Keynote Speakers
Meet Our Keynote Speakers
Sue Cunningham
Since 2015, Sue Cunningham has provided executive leadership for one of the largest education-related associations in the world serving over 3,200 members in 80 countries. Prior to CASE, she served as Vice-Principal for Advancement at The University of Melbourne and Director of Development at University of Oxford. She held advancement roles at Christ Church, Oxford and University of St Andrews. As a CASE volunteer, she received the CASE Europe Distinguished Service Award and a CASE Crystal Apple for Teaching Excellence.
Cunningham is a Trustee at University of San Diego, a member of Signature Theatre (Arlington, Virginia, United States of America) Board of Directors, a member of Washington Higher Education Secretariat Steering Committee, and is a member of the International Women’s Foundation.
She is an Honorary Fellow of the Melbourne Graduate School of Education and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.
Juliet V. García
Juliet V. García, former longtime President of The University of Texas at Brownsville (UTB), received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in July 2022.
The Presidential Medal of Freedom is the nation’s highest civilian honor, presented to individuals who have made exemplary contributions to the prosperity, values, or security of the United States, world peace, or other significant societal, public, or private endeavors.
García is the first Mexican-American woman to serve as a college president in the United States. During her tenure, García pioneered a partnership between UT Brownsville and Texas Southmost College, a community college where she served as president from 1986 to 1992, when she assumed the presidency of UTRGV’s legacy institution UT Brownsville. She stepped down as UTB president in 2014 when UTRGV was established.
García is the recipient of numerous awards. TIME magazine named García one of the top 10 college presidents in the nation in 2009, and she was named one of the top 50 world leaders by Fortune magazine.
Freeman A. Hrabowski, III
Freeman A. Hrabowski, III, President Emeritus of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, served as UMBC President from 1992 to 2022. His research and publications focus on science and math education, with special emphasis on minority participation and performance. He chaired the National Academies’ committee that produced the 2011 report, Expanding Underrepresented Minority Participation: America’s Science and Technology Talent at the Crossroads.
He was named in 2012 by President Obama to chair the President’s Advisory Commission on Educational Excellence for African Americans. His 2013 TED talk highlights the “Four Pillars of College Success in Science.”
In 2022, Hrabowski was elected to the National Academy of Engineering and was named the inaugural ACE Centennial Fellow, to be served upon his retirement from UMBC. In addition, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) launched the Freeman Hrabowski Scholars Program ($1.5 billion) to help build a scientific workforce that more fully reflects our increasingly diverse country. In October 2022, he was named the inaugural Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Commemorative Lecture Speaker by Harvard.