Nobel prize winner to address N.C. State grads

Dr. Rajendra K. Pachauri, a graduate of North Carolina State University and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, will be the school's commencement speaker for December graduates, the university announced Tuesday.

Pachauri was chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the group to share the Nobel Prize with former Vice President Al Gore in 2007.

He and two others -- Dr. Jack Ward Thomas, former head of the U.S. Forest Service and career conservationist, and G. Smedes York, Raleigh’s former mayor and N.C. State alumnus -- will received honorary degrees at the Dec. 19 ceremony.

Pachauri is currently director-general of The Energy and Resources Institute and director of the Yale Climate and Energy Institute. He has taught at N.C. State, the Administrative Staff College of India, West Virginia University and Yale University.