Leading Voice on Attention Dr. D. Graham Burnett to Deliver Iona University Commencement Address
Iona’s 82nd annual Commencement ceremony set for May 15 in New Rochelle, N.Y.
Burnett first engaged the Iona community as a keynote speaker in the University’s Presidential Speaker Series in February 2025.
New Rochelle, N.Y. — Princeton University professor D. Graham Burnett, Ph.D., an acclaimed scholar, writer and interdisciplinary thinker whose work bridges the humanities, sciences and public discourse, will deliver the keynote address at Iona University’s 82nd annual Commencement ceremony on Friday, May 15, 2026. Burnett will also receive an honorary degree in recognition of his many contributions to scholarship and academic inquiry.
“We are honored to welcome D. Graham Burnett as our 2026 Commencement speaker,” said Iona President Seamus Carey, Ph.D. “Dr. Burnett's scholarship and public work reflect a deep commitment to intellectual curiosity, ethical reflection and the value of presence – pursuits that are central to Iona’s mission. Additionally, over the past year, his involvement with the Iona community has challenged us to think even more deliberately about how we engage with one another and with our own inner selves. I am confident his message will inspire graduates as they set out on their personal and professional journeys.”
Burnett’s keynote adds to an Iona family legacy spanning 25 years, when Iona recognized his mother, Dr. Claire L. Gaudiani ’01H, with an honorary degree in 2001. Gaudiani served as Connecticut College’s eighth president from 1988 to 2001.
“It is an extraordinary honor to have this opportunity to speak to the remarkable community of scholars, teachers, and students at Iona, an institution that is doing so much to center higher education on the higher goods,” said Burnett. “It is extra special to receive a degree from a university that recognized and celebrated my late mother as a visionary crusader for love, justice, and learning.”
ABOUT D. GRAHAM BURNETT
D. Graham Burnett, Ph.D.
Burnett currently serves as the Henry Charles Lea Professor of History and History of Science at Princeton University. A Ph.D. recipient from the University of Cambridge and the salutatorian of his undergraduate class at Princeton, Burnett has held prestigious fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the Mellon Foundation, and his work at the intersection of the humanities and the visual and performing arts was recognized by a recent appointment as a visiting artist at the Academy of Fine Arts in Helsinki.
Burnett first engaged the Iona community as a keynote speaker in the University’s Presidential Speaker Series in February 2025, presenting both in Bronxville and New Rochelle, where he challenged audiences to consider the cultural and ethical consequences of what he describes as the growing commodification and “fracking” of human attention by digital technologies.
He has also played an active role on campus through Iona’s collaboration with the Strother School of Radical Attention (SoRA), an innovative educational initiative Burnett co-founded to explore the role of focus, care and sustained inquiry in learning. As part of that engagement, Burnett will be working with faculty, staff and students to help shape programming throughout the academic year, including the recent launch of the University’s “Attentional Campus Initiative” workshop series. The initiative supports Iona’s broader vision of fostering “attention sanctuaries” that enhance teaching, learning and student engagement.
Throughout his career in academia, Burnett’s byline has appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Guardian, Harper’s and The Economist, among many others. His recent op-ed in The New York Times was titled, “The Multi-Trillion Dollar Battle for Your Attention is Built on a Lie.” This January, he and The Friends of Attention also released their first book, “Attensity! A Manifesto of the Attention Liberation Movement,” which the Iona community has been among the first to preview.
The event will be livestreamed on iona.edu. Media are invited to attend but must RSVP in advance to Diana Costello, senior director of communications, at dcostello@iona.edu.
Photo credit: Adam Elstein
ABOUT IONA
Founded in 1940, Iona University is a master's-granting private, Catholic, coeducational institution of learning in the tradition of the Edmund Rice Christian Brothers. Iona's 45-acre New Rochelle campus and 28-acre Bronxville campus are just 20 miles north of Midtown Manhattan. With a total enrollment of over 4,000 students and an alumni base of 55,000 around the world, Iona is a diverse community of learners and scholars dedicated to academic excellence and the values of justice, peace and service. Iona is highly accredited, offering undergraduate degrees in liberal arts, science and business administration, as well as Master of Arts, Master of Science and Master of Business Administration degrees and numerous advanced certificate programs. Iona students enjoy small class sizes, engaged professors and a wide array of academic programs across the School of Arts & Science; LaPenta School of Business; NewYork-Presbyterian Iona School of Nursing & Health Sciences; and Hynes Institute for Entrepreneurship & Innovation. Iona also continues to be recognized in prestigious national rankings. Most recently for 2025, Iona has been named one of the nation’s best colleges by The Princeton Review, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes and others. Additionally, U.S. News & World Report recognized Iona as one of top for social mobility in the country, while Georgetown University's Center on Education and the Workforce (CEW) ranked an Iona degree in the top 6 percent nationally for long-term return on investment. Iona’s LaPenta School of Business, meanwhile, is also accredited by AACSB International, a recognition awarded to just 6 percent of business schools worldwide. In addition, The Princeton Review once again named Iona to its “Best Business Schools for 2025,” recognizing both its on-campus and online MBA programs. Connecting to its Irish heritage, Iona also opened a new campus in County Mayo, Ireland, located on the historic 400-acre Westport House Estate. A school on the rise, Iona officially changed its status from College to University on July 1, 2022, reflecting the growth of its academic programs and the prestige of an Iona education.