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This is a partially sorted list of notable persons who have had ties to Columbia University.
Nobel Laureates
Alumni
The following table lists Nobel laureates who are alumni. Some alumni may have served on the faculty or staff of the university.
| 1932 |
Irving Langmuir |
(metallurgical engineering degree, 1903; M.A., 1906) |
| 1946 |
John H. Northrop |
(B.S., 1912; M.A., 1913; Ph.D., 1915) |
| 1972 |
William H. Stein |
(Ph.D., 1938) |
| 1981 |
Roald Hoffmann |
(B.A., 1958) |
| 1985 |
Herbert A. Hauptman |
(M.A., 1939) |
| 2001 |
William S. Knowles |
(Ph.D., 1942) |
| 2005 |
Robert H. Grubbs |
(Ph.D., 1968) |
| 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) |
Faculty, Research Fellows, Others
The following table lists Nobel laureates who have been in service to the university.
| 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—UN Ambassador for President Clinton's first term (1993-1997), Secretary of State for his second term (1997-2001)
- 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
- Marion Davis Berdecio—Accused Soviet spy named in Venona list of suspected subversives
- 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
- Whittaker Chambers—Accused Soviet spy in the Ware group
- DeWitt Clinton—Governor of New York State, Mayor of New York City, main proponent of the Erie Canal
- Morris Cohen—Soviet spy, subject of Hugh Whitemore's drama for stage and TV "Pack of Lies"
- Judith Coplon—(B.A. 1943) Soviet spy in the U.S. Justice Department,
- Colgate Darden—Governor of Virginia, president of the University of Virginia
- Gray Davis—(Law) 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—U.S. Supreme Court justice
- Ruth Bader Ginsburg—(Law) Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court
- Bela Gold—economist on Venona list of suspected Soviet subversives who operated in the U.S.
- 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—Former Federal Reserve Bank Chairman, studied for a PhD in economics
- Judd Gregg—Republican Senator from 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
- David Kaczynski—Death penalty opponent
- Thomas Kean—Governor of New Jersey (1982-1990), President of Drew University, Chairman of controversial 9/11 Commission
- Jeane Kirkpatrick—(Ph.D. 1968, political science) US ambassador to UN under Reagan
- Wellington Koo—Chinese diplomat
- Frank Lautenberg—Democratic Senator from New Jersey (2005)
- Irving Lewis "Scooter" Libby—(J.D. 1975) novelist, indicted ex-chief of staff for Vice President Dick Cheney and signatory to controversial manifesto Rebuilding America's Defenses (2000) of the Project for the New American Century
- 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, host of The McLaughlin Group on PBS
- 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—Controversial leader of mid-century urban "renewal" that re-shaped New York mainly through massively destructive highway projects
- 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)
- Victor Perlo—Soviet spy involved in Harold Ware spy ring and Perlo group as shown in Venona list of suspected subversives in the U.S.
- Mario Laserna Pinzón—(B.A. 1948) Colombian statesman and educator; founder, Universidad de los Andes
- Norman Podhoretz—editor of Commentary Magazine, a founder of Neoconservatism connected with the controversial Project for the New American Century
- Bernard Redmont—(M.S. 1939) Soviet spy
- Stanley Forman Reed—US Supreme Court justice
- William Remington—(M.A. 1940) convicted Soviet spy in the Sound and Myrna groups; killed in prison
- Hyman G. Rickover—USN Admiral, father of the US nuclear submarine fleet
- Franklin Delano Roosevelt—(Law) 32nd President of the United States
- James P. Rubin—(B.A. 1982, M.A. 1984) U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs (1997-2000)
- 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.) controversial director of Central Intelligence Agency (1997-2004) during the "intelligence failures" leading to 9/11 and the invasion of iraq
- Daniel D. Tompkins—6th Vice President of the United States
- Shao-yi Tong—First Prime Minister of the Republic of China
- Nathaniel Weyl—(B.S. 1931) operative in the Ware group of communist spies in the U.S. government
- Harry Dexter White—senior Treasury official for FDR, helped found World Bank/IMF, alleged in Venona list to be Soviet spy
- Enos Wicher—professor and Soviet spy named in Venona list of suspected subversives
- Flora Wovschin—Soviet spy in State Department named in Venona list of suspected subversives
- Dov Zakheim—Rabbi, Defense Department comptroller (2001-2004), ex-V.P. of System Planning Corp.,signatory to controversial manifesto Rebuilding America's Defenses (2000) of the Project for the New American Century
Business
- John Jacob Astor III—19th century real estate baron
- Wolfgang Bernhard—former COO of Daimler Chrysler, Chairman of Volkswagen
- Donald Clifford Brace—(B.A. 1904) Co-Founder of Harcourt Brace
- Warren Buffett—(M.A. 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—(B.A. 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
- John Kluge—Founder of Metromedia
- Alfred A. Knopf—(B.A. 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—(B.A. 1961) corporate raider
- John R. MacArthur—(B.A. 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—(B.A. 1949) formed the USA Network, inducted into the Cable Television Hall of Fame in 2000
- Edwin Schlossberg—(B.A. 1967, Ph.D. 1971) Founder of ESI Design (also its Principal Designer)
- Max Lincoln Schuster—(B.A. 1919) Co-Founder of Simon & Schuster
- David O. Selznick—Legendary movie producer
- Robert Shaye—(J.D. 1964) CEO of New Line Cinema
- Richard L. Simon—Co-Founder of Simon & Schuster
- Joe Tucci—(MBA) Chairman of the Board, EMC
- Richard Vault—former president of NBC News division, former senior vice-president of ABC News
- S. Robson Walton—(J.D. 1969) Chairman of the Board, Wal-Mart
Arts and literature
- John Ashbery—Poet
- Isaac Asimov—(B.A. 1939, Ph.D. 1948) Science fiction author, I, Robot
- Paul Auster—(B.A. 1969) Postmodern author, The New York Trilogy, Moon Palace (named after now-defunct Chinese restaurant near campus)
- Béla Bartók—Composer, pianist, and early scholar in ethnomusicology
- James Blish—Science fiction author
- Sidney Buchman—Academy award winning screenwriter
- John Corigliano—(B.A. 1959) American composer
- Andrew Delbanco—English professor, named Best Cultural Critic by Time Magazine
- Peter Eisenmann—(M.A.) Architect
- Walter Farley—(B.A. 1941) Author, The Black Stallion
- Richard Florida—author, "Rise of the Creative Class"
- Paul Gallico—Author, The Snow Goose, The Poseidon Adventure, The Silent Miaow
- Federico García Lorca—(1929-1930, dropped out) poet & playwright
- Allen Ginsberg—(B.A. 1949) Beat Generation poet
- Anthony Hecht—Pulitzer Prize-winning poet
- Joseph Heller—Author, Catch-22
- Siri Huvstedt—(M.A.) Poet & novelist. (Spouse of Paul Auster)
- Langston Hughes—African-American writer and poet
- Kentaro Kaji—Soi-disant "marshal" of the postmodern monster in conceptualist aesthetics
- Jack Kerouac—(College 1940-1942; dropped out) Founder of the Beat Generation movement; author, On the Road
- Edward MacDowell—American composer, professor of music
- 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—(B.A. 1960) Postmodern architect
- Mark Van Doren—Pulitzer Prize-winning poet
- Charles Van Doren—Author, professor, disgraced quiz show contestant
- 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
- Emanuel Ax—(B.A. 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—(B.A. 1949)—Actor, best known as "Boss Hogg" on the weekly series Dukes of Hazzard
- Sidney Buchman—(B.A. 1923)—screenwriter, won an Academy Award for writing for Here Comes Mister Jordan.
- James Cagney—(B.A. 1922)—Actor, White Heat and Yankee Doodle Dandy
- Vanessa Carlton—Singer, songwriter
- Peter Cincotti—Pianist, singer, songwriter, actor, model
- Brian Dennehy—(B.A. 1960)—Actor
- Brian DePalma—Movie director, Carrie and The Untouchables
- I.A.L. Diamond—(B.A. 1941) Co-winner of an Academy Award for writing for The Apartment
- Matthew Fox—(B.A. 1989) Actor, Lost, Party of Five
- Dan Futterman—(B.A. 1989) Actor, The Birdcage, Judging Amy
- Art Garfunkel—(B.A. 1965)—Of Simon and Garfunkel
- Joseph Gordon-Levitt—Actor, 3rd Rock from the Sun
- James Gunn—Film Director (Slither), Screenwriter (Dawn of the Dead, Scooby-Doo), and Novelist (The Toy Collector)
- Jake Gyllenhaal—Actor, Donnie Darko, The Good Girl (dropped out)
- 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
- Ed Harris – (dropped out) actor
- Utada Hikaru—Japanese pop singer (did not graduate)
- Lauryn Hill—R&B singer, one-time Fugees frontwoman (only attended first year)
- Famke Janssen—Actress
- Jean Kelly—Actress
- Alicia Keys—Singer, composer (briefly attended)
- Joel Krosnick—Cellist; member of the Juilliard String Quartet; chairman of Cello Department at Juilliard School
- Tony Kushner—(B.A.) Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright, Angels in America
- Al Lewis—(Ph.D. 1941)—Actor, The Munsters, basketball scout, New York gubernatorial candidate, restaurateur
- William Ludwig—(B.A. 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—(B.A. 1917) Won an Academy Award for co-writing Citizen Kane; older brother of Joseph L. Mankiewicz
- Joseph L. Mankiewicz—(B.A. 1928) won four Academy Awards, including Academy Award for Best Director and writing. Younger brother of Herman J. Mankiewicz.
- Terrence McNally—(B.A. 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
- George Segal—(B.A. 1955) Actor, Just Shoot Me
- Julia Stiles—(B.A. 2005) Actress, Save the Last Dance, Mona Lisa Smile
- Suzanne Vega—Singer and songwriter
- Charles Wuorinen—(B.A. 1961, M.A. 1963) American musician, pianist, and composer
Journalism
- R.W. Apple—(B.A. 1961) Senior Correspondent, Associate Editor, former Washington Bureau chief, New York Times
- Richard L. Berke—Washington editor, New York Times
- Max Frankel—(B.A.) Executive editor, New York Times, Pulitzer Prize winner
- Ken Hechtman—Maverick journalist jailed by the Afghanistan's Taliban government as a suspected spy in 2001
- Jay Irving—reporter, cartoonist, father of Clifford Irving who is best known for perpetrating hoax autobiography of Howard Hughes
- Leonard Koppett—Acclaimed sports writer, columnist, author
- Joseph Lelyveld—(M.A., Journalism) Executive editor, New York Times
- Robert Lipsyte—(B.A. 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
- Judith Miller—(B.A. 1969) Ex-correspondent, New York Times (1977-2005), reported now-discredited story of new Iraqi WMD threat in 2002
- John L. O'Sullivan—Editor of the Democratic Review during the 1840s, coined the phrase Manifest Destiny
- Claire Shipman—(B.A. 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—(M.A., International Affairs) CEO of Newsweek
- Tiziano Terzani—reporter and correspondent
- Gideon Yago—MTV News Correspondent
Science and technology
- Roy Chapman Andrews—Dinosaur bone hunter
- Virginia Apgar—(M.D. 1933) Created the Apgar score which is used to evaluate the health of newborn babies
- Edwin Armstrong—(B.S. 1913) Inventor of radio circuitry such as the regenerative circuit and FM radio, pioneer in feedback amplifiers
- Oswald Avery—(M.D. 1904) discoverer of DNA's role in transmitting genetic information
- John Backus—(B.A. (mathematics) 1949) Inventor of Fortran programming language
- Charles Drew—(M.D. 1940) Inventor of blood plasma preservation system
- Stephen Jay Gould—(Ph.D. 1967)—Paleontologist and author
- Benjamin Graham—B.A. (1914) Father of Modern Security Analysis and value investing, taught Warren Buffett
- Robert Jastrow—(B.A, M.A. Ph.D.) Astronomer
- Arthur Jensen—(Ph.D. 1956) Educational psychologist who argued for heritability of intelligence
- Kai-Fu Lee—(B.S. 1983) former professor at Carnegie Mellon University, former Vice President at Apple Computer, former President of Cosmo Software, established China division of Microsoft Research, establishing China research division for Google
- William Malisoff—(Ph.D.) Scientist accused of being a Soviet spy in the Venona project
- Robert Moog—Inventor of Moog synthesizer
- Joel Moses—(B.A., M.A.) MIT Provost and author of Macsyma
- Edward Lawry Norton—(M.S. 1925) Electrical Engineer, discovered the Norton circuit equivalent
- William Barclay Parsons—(B.S. 1879) Civil Engineer
- William Perl— physicist imprisoned for five years for his involvement in the Rosenberg ring of atomic spies
- Michael Pupin—(B.S. 1883)—Inventor of telephone transmission coils and scientist, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for his autobiography
- Benjamin Spock—(M.D. 1929)—Olympic rower, physician, author
- John Stevens—(A.B. 1768)—Built first steam railroad, responsible for first patent law in the US.
Astronauts
Academics and history
Sports
- Roone Arledge—(B.A.) Pioneer of sports and news broadcasting with ABC, "Monday Night Football", "20/20", etc.
- José Raúl Capablanca—World Chess Champion (1921-1927)
- Annie Duke—professional poker player
- Lou Gehrig—(B.A. 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—Baseball Hall of Fame pitcher
- Sid Luckman—(B.A.) American football quarterback, enshrinee of the Pro Football Hall of Fame
- Cliff Montgomery—(B.A.) American football quarterback, enshrinee of the College Football Hall of Fame, captain and MVP of Rose Bowl winning squad, Silver Star recipient in U.S. Navy
- Paul Robeson—American football All-American, attorney, musician, activist
- David Stern—(J.D.) NBA Commissioner
- Marcellus Wiley—(B.A. 1997) 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
- John Burgess—Founder of modern political science
- Charles Frederick Chandler—Pioneering chemist, president of the New York Metropolitan Board of Health, inventor of the flush toilet
- Arthur Danto—Johnsonian Professor of Philosophy emeritus, renowned art critic
- 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
- Jon Elster—Robert Merton Professor of Social Science, leading theorist of rational choice theory, Marxism, and social theory
- William Maurice Ewing—Earth scientist and pioneer
- Enrico Fermi—Manhattan Project member, founder of Fermilab, Nobel laureate
- Miloš Forman—Film director, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Amadeus, The People vs. Larry Flynt
- Eric Foner—Noted historian, authority on Reconstruction
- 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
- Masatake Kuranishi—Mathematician
- Tsung Dao Lee—Physics professor, Nobel laureate
- Konrad Lorenz—Psychology professor, Nobel laureate (Physiology or Medicine, 1973)
- Christoph Marcinkowski—Islamic, Iranian, and Southeast Asian Studies
- John Anthony McGuckin—Professor of Byzantine Christian Studies
- Margaret Mead—Professor of Anthropology
- Eben Moglen—Law and the Internet Society, General Counsel of FSF
- Sydney Morgenbesser—John Dewey Professor of Philosophy
- Robert Mundell—Economics professor, 1999 Nobel laureate in Economics
- Mira Nair—Director of Monsoon Wedding, film studies professor
- Franz Leopold Neumann—Political science professor, Communist spy in Redhead group
- Richard Pena—Head of the New York Film Festival, film studies professor
- Victor Perlo—Economics professor, Soviet spymaster involved in Harold Ware spy ring and Perlo group as shown in Venona list of suspected subversives in the U.S.
- 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 Millennium 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 Chakravorty Spivak—English professor
- Joseph Stiglitz—Economics professor, 2001 Nobel laureate in Economics
- Robert Thurman—Je Tsong Khapa Professor of Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Studies, first American Tibetan Buddhist monk, father of actress Uma Thurman.
- Charles Van Doren—English professor, involved in deception on TV quiz show Twenty-One
- Kenneth Waltz—Political Science professor and noted neorealism scribe
- Enos Wicher—Professor and Soviet spy named in Venona list of suspected subversives in the U.S.
- Chien-Shiung Wu—Physics professor, first woman to head the American Physical Society
See also
External links
