McCreary, Napoli: 2026 COM Convocation Speakers

Colleen McCreary, a C-suite executive for scaling technology companies, and Philip Napoli, a researcher in the field of media and democracy, will serve as speakers at the Boston University College of Communication convocation ceremonies for 2026 graduates this May.

McCreary (COM’95) is the chief people officer for Confluent, a data streaming infrastructure company in Palo Alto, California, and chair of the Dean’s Advisory Board for the College of Communication.

She will address undergraduate students at the undergraduate convocation ceremony at 9 am, Friday, May 15, at Agannis Arena, 925 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston University.

With more than 20 years of experience in human resources, operations, recruiting, and mergers and acquisitions, McCreary brings a wealth of expertise in managing people operations to support rapid-growth technology companies. She has held executive team leadership roles through two IPOs and three company acquisitions, and served as a top people and communication executive for Ribbit Capital, Credit Karma, Vevo, Zynga and Electronic Arts. McCreary was a technical adviser for HBO’s Silicon Valley, and inspired the character Tracy.

She holds a Bachelor of Science in mass communication and public relations from Boston University’s College of Communication, and a Master of Science in higher and adult education from Columbia University.

Napoli (COM’94) is the James R. Shepley Distinguished Professor of Public Policy at Duke University, where he researches media regulation and democracy, and is the director of the DeWitt Wallace Center for Media and Democracy.

He will address graduate students at the graduate convocation ceremony at 3 pm, Friday, May 15, at Walter Brown Arena, 285 Babcock Street, Boston University.

Napoli is the author of four books: Foundations of Communications Policy: Principles and Process in the Regulation of Electronic Media (Hampton Press, 2001); Audience Economics: Media Institutions and the Audience Marketplace (Columbia University Press, 2003); Audience Evolution: New Technologies and the Transformation of Media Audiences (Columbia University Press, 2011), and Social Media and the Public Interest: Media Regulation in the Disinformation Age (Columbia University, 2019). He is also the editor of Media Diversity and Localism: Meaning and Metrics (Routledge, 2007) and co-editor with Minna Aslama of Communications Research in Action: Scholar-Activist Collaborations for a Democratic Public Sphere (Fordham University Press, 2011).

He holds Bachelor of Arts degrees in both rhetoric and film from University of California, Berkeley, a Master of Science in communication from Boston University’s College of Communication, and a PhD in communication from Northwestern University.