Claire Goudreau, Mar 31
Senior Arionna Bell has been selected as Johns Hopkins University’s 2026 student Commencement speaker. The universitywide ceremony will be held Thursday, May 21, at Homewood Field, during which Bell will receive a bachelor’s degree in molecular and cellular biology from the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences.
Bell, who is from Lexington, South Carolina, is a highly active member of the Johns Hopkins community. She’s an actor and stage manager for the Dunbar Baldwin Hughes Theater Company, a group that showcases Black experiences through performance. She served as student co-director of Hopkins Votes, a nonpartisan pro-voting initiative, to increase student turnout for the 2024 elections. She’s a resident advisor for first-year students, and a clinical leader for the Violet Project, a platform created by a Johns Hopkins doctor to help young people take control of their sexual and reproductive health. Bell is also a member of the Lopez-Bertoni lab, where she contributes to brain cancer research. Outside of Hopkins, she works as an intern for the Baltimore City Council, conducting policy research for a new bill that would strengthen renters’ rights.
Bell was voted student Commencement speaker after asking her classmates a simple question: “Why not?”
“It’s a question that has defined my Hopkins experience,” she says. “Why not introduce myself to someone new? Why not explore beyond campus? Why not ask questions that are bigger than me? … I want to urge other students to keep pursuing, keep doing, keep asking the question ‘why not,’ because that’s all we’ve been doing as Hopkins students.”
Although Bell says she feels humbled to be selected, her initial reaction was closer to shock.
“I don’t even think I read the email fully. I think all I saw was ‘Dear Arionna Bell, Congratulations,'” she says. “I screamed and I called my mom. And then she screamed. And then I called my dad. And then he screamed. And it was just so much screaming, but it was such a beautiful moment.”
For Bell, receiving that “congratulations” email was a full-circle experience.
“I still remember the 17-year-old girl who was nervously looking at the admissions portal on Dec. 10, waiting to see if she got accepted to Hopkins,” she says. “That was the moment that splashed in my head.”
After graduation and before heading off to medical school, Bell will take a bridge year to serve as a community health fellow in rural Alabama with Project Horseshoe Farm. She hopes to become a neonatal surgeon.
For more information about Johns Hopkins University Commencement, including details on how to attend, visit the official Commencement website.
Source: https://hub.jhu.edu/2026/03/31/student-commencement-speaker-2026-arionna-bell/
