First-Year Experience Speakers

These First-Year Experience speakers build community among students while challenging, engaging, and inspiring them to start their college career with a fresh perspective.

Dr. Uché Blackstock

Founder and CEO of Advancing Health Equity, emergency physician, and New York Times-bestselling author of Legacy: A Black Physician Reckons with Racism in Medicine

Jasmin Graham

Shark Scientist, environmental educator, and President/CEO of Minorities in Shark Sciences (MISS)

Tommy Orange

Bestselling novelist and author of There There and Wandering Stars

Isabel Wilkerson

Pulitzer Prize winner and author of the critically-acclaimed bestsellers The Warmth of Other Suns and Caste

More First-Year Experience Speakers

Adam Benforado

New York Times bestselling author of A Minor Revolution and Unfair

Brit Bennett

Novelist of National Book Award nominated, New York Times-bestselling The Vanishing Half, and National Book Foundation 2016 5 Under 35 Honoree

Arthur C. Brooks

Harvard professor, PhD social scientist, #1 New York Times-bestselling author

Geraldine Brooks

Author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning March and the international bestselling People of the Book

Bill Burnett

Executive Director of the Design Program at Stanford and co-author of the #1 New York Times-bestselling book Designing Your Life

Francisco Cantú

Author of the bestselling memoir The Line Becomes a River and former US Border Patrol Agent

Ed Catmull

Co-founder of Pixar Animation Studios, former president of Pixar and Walt Disney Animation Studios, and author of Creativity, Inc.

Ta-Nehisi Coates

#1 New York Times bestselling author of Between the World and Me and The Message

Hernan Diaz

Pulitzer Prize winning author of Trust and In the Distance

Jay Ellis

NAACP Image Award-winning actor, director, producer, and author of Did Everyone Have an Imaginary Friend (or Just Me)?

Dave Evans

Co-author of the #1 New York Times-bestselling book Designing Your Life

Dr. Thomas Fisher

Emergency room physician and author of The Emergency: A Year of Healing and Heartbreak in a Chicago ER

Angus Fletcher

Professor of story science and author of Primal Intelligence (August 2025)

Franklin Foer

National correspondent for The Atlantic, New America Foundation fellow, and former editor of The New Republic

Dr. Marisa G. Franco

Psychologist, professor, friendship expert, and New York Times-bestselling author of Platonic

Yaa Gyasi

Author of Homegoing and Transcendent Kingdom, and recipient of the National Book Foundation's 'Under 35' award

Mohsin Hamid

Bestselling author of The Reluctant Fundamentalist, How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia, and Exit West

Hahrie Han

Political scientist, Director of SNF Agora Institute, and leading expert on social movements

Dr. Mona Hanna

Physician, scientist and activist who exposed the Flint water crisis

Dr. Michele Harper

Emergency room physician and author of the New York Times-bestselling The Beauty in Breaking

Prentis Hemphill

Bestselling author, political organizer, founder and director of The Embodiment Institute

Cathy Park Hong

Award-winning poet and New York Times-bestselling author of Minor Feelings

Dr. Ibram X. Kendi

National Book Award-winning historian and #1 New York Times-bestselling author of Stamped from the Beginning and How to Be an Antiracist

Rachel Khong

Award-winning author of Goodbye, Vitamin and Real Americans

Phil Klay

U.S. Marine Corps veteran and author of Redeployment, winner of 2014 National Book Award for Fiction

Carlotta Walls LaNier

Youngest of the Little Rock Nine, civil rights advocate, National Women's Hall of Fame inductee

Jill Leovy

Author of the New York Times-bestselling book, Ghettoside

Jason De León

Anthropologist, professor, and author of National Book Award winner Soldiers and Kings

Ian Manuel

Advocate for criminal justice reform, poet, and motivational speaker

Lauren Markham

Journalist and author of The Far Away Brothers and A Map of Future Ruins

Chanel Miller

Artist, activist, and author of the New York Times bestseller Know My Name

Leila Mottley

Award-winning author of Oprah’s Book Club selection Nightcrawling and former Youth Poet Laureate of Oakland

Celeste Ng

Author of the New York Times bestseller Everything I Never Told You and Little Fires Everywhere

Jenny Nordberg

Award-winning investigative reporter, foreign correspondent, and author of The Underground Girls of Kabul

Jenny Odell

New York Times-bestselling author of How to Do Nothing and Saving Time

Marjane Satrapi

Academy Award-nominated director, cartoonist, and author of Persepolis

Bo Seo

Two-time world champion debater and author of Good Arguments

Daniel Sherrell

Environmental advocate and author of Warmth: Coming of Age at the End of Our World

Gary Shteyngart

New York Times-bestselling author of Little Failure, Super Sad True Love Story, Absurdistan, and Our County Friends

Suzanne Simard

Leader of The Mother Tree Project and author of Finding the Mother Tree

Bren Smith

Restorative ocean farmer, co-founder of GreenWave, and author of Eat Like a Fish

Cheryl Strayed

Author of the #1 New York Times-bestselling memoir Wild and "Dear Sugar" columnist

Colson Whitehead

Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award-winning author of The Underground Railroad and The Nickel Boys

Ed Yong

Pulitzer Prize-winner and bestselling author of An Immense World

Charles Yu

National Book Award-winning author of Interior Chinatown

Javier Zamora

Memoirist, poet, and author of Solito, and a winner of the 2023 American Book Award.

Michelle Zauner

Frontwoman of Japanese Breakfast and author of New York Times bestselling Crying in H Mart

Gabrielle Zevin

New York Times-bestselling author of Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
Penguin Random House Speakers Bureau