Dr. W. Benton Boone ’62, Louise Bryson, Justice Halim Dhanidina ’94 and David W. Oxtoby will address graduates at Pomona College’s 2025 Commencement ceremony to be held Sunday, May 18 at 10 a.m. on Marston Quad on the Pomona College campus. The four speakers come from distinguished careers in medicine, media, law, and higher education, respectively. The College will bestow an honorary degree on each of them during the event.
Graduation weekend events begin on Friday, May 16. Information is available at Pomona’s Commencement website.
W. Benton Boone ’62
Dr. W. Benton Boone earned a medical degree at Meharry Medical College and a master’s degree in immunology at the University of Minnesota, where he also completed a residency program in ophthalmology. In the U.S. Army Medical Corps, he served in Germany as a battalion surgeon and dispensary commander.
Board certified in ophthalmology and licensed to practice medicine in multiple states, Boone held faculty positions at UCLA and the University of California, Irvine. The UCLA Department of Ophthalmology presented him with its Senior Honor Teaching Award. He has published extensively, and his research has covered topics such as advancements in eye surgery and immunology in ophthalmology. Certified in the supervision of hyperbaric oxygen therapy, he helped to pioneer the use of hyperbaric oxygen in eye disease.
At the Charles R. Drew University of Medicine, Boone served as interim president and as chair of the board. He is a medical expert for the Social Security Administration.
Louise Bryson
Louise Bryson’s career has been focused on media and the arts. She was a documentary film writer and producer for public television and, after completing an MBA degree, moved into the growing business of cable television.
Bryson was general manager of Z Channel, a Los Angeles-based movie channel. She was later senior vice president of FX networks and then president of distribution for Lifetime Networks. In both roles she was involved in negotiating major agreements with all U.S. cable and satellite companies.
In 1998, Bryson became a member of the Board of Trustees of The J. Paul Getty Trust, serving as chair of the board from 2006-10. She was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2010 and was a member of its board from 2015-23. Bryson was chair of the board of PBS SoCal from 2020-23 and was a trustee of the Public Policy Institute of California. She serves on the board of the Segerstrom Center for the Arts, the Board of Governors at the Huntington Library and the Trustees’ Council for the National Gallery of Art.
Halim Dhanidina ’94
Justice Halim Dhanidina (ret.) is an arbitrator and mediator at Signature Resolution in Los Angeles. Previously he was a litigator in criminal investigations and trials, arbitration and commercial cases. He holds a law degree from the UCLA School of Law, which listed him among its 75 distinguished alumni for its 75th anniversary. During his undergraduate years at Pomona, where he studied international relations, Dhanidina founded the Muslim Students Association and received the Senior Service Award.
Before entering private practice, Dhanidina served in the judiciary. Appointed to the Los Angeles County Superior Court, he was the first Muslim judge in California history. When he became an associate justice in the Second District of the California, he became the first South Asian American appellate justice in California and the first Muslim appellate level judge in the U.S.
Dhanidina is a board member for the Public Law Center, Muslim-Jewish NewGround, the Orange County School of the Arts and the Beverly Hills Bar Association. He serves on advisory boards for the South Asian Bar Association, Asian Americans Advancing Justice and the Asian Pacific American Bar Association. He serves as an independent director on the board of Fidelity National Financial.
David W. Oxtoby
David W. Oxtoby served as the ninth president of Pomona College from 2003-17, where he is now president emeritus. After his time at Pomona, he became president of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2019, transitioning to emeritus president in 2024.
After earning his doctorate in chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley, Oxtoby began his career in higher education leadership at the University of Chicago. He was dean of the Division of Physical Sciences there and the William Rainey Harper Distinguished Service Professor of Chemistry.
Oxtoby is a recognized leader in American higher education, helping to promote academic excellence, college access, environmental sustainability and creativity in the liberal arts environment. He served on and chaired the board of the American Association of Colleges and Universities. He has received fellowships from the Sloan, Guggenheim, and National Science foundations. Oxtoby is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Physical Society, the American Philosophical Society, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Oxtoby is a trustee of Smith College and former trustee at Bryn Mawr College. He was an overseer at his undergraduate alma mater, Harvard University, from 2008 to 2014. He currently serves as a trustee of the Field Museum in Chicago.