-Harry Edwards, ’64 Sociology, ’16 Honorary Doctorate

John Carlos

Carlos is an Olympic medalist in the 200-meter sprint and member of the Olympic Project for Human Rights. Following the 1968 Olympics, where he participated in an iconic protest for human rights, Carlos pursued professional football and later worked for the United States Olympic Committee.

Harry Edwards

Professor emeritus of sociology at the University of California at Berkeley and founder of the Olympic Project for Human Rights, Edwards is author of The Revolt of the Black Athlete, Edwards is considered to be the father of the sociology of sport.

Hannah Gordon

Hannah Gordon is the general counsel of the San Francisco 49ers and serves as secretary of the 49ers Foundation. Previously, she worked on NFL player contracts, salary cap compliance, the 2011 NFL collective bargaining agreement, and labor issues with the NFL Management Council.

Al Guido

Al Guido served as the chief operating officer of the San Francisco 49ers, sales manager for the Dallas Cowboys and senior director of ticket sales for the Phoenix Coyotes. He is on the board of City Year San Jose/Silicon Valley and Coach K/Fuqua School of Business.

Stacey Johnson

NCAA champion fencer and U.S. Olympic Committee Board member Johnson, ’80 Public Relations, led an international campaign to bring equity to woman fencers. The first woman to hold a four-year term as president of U.S.A. Fencing’s National Governing Board, Johnson is now president of Valencia College’s East and Winter Park campuses.

Jared Shawlee

Chief Operating Officer of the San Jose Earthquakes Jared Shawlee previously worked as the Earthquakes’ vice president of sales and strategy and director of corporate partnerships. He is a board member for Joint Venture Silicon Valley and The Silicon Valley Foundation.

Tommie Smith

Smith won Olympic gold in track and field at the 1968 Mexico City games, where he participated in an iconic protest for human rights. He coached track and field at Oberlin College, where he also taught sociology, and later at Santa Monica College.

Marc Spears

Senior writer for ESPN’s The Undefeated and chair of the National Association of Black Journalists Sports Task Force, Spears has written for Yahoo Sports, The Boston Globe, The Denver Post, The Tulsa World, the Los Angeles Daily News and The Courier-Journal.

John Tortora

Chief operating officer, executive vice president and general counsel of San Jose Sharks, LLC, John Tortora previously worked for the National Hockey League in New York, where he helped launch cable TV’s NHL Network.

Yoshihiro Uchida

A legendary judo coach, Uchida built San Jose State’s program into a national powerhouse after serving in a segregated unit in World War II while his own family members were held in internment camps.

Kathleen Wong(Lau)

SJSU Chief Diversity Officer Kathleen Wong(Lau) leads the university’s Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. She previously served as the director of the Southwest Center for Human Relations Studies and the National Conference on Race and Ethnicity in Higher Education (NCORE).

Thalia Anagnos

SJSU Associate Vice President of Graduate and Undergraduate Programs Thalia Anagnos is a former engineering professor and 2012 recipient of the Outstanding Professor Award. Anagnos helped organize the SJSU Expanding Your Horizons Conference to interest women in STEM fields for more than 20 years.

William Armaline

William Armaline is director of the Human Rights Program at SJSU. An interdisciplinary scholar, Armaline studies social problems related to political economy, environmental sustainability, race theory and anti-racist action, pedagogy and transformative education, inequality and youths, mass incarceration and the war on drugs.

Cole Armstrong

Cole Armstrong holds a doctoral degree in sport management from Florida State University. His research focuses on management in sport organizations, sport marketing, and the influence of sport on identity development.

Jamie Craighead

Prior to coming to San Jose State, Jamie Craighead became the youngest head coach in Division I basketball in her role at Sacramento State. As a collegiate player at the University of Oregon, Craighead led the Ducks to the 2002 WNIT championship after three appearances in the NCAA tournament.

Shaun Fletcher

Shaun Fletcher, ’03 Public Relations, has provided communications strategies for Apple, the Volkswagen Group of America and the Center for Health Futures in Florida. His research includes political discourse and rhetorical analysis, as well as cultural communications within healthcare as it relates to African-American men.

Walt Jacobs

Prior to becoming dean of the College of Social Sciences, Walt Jacobs served as a dean and professor at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside. Jacobs is the author of Speaking the Lower Frequencies: Students and Media Literacy and co-editor of If Classrooms Matter: Progressive Visions of Educational Environments.

Phylis West Johnson

Phylis West Johnson is a researcher and practitioner who studies virtual worlds, augmented reality and virtual reality and their interplay with humanity. The author of five books and more than 100 paper presentations, Johnson is the former editor of the Journal of Radio and Audio Media.

Susanna Khavul

Susanna Khavul’s research focuses on entrepreneurial finance, international entrepreneurship and firm failure. She has previously taught at the University of Texas, Arlington and London Business School. Her articles have appeared in Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, Journal of Business Venturing, Journal of International Business Studies, and Journal of Management Studies.

Peter Lee

Peter Lee’s research includes the psychological development and adjustment of Asian Americans and ethnic groups in the child welfare and mental health systems. The co-creator of Social Workers in the Library, Lee served as associate director of CommUniverCity San Jose and director of SJSU’s “UP” Pre-College program.

Amy Leisenring

Amy Leisenring is the faculty director to the Academic Counseling Center for Excellence in the Social Sciences. Her scholarship explores the sociology of higher education and the way race, gender and class-based inequalities shape students’ experiences. Leisenring teaches in the areas of gender, family and qualitative research methods.

Marcos Pizarro

Marcos Pizarro coordinates MAESETR@S, a social justice organization that implements a transformative education model with Latinx communities. The co-coordinator of the Institute for Teachers of Color Committed to Racial Justice, Pizarro is Faculty-in-Residence for Chicanx-Latinx Student Success at SJSU and co-coordinator of Adelante.

Susan Snycerski

Trained as a behavioral pharmacologist, Susan Snycerski has taught psychology, research methods, human drug use and abuse, mental retardation, behavioral pharmacology and toxicology, American Psychological Association writing workshops, and clinical trials administration. Snycerski has published empirical, theoretical and review papers, as well as book chapters and encyclopedia chapters.

Bonnie Sugiyama