Madison Pizzuti has been selected as the MSU College of Education commencement speaker. Pizzuti, who will graduate with a bachelor’s in Kinesiology, will speak at a joint baccalaureate graduation ceremony at the Breslin Student & Events Center on December 13, 2025.
Pizzuti is the president of Exercise is Medicine, a registered student organization dedicated to student health and wellness. The aspiring physical therapist is also a physical activity mentor, helping to promote active lifestyles with fellow MSU students.
One of her defining experiences while at MSU was an education abroad trip to Ghana in summer 2025. The trip had Pizzuti conducting field research on menstrual hygiene management among Ghanian schoolgirls and collaborating with educators and health leaders to assess barriers in quality menstrual health and in obtaining resources. Throughout the trip, Pizzuti completed 120 hours of international research. She has since presented her findings at the MSU Global Learning Conference and the MSU Mid-SURE Research Symposium.
“When I first came to Michigan State University, I thought success meant achievement, the grades, the resume lines, the goals neatly checked off. But along the way, MSU taught me something much deeper: that real success comes from growth ... the kind that challenges you, humbles you, and changes the way you see the world,” Pizzuti plans to say at the commencement ceremony. “For me, that growth came thousands of miles away from East Lansing, in Ghana, West Africa.”
Among her varied experiences while at MSU, Pizzuti has served as an MSU student food bank volunteer, an adaptive physical activity coach and a physical therapy volunteer at Henry Ford Health, among a number of other volunteer commitments.
Pizzuti plans to attend physical therapy school in Fall 2026 to pursue further study, although she has not selected a preferred location yet. (She humbly admits to having been accepted into a few institutions already.)
“What we learn here at MSU is meant to reach beyond the classroom,” Pizzuti will also say during her commencement speech. “Being a Spartan ... [is] about how we show up in the world, how we face challenges with grit, how we use knowledge with empathy and how we believe, no matter where life takes us, that we can make a difference.”
To learn more about MSU commencement, or to view livestreams of the ceremonies, visit commencement.msu.edu.