Twelve individuals who have achieved distinction in their fields were awarded honorary degrees at Yale Universitys 2014 Commencement ceremony on May 19. Here are the citations that President Peter Salovey read as they received their degrees. Read their biographies.

Doctor of Engineering and Technology

As the creator of the World Wide Web, you have transformed our global village, revolutionized the flow of knowledge, and changed the way we live. Generous with your genius, you shared your invention without restrictions or royalties. By conceiving hypertext protocols for the Internet, you put the power of computing in the hands of almost anyone, with the goal of making the Web a universal medium. You have democratized access to information, and in so doing, have made the sum of human knowledge greater than its separate parts. You have woven the web that connects us all, and we are honored to name you Doctor of Engineering and Technology.

Doctor of Letters

For almost forty years, you have graced us with lyrical poetry that dances and sings off the page waltzing, lilting, bugling. Your poems capture and entwine a nations history and our inner lives with astute clarity, while your drama has startled audiences and readers into new visions of the past. As our youngest Poet Laureate, you have been a passionate advocate for cultural and literary diversity, and you have communicated your own love of books to others through your writing, your outreach, and your example. You have not kept quiet in noisy times, but rather have spoken out in clear and convincing verse, showing us the power of poetry to transform and transcend. We are pleased to bestow on you this degree of Doctor of Letters.

Doctor of Humanities

As a sage voice of progressive India, you are a leading public intellectual. Your work is brilliant and varied in its scope. You are an incisive essayist of your countrys vibrant and clamorous politics and society, arenowned historian of modern India, and the definitive biographer of Gandhi. Whether writing about cricket orcommenting on contemporary Indian life, you capture the spirit of your nation and its past, while opening newunderstandings of its present and the promise of its future. As a gifted teacher, you have shared your talents withus at Yale, and we are delighted to have you return to campus, this time asDoctor of Humanities.

Doctor of Social Science

You have devoted a lifetime to thinking about how we think, both fast and slow. From childhood you experienced the worst and the best of peoples actions, and your observations led you to understand that we are not always the rational beings we imagine ourselves to be. The field of behavioral economics was born from your scholarship, and your pathbreaking work has given psychologists and economists new tools with which to explore human behavior and cognition. Your noble accomplishments include teaching generations of students and influencing scholars across disciplines. We are honored to name you Doctor of Social Science.

Doctor of Science

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Yale awards 12 honorary degrees at 2014 graduation