Kerry Washington named Harvard's Hasty Pudding Woman of the Year

Actress Kerry Washington is going to Harvard to collect her pudding pot.

Kerry had been named Woman of the Year by Harvard University’s Hasty Pudding Theatricals society and will be celebrated with a comedy roast and parade through Harvard Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on Thursday January 28.

Kerry is the first black woman to headline a network TV drama since 1974 as crisis management specialist Olivia Pope on the hit show Scandal.

She has earned Golden Globe, Emmy and Screen Actors Guild nominations as well as an NAACP Image Award for best actress.

Kerry was selected because she’s a “talented and socially engaged film, TV and stage actress who keeps breaking barriers in Hollywood”.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt has picked up Man of the Year from the society for 2016.

Kerry will be the latest in a stellar line of women chosen by the Hasty Pudding, the US’s oldest collegiate theatrical organisation, which includes everyone from Katharine Hepburn to Sarah Jessica Parker.

Last year the title was awarded to Parks and Recreation actress Amy Poehler, while the male equivalent went to Chris Pratt.

Here are some of their famous winners.