Loyola Marymount University will welcome Academy Award-winning filmmaker and multiple Grammy Award-winning Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson as the keynote speaker for the 2025 undergraduate commencement ceremony on Saturday, May 17. Brian Greene, a leading theoretical physicist and sought-after communicator of groundbreaking scientific concepts, will also speak at the graduate and LMU Loyola Law School commencement on Sunday, May 18.
Questlove is a visionary creative who elevates dialogue, curiosity, and representation through artistic expression. An Academy Award-winning filmmaker, drummer, DJ, producer, director, culinary entrepreneur, New York Times best-selling author, and member of “The Roots,” Questlove is the unmistakable heartbeat of Philadelphia’s most influential hip-hop group. He is also the musical director for “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon,” where his beloved Roots crew serves as the house band.
A six-time Grammy Award-winning musician, Questlove has worked as a musical director for acclaimed artists including D’Angelo and Jay-Z, and as a producer for Elvis Costello, Common, D’Angelo, Jill Scott, Erykah Badu, Bilal, Jay-Z, Nikka Costa, Booker T. Jones, Al Green, and John Legend. He is one of the producers of the 2015 cast album of the Broadway musical “Hamilton,” and his 2021 directorial debut “Summer of Soul,” exploring the legendary 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival, won the 2022 Academy Award for “Best Documentary.” He directed “Sly Lives!” – also known as “The Burden of Black Genius” – a kaleidoscopic, genre-bending portrait of Sly Stone that premiered at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival to critical acclaim, and he co-directed “Ladies & Gentlemen… 50 Years of SNL,” the highly praised feature documentary celebrating the music legacy of “Saturday Night Live.”
Brian Greene is a lifelong learner committed to intellectual inquiry, educational access, and academic excellence. Described by The Washington Post as “the single best explainer of abstruse concepts in the world today,” he is the author of four acclaimed books that have collectively sold millions of copies worldwide. His latest best-selling release, “Until the End of Time,” which explores the cosmos and our quest to understand it, was named one of the “100 Notable Books of 2020” by The New York Times.
Greene’s books have been adapted into two Emmy and Peabody Award-winning NOVA miniseries, both of which he hosted. With journalist Tracy Day, he co-founded the World Science Festival, whose flagship events in New York and Australia have reached an audience of more than 2 million people, and more than 50 million people online. Greene has appeared on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” played himself in an episode of “The Big Bang Theory,” and made cameo appearances in films including “Frequency,” “Maze,” and “The Last Mimzy.” A Harvard graduate and a Rhodes Scholar, he serves as director of Columbia University’s Center for Theoretical Physics.
Nearly 2,900 undergraduate, graduate, and law students will participate in commencement at LMU, which will be at Sunken Garden on the Westchester campus and livestreamed.
