NYU Shanghai 2022 Commencement Speakers

Shi Yiling (Elin), of Shanghai, China, graduates with a double major in Business & Finance and Social Science (Self-Designed Urban Studies Track) as well as a minor in Public Policy & Management. At NYU Shanghai, she served as the secretary of the Class of 2022 Youth League Committee, where she organized cultural exchanges and community volunteer activities to help bring Chinese and international students together through a better understanding of Shanghai and China. While studying away in Washington D.C. as a Global Leadership Scholar during the Spring of 2020, she served as the president of the school International Student Group, where she led fundraising activities to support Wuhan in the early days of the pandemic. Yiling will join the financial services consulting team of Ernst & Young Advisory (Shanghai office) as a Business Analyst later this year.

Bongani Ntsakani Musikavanhu, of Johannesburg, South Africa, graduates with a degree in Business and Finance and a minor in Chinese. At NYU Shanghai, Bongani gave academic support to students learning Chinese as a staff learning assistant. Throughout his time in school, he wrote his own stories, scripts, and rap songs in Mandarin. In addition, he created a YouTube channel of vlogs and interviews in the hope of creating art that uses and merges cultures and languages to promote cross-cultural communication and understanding. After graduation, Musikavanhu envisions working for a time as a finance consultant or analyst before possibly pursuing graduate school. He aspires to explore the idea of business from the Chinese perspective and how it impacts Africa to enable himself to provide equity and capital to places in South Africa specifically.

Yang Yang is China's first-ever Winter Olympics gold medalist, winning two gold, two silver, and a bronze medal in short track speed skating over three winter olympics. She won 59 world titles during her 23-year career as an athlete - a Chinese record.

Yang Yang was the first non-retired Chinese athlete to be elected to the International Olympic Committee. She was also the first female secretary in the International Skating Union’s 125-year history. During the 2022 Beijing Olympic Winter Games, she served as the Chair of the Athletes’ Commission. She now serves as the Vice-Chair of the World Anti-Doping Agency, and is founder of the China Champion Foundation and the Feiyang Ice Skating Center to develop ice sports in China.

Yang Yang graduated from the School of Economics and Management of Tsinghua University in 2007.

Tong Shijun became the second Chancellor of NYU Shanghai on June 1, 2020. A scholar of Western and Chinese philosophy, he served as an administrator and professor of philosophy at East China Normal University for more than 20 years, and as party secretary there from 2011 to 2019.

Jeffrey Lehman is the Vice Chancellor of NYU Shanghai, where he oversees academic and administrative operations. Lehman has previously served as dean of the University of Michigan Law School, the eleventh president of Cornell University, and the founding dean of the Peking University School of Transnational Law.

Joanna Waley-Cohen is the Provost for NYU Shanghai and Julius Silver Professor of History at New York University, where she has taught Chinese history since 1992. As Provost, she serves as NYU Shanghai’s chief academic officer, setting the university’s academic strategy and priorities, and overseeing academic appointments, research, and faculty affairs.

Andrew Hamilton became the 16th president of New York University on January 1, 2016. Before joining NYU, Dr. Hamilton served as the vice chancellor of Oxford University and provost of Yale University.

William R. Berkley founded the W. R. Berkley Corporationin 1967, and served continuously as Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer until October 2015, when he became Executive Chairman. Mr. Berkley, a graduate of NYU, is Chair of the NYU Board of Trustees and has served in various capacities at NYU for over three decades.