, Community Action to Save Strays (CATSS), Kendal at Oberlin, and Kendal Northern Ohio.

Alongside her friend Krista Long, Liz co-founded the Bill Long Foundation, a public community foundation that supports projects and activities in Oberlin, and the Oberlin Community Land Trust, a nonprofit dedicated to creating opportunities for affordable homeownership. Liz continues to live in Oberlin with her husband, John A. Machnauer—and an ever-changing number of foster kittens.