UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television Announces 2026 Commencement Speakers: Pixar Executive Vice President Jonas Rivera to Deliver Keynote; Award-Winning Filmmaker and TFT Alumna Grace Lee (MFA ’02) to Deliver Alumni Address

UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television (TFT) announces its two distinguished speakers for the 2026 Commencement Ceremony: Jonas Rivera, Executive Vice President of Production at Pixar Animation Studios, will deliver the keynote address, and Grace Lee (TFT MFA ’02), an award-winning independent filmmaker and two-time Peabody Award winner, will deliver an alumni address. The ceremony will take place at UCLA’s Royce Hall on Friday, June 12 at 2:00 p.m. – 3:50 p.m. during UCLA’s commencement weekend.

The ceremony will celebrate approximately 175 graduates receiving bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees across UCLA TFT’s programs in theater, film, television, and digital media. The School’s Dean and Distinguished Professor Celine Parreñas Shimizu will preside over the event.

“We are honored to welcome both Jonas Rivera as our 2026 commencement speaker and alumna Grace Lee as our alumni speaker,” said Dean and Distinguished Professor Celine Parreñas Shimizu. “A multi Oscar-winning producer, Jonas personifies relentless forward progress in innovating our craft and with characteristic humility, shows us how to imagine and actualize a cinema of care for humanity that we strive to cultivate in every TFT student. From his early days as Pixar’s very first production intern on Toy Story to producing back-to-back Academy Award-winning films, his career embodies the highest achievements of storytelling. 

And in Grace Lee, our graduates will hear from one of our own — a UCLA TFT alumna who has spent her directing career using film and media as instruments of social transformation and impact, earning international recognition for work that is as courageous, as it is artistically visionary. A major voice in public media discourse, she recently convened independent filmmakers and the Viewers Like Us team at TFT as they address the crisis in public media  today. 

Together, Jonas Rivera and Grace Lee represent the full breadth of what a TFT education makes possible for our students.”

Jonas Rivera is one of the most acclaimed producers in the history of animated film. Rivera joined Pixar Animation Studios in 1994 as the studio’s first and only production intern, working on the groundbreaking Toy Story. He rose through the ranks over the course of nearly every subsequent Pixar feature — serving as art department coordinator on A Bug’s Life, production manager on Cars, and art department manager on Monsters, Inc. — before producing the beloved 2009 film Up, which earned a nomination for the Academy Award® for Best Picture, only the second animated film in history to receive that honor. He went on to produce Inside Out (2015), which won the Academy Award® for Best Animated Feature and was nominated for Best Original Screenplay, and Toy Story 4 (2019), which also claimed the Academy Award® for Best Animated Feature. The Producers Guild of America recognized Rivera with its Producer of the Year in Animated Features award for all three films. In his current role as Executive Vice President, Production, Rivera oversees all feature film and streaming production at the studio. A Bay Area native who grew up in Castro Valley, Rivera holds a degree in film production from San Francisco State University.

Jonas Rivera,
Executive Vice President of Production
Pixar Animation Studios

Grace Lee (UCLA TFT MFA ’02) is an award-winning independent filmmaker working at the intersection of storytelling, activism, and community. Her documentary American Revolutionary: The Evolution of Grace Lee Boggs, which aired on PBS, earned a Peabody Award, as did Asian Americans, the acclaimed documentary series she helmed for PBS. Her most recent film, Forever We Are Young — an exploration of the passionate global fandom surrounding K-pop superstars BTS — was released in cinemas worldwide in 2025. Lee also directed and produced And She Could Be Next, a two-part POV series chronicling women of color transforming U.S. politics as candidates and organizers. Additional directing credits include the feature films Janeane from Des Moines and American Zombie, as well as K-TOWN ’92, a web-based documentary project examining the 1992 Los Angeles civil unrest. Lee is host and executive producer of Viewers Like Us, a podcast about restoring the public to public media, now in its second season. Her films have screened at festivals worldwide including Toronto International Film Festival, Sundance, SXSW, CPH:Dox, and Busan, and have earned Emmy and NAACP Image Award nominations alongside multiple festival audience awards. A co-founder of the Asian American Documentary Network (A-Doc), Lee is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and has been supported by the United States Artist Fellowship, the Ford Foundation, ITVS, and the Sundance Institute among others.

Grace Lee,
Independent filmmaker and two-time Peabody Award winner