MIT World Speakers

Rev. Dr. Ray Hammond '75

Ray Hammond is a physician and founding pastor of Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Boston. He is chair and co-founder of the Ten Point Coalition, an ecumenical group of clergy and lay leaders working to prevent violence and mobilize the Greater Boston community on behalf of at-risk youth.

Hammond also serves as executive director of Bethel's Generation Excel program; as chair of the Boston Foundation; and as vice president for membership of the Boy Scouts Minuteman Council in Boston. He is an executive committee member of the Black Ministerial Alliance and serves as a trustee of Catholic Charities of Boston, of the United Way of Massachusetts Bay and of the Yawkey Foundation, among other organizations.

Hammond received his B.A. from Harvard College. He was a graduate of the first cohort of the Joint Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, receiving his M.D. from Harvard Medical School. After completing his surgical residency at New England Deaconess Hospital in Boston, he joined the emergency medicine staff at Cape Cod Hospital.

Hammond has written widely on topics including academic achievement, diversity and the ethics of reproductive technology, and has received numerous honors including honorary doctorates from Boston University, Lesley College and Northeastern University.

He devoted himself to the ministry in 1976 and received his M.A. in religion, concentrating on Christian and medical ethics, from Harvard University in 1982.