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This is a partially sorted list of notable persons who have had ties to Columbia University.
Nobel Laureates: Alumni or Alumni/Faculty
| 1971 |
Simon S. Kuznets |
(B.S., 1923; M.A., 1924; Ph.D., 1926) |
| 1972 |
Kenneth J. Arrow |
(M.A., 1941; Ph.D., 1951) |
| 1976 |
Milton Friedman |
(Ph.D., 1946; faculty member, 1964 to 1965) |
| 1993 |
Robert W. Fogel |
(M.A., 1960) |
| 1996 |
William S. Vickrey |
(M.A., 1937; Ph.D., 1948; faculty member, 1946 to 1996) |
| 1997 |
Robert C. Merton |
(B.S., 1966) |
| 1923 |
Robert A. Millikan |
(Ph.D., 1895) |
| 1944 |
I.I. Rabi |
(Ph.D., 1927; faculty member, 1929 to 1988) |
| 1965 |
Julian S. Schwinger |
(B.A., 1936; Ph.D., 1939) |
| 1972 |
Leon N. Cooper |
(B.A., 1951; M.A., 1953; Ph.D., 1954) |
| 1975 |
James Rainwater |
(M.A., 1941; Ph.D., 1946; faculty member, 1939 to 1986) |
| 1978 |
Arno A. Penzias |
(M.A., 1958; Ph.D., 1962) |
| 1980 |
Val L. Fitch |
(Ph.D., 1954; faculty member, 1953 to 1954) |
| 1988 |
Leon M. Lederman |
(M.A., 1948; Ph.D., 1951; faculty member, 1951 to 1989) |
| 1988 |
Melvin Schwartz |
(B.A., 1953; Ph.D., 1958; faculty member, 1958 to 1966, 1991 to present)
|
| 1989 |
Norman F. Ramsey |
(B.A., 1935; Ph.D., 1940; faculty member, 1941 to 1947) |
| 1995 |
Martin L. Perl |
(Ph.D., 1955) |
| 1946 |
Hermann J. Muller |
(B.A., 1910; M.A., 1911; Ph.D., 1916; faculty member, 1918 to 1920)
|
| 1950 |
Edward C. Kendall |
(B.S., 1908; M.A., 1909; Ph.D., 1910) |
| 1956 |
Dickinson W. Richards |
(M.A., 1922; M.D., 1923; faculty member, 1925 to 1973) |
| 1958 |
Joshua Lederberg |
(B.A., 1944; faculty member, 1990 to 1999) |
| 1964 |
Konrad E. Bloch |
(Ph.D., 1938; faculty member, 1938 to 1946, 1966) |
| 1967 |
George Wald |
(M.A., 1928) |
| 1976 |
Baruch S. Blumberg |
(M.D., 1951) |
| 1980 |
Baruj Benacerraf |
(B.S., 1942) |
| 1989 |
Harold E. Varmus |
(M.D., 1966) |
| 1998 |
Louis J. Ignarro |
(B.S., 1962) |
| 2004 |
Richard Axel |
(A.B., 1967; faculty member, 1978 to present) |
Nobel Laureates: Faculty, Research Fellows, Others
| 1938 |
Enrico Fermi |
(faculty member, 1939 to 1945) |
| 1949 |
Hideki Yukawa |
(faculty member, 1949 to 1954) |
| 1955 |
Polykarp Kusch |
(faculty member, 1937 to 1972) |
| 1955 |
Willis E. Lamb |
(faculty member, 1938 to 1952, 1960 to 1961) |
| 1957 |
Tsung Dao Lee |
(faculty member, 1953 to present) |
| 1963 |
Maria Goeppert Mayer |
(faculty member, 1940 to 1946) |
| 1964 |
Charles H. Townes |
(faculty member, 1948 to 1961) |
| 1975 |
Aage Bohr |
(faculty member, 1949 to 1950) |
| 1976 |
Samuel C.C. Ting |
(faculty member, 1964 to 1967) |
| 1979 |
Steven Weinberg |
(faculty member, 1957 to 1959) |
| 1981 |
Arthur L. Schawlow |
(faculty member, 1949 to 1951, 1960) |
| 1984 |
Carlo Rubbia |
(research fellow at Nevis, 1958 to 1960) |
| 1988 |
Jack Steinberger |
(faculty member, 1950 to 1970, 1985 to 1986, 1988 to 1998) |
| 1998 |
Horst L. Stormer |
(faculty member, 1998 to present) |
Notable Alumni
Politics, military, and law
- Madeleine Albright - President Clinton's Secretary of State
- Bhimrao Ambedkar - (MA 1915, PhD 1928, LLD 1952 (hon.)) A founding father of modern India, architect of nation's constitution
- Hafizullah Amin - the second President of Afghanistan
- Marek Belka - Prime Minister of Poland since March 2004
- Boutros Boutros-Ghali - (Fulbright Research Scholar, 1954-1955) Secretary-General of the United Nations
- Harold Brown - Secretary of Defense under the Carter Administration
- Pat Buchanan (Journalism) - Conservative commentator, speechwriter, senior advisor to three U.S. presidents
- Arthur Frank Burns - (B.A. 1925, M.A. 1925, Ph.D. 1934) Austrian-born U.S. economist, Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers (1953-1956), Chairman of the Federal Reserve System (1970-1978), Ambassador to Bonn (1981-1985)
- Benjamin Cardozo - Chief Justice of US Supreme Court
- DeWitt Clinton - Former governor of New York State, former mayor of New York City, main proponent of the Erie Canal
- Colgate Darden - Governor of Virginia, president of the University of Virginia
- Gray Davis - (Law) Former Governor of California
- Thomas E. Dewey - (Law 1925) Governor of New York (1943-1955)
- William Donovan (Wild Bill) - Wartime head of the OSS (predecessor to the CIA)
- William O. Douglas - US Supreme Court justice
- Ruth Bader Ginsburg - (Law) Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court
- Dore Gold - (B.A. 1975, M.A. 1976, Ph.D. 1984) U.S.-born Israeli diplomat, former Ambassador to the United Nations (1997-1999), President of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs
- Jack Greenberg - (B.A. 1945, LL.B. 1948) litigator of Brown v. Board of Education, Professor at Columbia Law School
- Alan Greenspan - Federal Reserve Bank Chairman, studied for a PhD in economics
- Judd Gregg - Republican Senator fron New Hampshire (2005)
- Alexander Hamilton - Founding father, co-author of The Federalist Papers
- John D. Hawke, Jr - US Treasury, Comptroller of the Currency
- Jim Hightower - Progressive activist
- Johan Jørgen Holst - (B.A. 1960) Norwegian Foreign Minister, The Oslo Accord of 1994 between Israel and the Palestinians
- Charles Evans Hughes - US Supreme Court Justice
- Jacob Javits - Republican Senator from New York (1957-1981)
- John Jay - Founding Father, First Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, political theorist
- Thomas Kean - Governor of New Jersey (1982-1990)
- Jeane Kirkpatrick - (Ph.D. 1968, political science) US ambassador to UN under Reagan
- Wellington V. Koo - Chinese diplomat
- Frank Lautenberg - Democratic Senator from New Jersey (2005)
- John Lindsay - Mayor of New York City (1966-1973)
- Robert Livingston - Founding Father, drafter of the Declaration of Independence, U.S. Minister to France, negotiator of the Louisiana Purchase
- Seth Low - University president, Mayor of New York City
- Li Lu - Law/Business, leader of the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989
- James McGreevey - (B.A. 1978) Governor of New Jersey (2002-2004)
- John McLaughlin - Political commentator
- James Meredith - American civil rights movement figure
- Gouverneur Morris - Founding father, creator of the Manhattan street grid system, a builder of the Erie canal
- Robert Moses - Leader of mid-century urban "renewal," who re-shaped New York City
- Constance Baker Motley - First African-American woman federal court judge, NYS Senator, Manhattan Borough president
- Barack Obama - (B.A. 1983) Democratic Senator from Illinois (2005), first African-American editor of the Harvard Law Review
- George Pataki - (Law 1970) Governor of New York (1995-present)
- Mario Laserna Pinzón - (B.A. 1948) Colombian statesman and educator; founder, Universidad de los Andes
- Norman Podhoretz - Distinguished editor of Commentary Magazine, a founder of Neoconservatism
- Stanley Forman Reed - US Supreme Court justice
- William Remington - Spy for the Soviet Union
- Hyman G. Rickover - USN Admiral, father of the US nuclear submarine fleet
- Franklin Delano Roosevelt - (Law) 32nd President of the United States
- Theodore Roosevelt - (Law) 26th President of the United States, Nobel Peace Prize recipient
- Charles F.C. Ruff - (Law) Washington lawyer, represented Anita Hill (vs. Clarence Thomas) and Bill Clinton (impeachment)
- Mikhail Saakashvili - (Law 1994) President of the Democratic Republic of Georgia (2004-present)
- Thomas Sowell - African-American economist and author
- Ben Stein - (B.A. 1966) Actor, conservative commentator
- George Stephanopoulos - (B.A. 1982) Senior advisor to Bill Clinton, television anchor
- Harlan Fiske Stone - US Supreme Court Justice
- Telford Taylor - chief US prosecutor at Nuremberg Trials
- George Tenet - (M.A.) Director of Central Intelligence Agency (1997-2004)
- Daniel D. Tompkins - 6th Vice President of the United States
- Shao-yi Tong - First Prime Minister of the Republic of China
Business
- John Jacob Astor III - 19th century real estate baron
- Wolfgang Bernhard - former COO of Daimler Chrysler, Chairman of Volkswagen
- Donald Clifford Brace - (CC 1904) Co-Founder of Harcourt Brace
- Warren Buffett - (Economics) Investor, president of Berkshire Hathaway
- Bennett Cerf - Founder of Random House
- Jason Epstein - Editorial director at Random House
- Stephen Friedman - Chairman of Goldman Sachs, National Economic Council director
- Mario Gabelli - investor
- Michael Gould - CEO of Bloomingdale's
- Larry Grossman - former CEO of PBS and NBC
- Armand Hammer - President, Occidental Petroleum, noted internationalist
- Alfred Harcourt - (CC 1904) - Co-Founder of Harcourt Brace
- Herman Hollerith - (Engineer of Mines 1879, Ph.D. 1890)- founder of the Tabulating Machine Company, a predecessor to IBM
- Werner Kluge - Founder of Metromedia
- Alfred A. Knopf - (CC 1912) Founder of Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. Publishers
- Robert Kraft - Owner of New England Patriots
- Henry Kravis - (MBA 1969) Investment banker who invented the leveraged buyout
- Rochelle Lazarus - CEO of Ogilvy and Mather
- Randolph Lerner - CEO of MBNA Bank, and owner of Cleveland Browns
- Frank Lorenzo - (CC 1961) corporate raider
- John R. MacArthur - (CC 1917) President and publisher of Harper's, the oldest continuously published monthly magazine in the country
- George Macy - Founder of Macy's Department Stores
- Philip Milstein - CEO of Emigrant Savings Bank
- Eric Ober - Former President of CBS News division, and Food Network
- Ben Rosen - Founder of Compaq
- Samuel Rosen - Chairman of 20th Century Fox
- Robert Rosencrans - (CC 1949) formed the USA Network, inducted into the Cable Television Hall of Fame in 2000.
- Max Lincoln Schuster - (CC 1919) Co-Founder of Simon & Schuster
- David O. Selznick - Legendary movie producer
- Robert Shaye - CEO of New Line Cinema
- Richard L. Simon - Co-Founder of Simon & Schuster
- Richard Vault - former president of NBC News division, former senior vice-president of ABC News
- S. Robson Walton - Chairman of the Board, Wal-Mart
Arts and literature
- John Ashbery - Poet
- Isaac Asimov - (CC 1939, Ph.D. 1948) Science fiction author, I, Robot
- Paul Auster - (CC 1969) Postmodern author, The New York Trilogy
- Béla Bartók - Composer, pianist, and early scholar in ethnomusicology
- James Blish - Science fiction author
- Andrew Delbanco - English professor, named Best Cultural Critic by Time Magazine
- Peter Eisenmann - (MA) Architect
- Walter Farley - (CC 1941) Author, The Black Stallion
- Paul Gallico - Author, The Snow Goose, The Poseidon Adventure, The Silent Miaow
- Allen Ginsberg - (CCe 1948) Beat Generation poet
- Langston Hughes - African-American writer and poet
- Joseph Heller - Author, Catch-22
- Kentaro Kaji - Soi-disant "marshal" of the postmodern monster in conceptualist aesthetics
- Jack Kerouac - (CC 1940-1942; dropped out) Founder of the Beat Generation movement; author, On the Road
- Carson McCullers - Author, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter
- Isamu Noguchi - Sculptor
- J.D. Salinger - Author, The Catcher in the Rye
- Upton Sinclair - Populist author, The Jungle; presidential candidate
- Robert A. M. Stern - Postmodern architect
- Mark Van Doren - Pulitzer Prize-winning poet
- Eric Van Lustbader - Author, The Ninja
- Sophie Wilkins - Editor at Alfred A. Knopf and translator
- Herman Wouk - Pulitzer Prize-winning author, War and Remembrance
- Roger Zelazny - Science fiction author
- Katherine Zien - Jewish-American writer and modern drama scholar
- Emanuel Ax - (CC 1970) - Pianist, won Avery Fisher prize at age 30, won three Grammy Awards along with cellist Yo-Yo Ma; also awarded the John Jay award by the University
- Kathryn Bigelow - Director, Strange Days
- Sorrell Booke - (CC 1949)- Actor, best known as "Boss Hogg" on the weekly series Dukes of Hazzard
- Sidney Buchman - (CC 1923) - screenwriter, won an Academy Award for writing for Here Comes Mister Jordan.
- James Cagney - (CC 1922) - Actor, White Heat and Yankee Doodle Dandy
- Vanessa Carlton - Singer, songwriter
- Brian Dennehy - (CC 1960) - Actor
- Brian DePalma - Movie director, Carrie and The Untouchables
- I.A.L. Diamond - (CC 1941) Co-winner of an Academy Award for writing for The Apartment
- Matthew Fox - Actor, Lost, Party of Five
- Dan Futterman - Actor, The Birdcage, Judging Amy
- Art Garfunkel - (CC 1965) - Of Simon and Garfunkel
- Jake Gyllenhaal - Actor, Donnie Darko, The Good Girl
- Maggie Gyllenhaal - Actress, Secretary
- Oscar Hammerstein II - Lyricist and librettist of such musicals as the Pulitzer Prize-winning Oklahoma!, The King and I and The Sound of Music, collaborator with Richard Rodgers
- Utada Hikaru - Japanese pop singer (did not graduate)
- Lauryn Hill - R&B singer, one-time Fugees frontwoman (only attended first year)
- Famke Janssen - actress and Mac user [1]
- Jean Kelly - Actress
- Alicia Keys - Singer, composer
- Tony Kushner - Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright, Angels in America
- William Ludwig - (CC 1932) Screenwriter, co-winner of an Academy Award in 1955 for Interrupted Melody, founder of the Screen Writers Guild (known now as the Writers Guild of America)
- Herman J. Mankiewicz - (CC 1917) Won an Academy Award for co-writing Citizen Kane; older brother of Joseph L. Mankiewicz
- Joseph L. Mankiewicz - (CC 1928) won four Academy Awards, including Academy Award for Best Director and writing. Younger brother of Herman J. Mankiewicz.
- Terrence McNally - (CC 1960) Dramatist, winner of four Tony Awards, an Emmy, a Pulitzer Prize, and two Guggenheim Fellowships
- Rachel Nichols - Actress, model
- Anna Paquin - Academy Award-winning actress, The Piano and X-Men
- Amanda Peet - Actress, The Whole Nine Yards
- Richard Rodgers - Composer of musicals including the Pulitzer Prize-winning Oklahoma!, The King and I and The Sound of Music, collaborator with Oscar Hammerstein
- Telly Savalas - Actor
- George Segal - (CC 1955) Actor, Just Shoot Me
- Julia Stiles - Actress, Save the Last Dance, 10 Things I Hate About You
Journalism
- R.W. Apple - (GS, 1961) Senior Correspondent, Associate Editor, former Washington Bureau chief, The New York Times
- Richard L. Berke - Washington editor, New York Times
- Max Frankel - Executive editor, New York Times, Pulitzer Prize winner
- Joseph Lelyveld - Executive editor, New York Times
- Robert Lipsyte - (CC 1957) winner of an Emmy Award in 1990, host of The Eleventh Hour on PBS, correspondent for The New York Times and ABC Nightly News
- Claire Shipman - (CC 1986) Senior National Correspondent for ABC, winner of an Emmy Award for her CNN coverage of the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, winner of the 1991 Peabody Award
- Richard Smith - CEO of Newsweek
Science and technology
Astronauts
Academics and history
Sports
- Roone Arledge - Pioneer of sports and news broadcasting with ABC, "Monday Night Football", "20/20", etc.
- José Raúl Capablanca - World Chess Champion
- Annie Duke - professional poker player
- Amelia Earhart - (GS) Aviator
- Lou Gehrig - (CC 1921–1923) Baseball player for the New York Yankees, enshrined in the Baseball Hall of Fame, suffered from Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (now commonly known as "Lou Gehrig's Disease")
- Sandy Koufax - (GS) Baseball Hall of Fame pitcher
- Sid Luckman - American football quarterback, enshrinee of the Pro Football Hall of Fame
- Paul Robeson - American football All-American, attorney, musician, activist
- David Stern - NBA Commissioner
- Marcellus Wiley - American football player, Pro-Bowl defensive end, now with the Dallas Cowboys
Notable faculty
- Alfred Aho - Computer Science professor, the "A" in the programming language AWK.
- Charles Beard - Historian and co-author of The Development of Modern Europe
- Jagdish Bhagwati - Economics professor, author of In Defense of Globalization
- Lee Bollinger - University President/law professor, First Amendment scholar, Affirmative Action advocate
- Alan Brinkley - Professor of American history and University Provost; son of legendary newscaster David Brinkley
- Zbigniew Brzezinski - National Security Advisor under the Carter Administration, taught Foreign Affairs
- Richard Bulliet - History professor and Middle East scholar, author of Kicked to Death by a Camel
- Charles Frederick Chandler - Pioneering chemist, president of the New York Metropolitan Board of Health, inventor of the flush toilet
- William Theodore De Bary - Famous scholar and translator of East Asia, particularly the classical Chinese canon
- John Dewey - Former Philosophy professor
- Theodosius Dobzhansky - Researcher in population genetics
- Dwight Eisenhower - Supreme Commander, Allied Expeditionary Force, President of Columbia University, 34th President of the United States
- William Maurice Ewing - Earth scientist and pioneer
- Enrico Fermi - Manhattan Project member, founder of Fermilab, Nobel laureate
- Milos Forman - Film director, One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest, Amadeus, The People vs. Larry Flynt
- Erich Fromm - Noted pyschologist
- Fred W. Friendly - Pioneering CBS News producer and distinguished media scholar
- Benjamin Graham - Father of value investing, mentor of Warren Buffet
- Bradford Garton- Composer
- Brian Greene - Mathematics and Physics professor, researcher and popular author in String Theory
- Richard Hofstadter - Noted historian
- Annette Insdorf - Film studies professor, noted film historian.
- Kenneth T. Jackson - Preeminent historian of New York City
- Eric Kandel - Neuroscientist, 2000 Nobel laureate
- Kenneth Koch - Poet
- Tsung Dao Lee - Physics professor, Nobel laureate
- Konrad Lorenz - Psychology professor, Nobel laureate (Physiology or Medicine, 1973)
- John Anthony McGuckin - Professor of Byzantine Christian Studies
- Eben Moglen - Law and the Internet Society, General Counsel of FSF
- Robert Mundell - Economics professor, 1999 Nobel laureate in Economics
- Mira Nair - Director of Monsoon Wedding, film studies professor
- Richard Pena - Head of the New York Film Festival, film studies professor
- Lorenzo da Ponte - professor of Italian language and literature; librettist to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
- Charles Lane Poor - Astronomer
- Mary Robinson - Former President of Ireland; former U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights
- Jeffrey Sachs - Head of the United Nations Millenium Project to end poverty
- Edward Said - Former English professor, Palestinian activist, author of Orientalism, widely considered founder of Postcolonial studies
- Andrew Sarris - Film Studies professor and famous auteur theorist
- Simon Schama - History Professor
- James Schamus - Film Studies professor, co-president of Focus Features, screenwriter and producer
- Gayatri C. Spivak - English professor
- Charles Van Doren - English professor, involved in deception on TV quiz show "Twenty-One"
- Kenneth Waltz - Political Science professor and noted neorealism scribe
- Chien-Shiung Wu - Physics professor, first woman to head the American Physical Society
See also
External links
