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Approximately half of the 1,100 May graduates will take part in the ceremonies. Doors open at noon. Anyone with special seating requirements is asked to arrive early.

Speaker for the event will be UAB Honors Program student Anand Iyer, 21, of Anniston, who recently won the Maria Leonard Graduate Fellowship, one of only 23 national awards presented by Alpha Lambda Delta.

In 2006, Iyer, who also is a student in the UAB Early Medical School Acceptance Program (EMSAP), was a finalist for the Truman Scholarship. He plans to attend the University of Alabama School of Medicine following graduation.

Whitley, professor of pediatrics, microbiology, medicine and neurosurgery, will receive the UAB President’s Medal, which recognizes scholarly distinction and service to the university. He is responsible for the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) Collaborative Antiviral Study Group, which performs clinical trials of antiviral therapies directed against medically important viral diseases of children and adults, including viruses considered threats to human health. His other research interest is in the translation of molecular biology to clinical application, particularly in the development of human monoclonal antibodies for therapy of herpes virus infections and engineering of herpes simplex virus for gene therapy. In these latter studies, he and his colleagues have engineered herpes simplex virus to serve as a vector for foreign gene expression. These viruses have been advanced into human treatment studies of glioblastoma multiforme.

Whitely is the Loeb Eminent Scholar Chair in Pediatrics; director of the Division of Pediatric Infectious Diseases; vice chair of the Department of Pediatrics; senior scientist in the Department of Gene Therapy; senior scientist in the Cancer Research and Training Center; and co-director of the Center for Emerging Infections and Emergency Preparedness.