Jeanette Epps and the Return to Maryland at a Defining Campus Moment
jeanette epps will return to the University of Maryland in May 2026 as the featured speaker for a ceremony that will gather thousands of graduates, families and friends at SECU Stadium. For one evening, a campus milestone will also become a personal homecoming, linking a student story to a public moment of recognition.
What is the University of Maryland announcing?
The University of Maryland announced on April 8, 2026, ET, that astronaut, aerospace engineer and alumna Jeanette Epps, M. S. ’94, Ph. D. ’00, will deliver the university’s commencement address on Wednesday, May 20, 2026. The ceremony will honor Summer 2025, Winter 2025 and Spring 2026 graduates, along with their families and friends.
For the university, the choice places a former student at the center of one of its most visible annual traditions. UMD President Darryll J. Pines described Epps as a role model for graduating students stepping into their futures and called it an honor to welcome her back to Maryland.
Why does Jeanette Epps matter to this class?
The selection of jeanette epps carries a direct message for students finishing one chapter and beginning another. Her path began in Syracuse, New York, and included a physics degree from Le Moyne College before she earned her Maryland degrees in aerospace engineering. The university says her time on campus sharpened her expertise in rotorcraft research and opened the door to work at Ford Motor Co. and later as a technical intelligence officer with the CIA.
That sequence gives the address a broader meaning than ceremony alone. The graduates will hear from someone whose career moved across research, industry, intelligence work and spaceflight, all tied back to a university experience that shaped her path. In that sense, jeanette epps is not only a speaker but also a reminder of how a campus education can reverberate through decades.
What has her career included so far?
Epps’ NASA career began in 2009, when she was selected as one of 14 candidates for the 20th class of NASA astronauts. In 2024, she spent nearly eight months in orbit as part of NASA’s Expedition 71, SpaceX Crew-8, serving as a flight engineer on the International Space Station and contributing to scientific research projects. She retired from NASA in 2025 after nearly 16 years of service.
, Epps said she was honored to return to the University of Maryland for such a milestone moment. She said her time as a Terp helped shape her path and that she looked forward to celebrating graduates as they take their next steps toward making an impact in the world and, maybe, beyond.
How does the university frame the moment?
The university is presenting the ceremony as both a celebration and a signal of what its graduates might become. Its broader description of the campus emphasizes research, innovation and public impact, but the commencement announcement keeps the focus on the human link between past and future. The setting at SECU Stadium will bring that idea into view: a large public gathering, a former student on stage and a class preparing to leave with its own ambitions.
For many in the audience, the significance may be simple and immediate. A graduate hearing from jeanette epps will see an alumna who once sat in classrooms on the same campus and later worked at the edge of exploration. The return gives the ceremony a rare clarity: achievement is not abstract, and neither is the path that leads to it. On May 20, that lesson will meet the crowd at SECU Stadium, where a Maryland degree becomes part of a much larger story.
