Elizabeth Turk SC ’83 was selected by Scripps seniors and members of the Office of the President to be Scripps’s 2011 Commencement Speaker. Scripps President Lori Bettison-Varga announced her selection in an e-mail to Scripps students on March 7.

According to Claire Bridge, Assistant to the President, the office of the president is involved in “helping coordinate the commencement,” but worked closely with Scripps seniors Idalia Gabrielow and Jill Mahoney, who were more involved in the actual selection of the speaker.

Turk was one of 22 people who received a MacArthur Fellowship in 2010 for her work in marble sculpture. The foundation’s website applauds her for “pushing the physical limits of her material and reviving a classical medium for contemporary artistic exploration,” in its biography of Turk.

Turk graduated from Scripps with a B.A. in International Relations. After graduating, she attended the Rineheart School of Sculpture at the Maryland Institute, where she received an M.F.A. in 1994.

Several of Turk’s sketches are part of the Ruth Chandler Williamson Gallery’s collection for the 2003 exhibit “Matter and the Matrix.”