The board of trustees voted to award five honorary degrees at this year’s commencement, which will be held on May 20 in Brookings Quadrangle.

Recipients of the degrees include U.S. Rep. John Lewis, who is also this year’s commencement speaker; chairman and CEO of Hunter Engineering Co. Stephen Brauer; president and CEO of PBS Paula Kerger; Swedish physician, microbiologist and infectious disease researcher Staffan Normark; and founder of Target H.O.P.E. Euclid Williamson.

“Every person chosen has made very significant contributions to society broadly, and in some cases quite specifically to Washington University,” Chancellor Mark Wrighton said.

The process of choosing the honorary degree recipients begins with nominations from the Washington University community: including students, faculty, staff and alumni. Then, a committee appointed by the board of trustees—this year chaired by trustee Maxine Clark—considers the nominations. This committee, made up of students, faculty, staff and trustees, compiles a potential list of recipients—all of whom they deem acceptable candidates, Wrighton said.

He added that the committee strives to create a list with “diversity in every sense.”

The committee then suggests this list to the board, which then must vote unanimously on who to extend degrees to. The five will sit on the stage at Commencement, and each will receive a doctorate hood, which is the official awarding of their honorary, Wrighton said.

Lewis, a civil rights leader who is the only living member of the movement’s “Big Six,” will receive an honorary doctor of humane letters degree. Wrighton said it is customary for the commencement speaker each year to receive an honorary degree.

Brauer, the chairman and CEO of St. Louis-based Hunter Engineering Co., will receive a doctor of laws. Brauer also served as the United States ambassador to Belgium from 2001 to 2003.

Brauer has the closest association to Washington University of the recipients, having sat on the Washington University board of trustees since 1991, chairing it from 2009 to 2014. He was also named a life trustee in 2008. Brauer also has many ties to the engineering school—having chaired the engineering school’s capital campaign from 1996 to 2004 and endowing a distinguished professorship in biomedical engineering in 1997. He and his wife provided the lead gift for Brauer Hall, which opened in 2010.

Kerger, like Lewis, will accept a doctor of humane letters. She has served as president and CEO of PBS since March 2006 and is the longest serving president in the organization’s history.

Normark, a former Washington University professor who left in 1993, will receive a doctor of humanities. The microbiologist and infectious disease researcher is now a senior professor at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden. He was elected to the Royal Swedish Academy of Science in 1987 and served as the group’s permanent secretary from 2010 to June 2015. He still helps select winners of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine as a member of the Nobel Assembly at Karolinska.

Williamson, like Normark, will also receive a doctor of humanities. His organization, Target H.O.P.E., is a nonprofit that aims to enhance educational opportunities for minority students attending public high school in the Chicago metropolitan area, according to the organization’s website. Since the group’s founding in 1994, it has helped more than 4,500 students attend 28 colleges and universities—including Washington University.

“The recipients of our honorary degrees are people that are very highly regarded, they’ve made a difference in their chosen area of activity, and often these elements at our Commencement ceremony add a lot to the program, and I’m excited to have such a strong group,” Wrighton said.