The University of Delaware will recognize four individuals with the awarding of honorary degrees at the University’s Commencement ceremony on May 25.

The honorary degree, the University’s highest accolade, is reserved for individuals who reflect, in their personal and professional achievements, the University’s mission and who serve as exemplars for UD’s students, alumni, the University community and the world.

This year’s class, to be formally approved by the Board of Trustees at its semiannual spring meeting, includes NFL quarterback and Super Bowl MVP Joe Flacco; the Hon. Tamika R. Montgomery-Reeves, the first African-American person from Delaware to serve as judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit; UD Professor Don Sparks, the Unidel S. Hallock du Pont Chair in Plant and Soil Sciences and former director of the Delaware Environmental Institute; and KR Sridhar, founder, chairman and CEO of Bloom Energy.

About the Honorees

Joe Flacco

Joseph Vincent Flacco, a UD alumnus with an accounting degree, will receive an Honorary Doctor of humane letters. 

Flacco has spent his career as a quarterback in the National Football League. In 2008, he was a first-round NFL draft pick (18th overall; the highest recruit from Delaware) by the Baltimore Ravens. He led the team to the six playoffs, three AFC championships, and the Super Bowl XLVII title in 2012, when he was named the game’s Most Valuable Player. Flacco has since played for the Denver Broncos, New York Jets, Philadelphia Eagles and Cleveland Browns. After leading the Browns to a playoff berth, he won the 2023 Comeback Player of the Year. In March 2024, he was named a quarterback for the Indianapolis Colts. 

At Delaware, Flacco set 20 school records, including yards passed in a single season

(4,263 in 2007) and career completions (595). In 2018, he and his wife, Dana, made a significant gift to UD Athletics to support the University’s Whitney Athletics Center, a one-stop facility for all 600-plus student-athletes in all D1 sports programs.

Flacco will deliver the Commencement address to the Class of 2024. 

Tamika R. Montgomery-Reeves

The Hon. Tamika R. Montgomery-Reeves will receive an Honorary Doctor of Laws

A legal trailblazer, Judge Montgomery-Reeves’ historic appointments include serving as the first African-American, the third woman, and the youngest justice on the Delaware Supreme Court. In 2022, President Joseph R. Biden Jr. appointed her to the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, making her the first African-American person from Delaware and the second African-American woman to serve as a judge on this federal court.

Born in Jackson, Mississippi, she discovered her passion for corporate litigation as a law student at the University of Georgia, earning her Juris Doctor in 2006. Her interest in this subject would bring her to Delaware, where she served as a law clerk for Chancellor William B. Chandler III of the Delaware Court of Chancery. 

After practicing in the securities and corporate governance department of Weil, Gotshal and Manges LLP in New York, she returned to Delaware in 2011 to work with her mentor, Chancellor Chandler, and opened the Delaware offices of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati. As a partner for the firm, she focused her practice on corporate and complex commercial litigation.  

Donald L. Sparks

Donald Sparks will receive the Honorary Doctor of Science. 

A globally recognized leader in soil and environmental chemistry, Sparks joined UD’s Department of Plant and Soil Sciences in 1979 and has taken an active role in both research and mentorship. His area of expertise includes the kinetics of soil chemical processes, surface chemistry of soils and soil components. His use of advanced techniques continues to inform the leaching of contaminants into water supplies, helping determine levels of toxicity that better protect human health and ecosystem function in an age of climate change.

In 2002, Sparks became the first recipient of the University’s Outstanding Doctoral Graduate Student Advising and Mentoring Award.

“The highlight of my career has been the advisement and mentoring of a remarkable group of students who have come to UD from all parts of the world,” he said. “It has been highly satisfying to follow their successful careers and the impact they are having in addressing some of the global environmental challenges we face.”

Sparks is the Unidel S. Hallock du Pont Chair in Plant and Soil Sciences at the University of Delaware and former director of the Delaware Environmental Institute (DENIN). 

KR Sridhar

KR Sridhar will receive the Honorary Doctor of Science. 

Sridhar is founder, chairman and CEO of Bloom Energy. He previously served as director of the Space Technologies Laboratory (STL) at the University of Arizona, where he was also a professor of aerospace and mechanical engineering. Under his leadership, STL won several nationally competitive contracts to conduct research and development for Mars exploration and flight experiments. Sridhar has served as an advisor to NASA and has led major consortia of industry, academia and national labs. His work to convert Martian atmospheric gasses to oxygen was recognized by Fortune Magazine, where he was cited as “one of the top five futurists inventing tomorrow, today.”

Sridhar serves on the board of directors for C3.ai, Inc., the external advisory board at Caltech’s Resnick Sustainability Institute, and the board of visitors at the Grainger College of Engineering at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. An early pioneer in green tech, he has also served on many technical committees, panels and advisory boards and has several publications and patents. 

He holds degrees in mechanical engineering and nuclear engineering from the University of Madras (now called NIT, Trichy), India, and the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.