UC Berkeley School of Information

The School of Information’s May 2026 Commencement presented an opportunity to honor faculty and student achievements.

Dean Eric Meyer presented awards for outstanding capstone projects from the Master of Information Management and Systems program, the Master of Information and Data Science program, and the Master of Information and Cybersecurity program.

Students in the MIMS, MIDS, and MICS programs voted for their most outstanding instructors and gave awards to their classmates.

Vera Zakem, the first woman to serve as California’s chief technology innovation officer, former chief digital democracy and rights officer at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and UC Berkeley executive fellow in applied technology policy, will deliver the commencement address at the School’s commencement ceremony on Tuesday, May 19, 2026.

Zakem brings deep experience at the nexus of technology, democracy, industry, and public interest that resonates closely with the I School’s mission. She previously served in the Biden-Harris Administration as the U.S. Agency for International Development’s first-ever chief digital democracy and rights officer, where she led an agenda focused on rights-respecting technology, global coalition building, and AI for more than 100 lower- and middle-income countries.