Keynote Speaker and Honorary Doctorate Recipient
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Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters Recipient   

Soledad O’Brien is an anchor and special correspondent for CNN/U.S. Since joining the network in 2003, O’Brien has reported breaking news from around the globe and has produced award-winning and record-breaking documentaries on the most important stories facing the world today. She also covers political news as part of CNN’s “Best Political Team on Television.”

O’Brien’s most recent documentary project, Latino in America, focused on Latinos living in this country, how they are reshaping America and how America is reshaping them.  Earlier this year, O’Brien reported for Black in America 2, focused on successful community leaders who are improving the lives of African-Americans.  She has also reported for the CNN documentary Words That Changed a Nation, featuring a never-before-seen look at Dr. King’s private writings and notes, and investigated his assassination in Eyewitness to Murder: The King Assassination. Her Children of the Storm project and One Crime at a Time documentary demonstrate O’Brien’s continued commitment to covering stories out of New Orleans.

O'Brien joined CNN in July 2003 as the co-anchor of the network's flagship program, American Morning, and distinguished herself by reporting from the scene on the transformational stories that broke on her watch.  O'Brien was part of the coverage teams that earned CNN a George Foster Peabody award for its Katrina coverage and an Alfred I. duPont Award for its coverage of the tsunami. Her numerous other awards include a Gracie Allen Award in 2007 for her reporting from Cyprus on the Israeli-Hezbollah conflict and from the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina. The NAACP honored her with its President’s Award in 2007, and in 2008, she was the first recipient of the Soledad O’Brien Freedom’s Voice Award from the Morehouse School of Medicine. Also in 2008, O’Brien was the first recipient of The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health’s Goodermote Humanitarian Award for her efforts while reporting on the devastating effects of Hurricane Katrina and the Southeast Asia tsunami.

O’Brien is a member of the National Association of Black Journalists and the National Association of Hispanic Journalists. She is a graduate of Harvard University