100 Notable alumni of Bard College

Elio Fox is an American professional poker player whose first World Series of Poker in the money finish was the 2011 World Series of Poker Europe main event that he won. He has played online, where he is a high-stakes No limit Texas hold'em rebuy specialist, since 2009 but had his first notable live play results in 2011. Prior to...

Abigail M. Franquemont is an American textile crafts writer, lecturer and educator, based in Cusco, Peru. She spent her early childhood among the Quechua people of Chinchero, Peru, where "women spun to eat and pay for the home they lived in." As a revivalist of the ancient art of hand spinning with the spindle, she published her book, Respect the...

David Rolf is an American labor leader, writer, and speaker. He was the Founding President of Seattle-based Local 775 of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), which represents health care workers, and formerly served as international vice president of SEIU. He is the author of The Fight for Fifteen: The Right Wage for a Working America (New Press, 2016) about...

Harvey Bialy was an American molecular biologist and AIDS denialist. He was one of the signatories to a letter to the editor by the "Group for the Scientific Reappraisal of the HIV-AIDS Hypothesis", which denied that HIV was the cause of AIDS, and was a member of the controversial and heavily criticized South African Presidential AIDS Advisory Panel convened by...

Michael Jeffrey Shapiro is an American composer, conductor, and author.

Xaviera Simmons is an American contemporary artist. She works in photography, performance, painting, video, sound art, sculpture, and installation. Considered a public intellectual, she is known for works which span formal artistic practices as well as conceptual and political landscapes.

Mark Clifford is a British musician and producer known primarily for his involvement with his band Seefeel. He has been involved in a number of solo and collaborative projects which have resulted in a wide range of material released on many different labels including Warp Records, Rephlex Records, Bella Union, Editions Mego and his own Polyfusia label.

Meg Hutchinson is an American folk singer-songwriter. Originally from rural westernmost Massachusetts, Hutchinson is now based in the Boston area. She has won songwriting awards in the US, Ireland and UK, including recognition from John Lennon Songwriting Contest, Billboard Song Contest and prestigious competitions at Merlefest, NewSong, Kerrville, Falcon Ridge, Telluride Bluegrass and Rocky Mountain Folks festivals.

Candice Hopkins is a Carcross/Tagish First Nation independent curator, writer, and researcher who predominantly explores areas of art by Indigenous peoples. She is the executive director and chief curator at the Forge Project in New York.

Henry Alford is a humorist and journalist who has written for The New Yorker magazine for more than two decades. He was previously a columnist for The New York Times and a contributing editor to Vanity Fair. He has written six books, including How to Live and Big Kiss, an account of his attempts to become a working actor, which...

Deborah Sussman was an American designer and a pioneer in the field of environmental graphic design. Her work incorporated graphic design into architectural and public spaces.

Jedediah Berry is an American writer. He is the author of two novels, The Manual of Detection (2009) and The Naming Song (2024).

Martin Chavez Dosh, better known mononymously as Dosh, is a multi-instrumentalist based in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Cecilia D'Anastasio is an American journalist who primarily covers the video game industry. From 2016 to 2020, D'Anastasio wrote for Kotaku, and she was recognized for a 2018 article reporting allegations of sexual harassment and gender discrimination at Riot Games. Subsequently, she wrote for Wired magazine and joined Bloomberg News in 2022 to cover the video game industry. While at...

Juliana Spahr is an American poet, critic, and editor. She is the recipient of the 2009 Hardison Poetry Prize awarded by the Folger Shakespeare Library to honor a U.S. poet whose art and teaching demonstrate great imagination and daring.

Chus Martínez is a Spanish curator, art historian, and writer. She is currently the director of the Art Institute at the FHNW Academy of Art and Design, Basel, where she also runs the Institute’s exhibition space Der Tank. Additionally, Martínez is the artistic director of Ocean Space, Venice, a space spearheaded by TBA21–Academy that promotes ocean literacy, research, and advocacy...

Veronica Chambers is an Afro-Latina author, teacher, and magazine executive. Chambers has been an editor and writer for New York Times Magazine, Newsweek, Glamour, Good Housekeeping, Premiere, Esquire, Parade and O, The Oprah Magazine.

Annie Finch is an American poet, critic, editor, translator, playwright, and performer. Her poetry is known for its often incantatory use of rhythm, meter, and poetic form and for its themes of feminism and earth-based spirituality. Her books includeSpells: New and Selected Poems, The Body of Poetry: Essays on Women, Form, and the Poetic Self, A Poet's Craft, Calendars, and...

László Z. Bitó was a Hungarian physiologist and writer. As a researcher, he developed a medication for glaucoma. As a writer, he wrote novels and essays.

Gordon Stevenson, known as Baron Von Fancy for certain artistic and commercial purposes, is a multimedia artist who lives and works in New York City.

John Yau is an American poet and critic who lives in New York City. He received his B.A. from Bard College in 1972 and his M.F.A. from Brooklyn College in 1978. He has published over 50 books of poetry, artists' books, fiction, and art criticism.

Nayland Blake is an American artist whose focus is on interracial attraction, same-sex love, and intolerance of the prejudice toward them. Their mixed-media work has been variously described as disturbing, provocative, elusive, tormented, sinister, hysterical, brutal, and tender.

Martine Syms is an American artist residing in Los Angeles, specializing in various mediums including publishing, video, installation, and performance.

Arthur Tress is an American photographer. He is known for his staged surrealism and exposition of the human body.

Kalina Borislavova Konstantinova is a Bulgarian entrepreneur and politician. She was the Deputy Prime Minister for Good Governance.

Andrew P. Zwicker is an American physicist and politician who has served in the New Jersey Senate from the 16th Legislative District since 2022. He previously served in the New Jersey General Assembly representing the 16th District from 2016 to 2022. Zwicker was a candidate for the United States House of Representatives in New Jersey's 12th congressional district in 2014.

Raj Mukherji is an American businessman, lawyer, actor and Democratic Party politician who has represented the 32nd legislative district in the New Jersey Senate since 2024. He previously served five terms in the New Jersey General Assembly from 2014 to 2024, during which he served as majority whip and deputy speaker. He is a former healthcare and information technology CEO,...

Ran Blake is an American pianist, composer, and educator. He is known for his unique style that combines blues, gospel, classical, and film noir influences into an innovative and dark jazz sound. His career spans over 40 recording credits on jazz albums along with more than 40 years of teaching jazz at the New England Conservatory of Music, where he...

Tschabalala Self is an American artist best known for her depictions of Black female figures using paint, fabric, and discarded pieces of her previous works. Though she uses mixed media, all of her works are on canvas and employ a "painting language." Inspired by works done by African-American artist Romare Bearden, Self creates collages of various items that she has...

Chaya Czernowin is an Israeli American composer and Walter Bigelow Rosen Professor of Music at Harvard University.

Peter Hobbs was a French-born American actor, known for roles on Broadway, television and film.

Layli Long Soldier is an Oglala Lakota writer, poet, visual artist, and educator. She is best known for her poetry collection Whereas, which references the 2009 United States Congressional Apology to Native peoples. Her work uses visual poetics and often covers Indigenous history.

David Horvitz is an American artist who uses art books, photography, performance art, and mail art as media for his work. He is known for his work in the virtual sphere. Horvitz is a graduate from Bard College.

Elliott Sharp is an American contemporary classical composer, multi-instrumentalist, performer, author, and visual artist.

Jeanne Lee was an American jazz singer, poet and composer. Best known for a wide range of vocal styles she mastered, Lee collaborated with numerous distinguished composers and performers who included Gunter Hampel, Andrew Cyrille, Ran Blake, Carla Bley, Anthony Braxton, Marion Brown, Archie Shepp, Mal Waldron, Mark Whitecage and many others.

Chidi Chike Achebe Listen is a Nigerian-American physician executive who currently serves as the chairman and chief executive officer (CEO) of African Integrated Development Enterprise (AIDE). He has also served as the president and CEO of Harvard Street Neighborhood Health Center, medical director of Whittier Street Health Center and as assistant professor at Tufts University School of Medicine.

Alexis Papahelas or Papachelas, is a Greek investigative journalist and the current Executive Editor of Kathimerini newspaper. He is the creator and principal presenter of the weekly prime time news program called "Oi Neoi Fakeloi" ("The New Files ") on Skai TV, which is a continuation of his show in Mega Channel called "Oi Fakeloi " ("The Files"). “The New...

Daniel Manus Pinkwater is an American author of children's books and young adult fiction. His books include Lizard Music, The Snarkout Boys and the Avocado of Death, Fat Men from Space, Borgel, and the picture book The Big Orange Splot. Pinkwater has also written an adult novel, The Afterlife Diet (1995), and essay collections derived from his talks on National...

Anne Bogart is an American theatre and opera director. She was one of the artistic directors of SITI Company, which she founded with Japanese director Tadashi Suzuki in 1992, until the company disbanded in 2022. She is a professor at Columbia University where she runs the Graduate Directing Concentration and is the author of four books of essays on theatre...

Ashim Ahluwalia is a film director and screenwriter. He made his directorial debut with the feature-length documentary John & Jane (2005), which had a world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival and a European premiere at the Berlin International Film Festival, and won him the 2005 National Film Award for Best First Non-Feature Film of a Director. This was...

Thomas Scott Begich is an American politician and a former Democratic member of the Alaska Senate. He represented District J from 2017 to 2023. In August 2025, he announced he would run as a Democrat in the 2026 Alaska gubernatorial election. He is the son of former U.S. representative Nick Begich Sr., brother of former U.S. senator Mark Begich, and...

Sadie T. Benning is an American artist, who has worked primarily in video, painting, drawing, sculpture, photography and sound. Benning creates experimental films and explores a variety of themes including surveillance, gender, ambiguity, transgression, play, intimacy, and identity. They became a known artist as a teenager, with their short films made with a PixelVision camera that have been described as...

Eli Pariser is an author, activist, and entrepreneur. He has stated that his focus is "how to make technology and media serve democracy". He became executive director of MoveOn.org in 2004, where he helped pioneer the practice of online citizen engagement. He is the co-founder of Upworthy, a website for meaningful viral content, and Avaaz, a global citizen's organization. His...

Jonathan Tunick is an American orchestrator, musical director, and composer. He is best known for orchestrating the works of Stephen Sondheim, their collaboration starting in 1970 with Company and continuing until Sondheim's death in 2021.

Alexander Schuyler Hamilton was an American Episcopal priest and great-grandson of Alexander Hamilton, the first Secretary of the Treasury of the United States. He was the rector of Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Weston, Connecticut, by 1893; St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Woodbury, Connecticut, by 1915; and Christ Church in Westport, Connecticut, until he retired in 1920. Hamilton was the chaplain...

Lucian Baxter Wintrich IV is an American artist, photographer, writer, and media personality. He received widespread attention in 2017 as the White House correspondent for the conservative news and opinion site The Gateway Pundit. At age 28, he was one of the youngest members of the White House Press Corps, and among the first to be openly gay. During this...

Albert Jay Nock was an American libertarian author, editor first of The Nation and then The Freeman, educational theorist, Georgist, and social critic of the early and middle 20th century. He was an outspoken opponent of the New Deal, and served as a fundamental inspiration for the modern libertarian and conservative movements, cited as an influence by William F. Buckley...

Asher Barry Edelman is an American financier.

Juliana Huxtable is an American artist, writer, performer, DJ, and co-founder of the New York–based nightlife project Shock Value. Huxtable has exhibited and performed at a number of venues including Reena Spaulings Fine Art, Project Native Informant, Artists Space, the New Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, and Institute of Contemporary Arts. Huxtable's multidisciplinary art...

Harry Dodge is an American sculptor, performer, video artist, professor, and writer.

Jonathan Rosenbaum is an American film critic and author. Rosenbaum was the head film critic for The Chicago Reader from 1987 to 2008. He has published and edited numerous books about cinema and has contributed to such notable film publications as Cahiers du cinéma and Film Comment.

Daisy Eagan is an American actress, known for her roles on Broadway. In 1991, she won the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical for her performance as Mary Lennox in The Secret Garden. At 11 years old, she became the youngest female, and the second youngest Tony Award winner in history.

Michael Sebastian Kurth, better known as Curse, is a German rapper.

Michael Ross Doughty is an American singer-songwriter and author. He founded the band Soul Coughing in 1992, and as of The Heart Watches While the Brain Burns (2016), has released 18 studio albums, live albums, and EPs, all since 2000.

Maury Ginsberg is an American theater, film and television actor. He is best known for his recurring roles as Steven Benowitz on season 2 of Jessica Jones and Simon White on season 2 of NBC's Manifest.

Sonita Alizadeh is an Afghan rapper and activist who has been vocal against forced marriages. Alizadeh first gained attention when she released "Brides for Sale," a video in which she raps about daughters being sold into marriage by their families. With the help of Rokhsareh Ghaem Maghami, an Iranian documentary filmmaker who over three years documented her story in the...

Ethan Jesse Coen is an American filmmaker. Working alongside his brother Joel, he has directed, written, edited and produced many feature films, the most acclaimed of which include Blood Simple (1984), Raising Arizona (1987), Miller's Crossing (1990), Barton Fink (1991), Fargo (1996), The Big Lebowski (1998), O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000), The Ladykillers (2004), No Country for Old Men...

Nicholas Joseph Zinner is the guitarist and record producer for the New York rock band Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Zinner is also a photographer.

Carolee Schneemann was an American visual experimental artist, known for her multi-media works on the body, narrative, sexuality and gender. She received a B.A. in poetry and philosophy from Bard College and a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Illinois. Originally a painter in the Abstract Expressionist tradition, Schneemann was uninterested in the masculine heroism of New York...

Olivia Carlena Cole was an American actress, best known for her Emmy Award-winning role in the 1977 miniseries Roots.

Carl Davis was an American-born British conductor and composer. He wrote music for more than 100 television programmes, notably the landmark ITV series The World at War (1973) and BBC's Pride and Prejudice (1995), and he created new scores for concert and cinema performances of vintage silent movies and composed many film, ballet and concert scores that were performed worldwide,...

Richard Morton Sherman was an American songwriter who specialized in musical films with his brother Robert B. Sherman. According to the official Walt Disney Company website and independent fact checkers, "The Sherman Brothers were responsible for more motion picture musical song scores than any other songwriting team in film history."

Robert Bernard Sherman was an American songwriter. Best known for his work in musical films with his brother, Richard M. Sherman, they, known as Sherman brothers, produced more motion picture song scores than any other songwriting team in film history. Some of their songs were incorporated into live action and animation musical films including Mary Poppins, The Happiest Millionaire, The...

Christian Scheider is an American writer, filmmaker, actor and stage artist.

Tokata Iron Eyes is a Native American activist and member of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe. Iron Eyes was a youth leader of "ReZpect our Water", a campaign against the proposed route of the Dakota Access Pipeline, and served on the board of a sustainable energy group called Indigenized Energy. Iron Eyes is also a singer and songwriter.

Joel Daniel Coen is an American filmmaker. Working alongside his brother Ethan, he has directed, written, edited and produced many feature films, the most acclaimed of which include Blood Simple (1984), Raising Arizona (1987), Miller's Crossing (1990), Barton Fink (1991), Fargo (1996), The Big Lebowski (1998), O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000), The Ladykillers (2004), No Country for Old Men...

Raphael Matthew Bob-Waksberg is an American comedian, writer, producer, actor, and voice actor. He is best known as the creator and showrunner of the Netflix animated comedy series BoJack Horseman (2014–2020), for which he received four Critics' Choice Television Awards and was nominated for two Primetime Emmy Awards.

Christopher S. Claremont is an American comic book writer and novelist. Claremont worked for 16 years on Uncanny X-Men from 1975 to 1991, longer than that of any other writer, during which he is credited with developing strong female characters as well as introducing complex literary themes into superhero narratives, turning the once underachieving comic into one of Marvel's most...

Alexandra Wentworth is an American actress, comedian, author, and producer.

Adam Conover is an American actor, writer and comedian. He created and hosted the half-hour truTV show Adam Ruins Everything, based on the CollegeHumor series of the same name. He was also the host of the American version of The Crystal Maze on Nickelodeon. In 2022, Conover's limited series The G Word with Adam Conover debuted on Netflix. Conover currently...

John Hamilton McWhorter V is an American linguist. He is an associate professor of linguistics at Columbia University, where he also teaches American studies and music history. He has authored a number of books on race relations and African-American culture, and is a political commentator especially in his New York Times newsletter.

Walter Carl Becker was an American musician, songwriter, and record producer. He was the co-founder, guitarist, bassist, and co-songwriter of the jazz rock band Steely Dan.

Gian-Carla Coppola, known professionally as Gia Coppola, is an American film director and screenwriter. A member of the Coppola family, she is the granddaughter of director Francis Ford Coppola. She made her feature film directorial debut with Palo Alto (2013), and has since directed Mainstream (2020) and The Last Showgirl (2024).

Lola Glaudini is an American actress. She is best known for her portrayal of Elle Greenaway on CBS's Criminal Minds and for her role as Deborah Ciccerone-Waldrup on HBO's The Sopranos.

Tracy Kristine Nelson is an American actress. From a long line of entertainers, she is the daughter of musician Ricky Nelson and actress and painter Kristin Nelson.

Lola Kirke is an American actress, singer, and author. She was born in London and raised in New York City. Kirke starred in the comedy film Mistress America (2015) and the Amazon Studios television series Mozart in the Jungle (2014–2018). She also appeared in the films Gone Girl (2014), Gemini (2017), and Lost Girls (2020), among others. Kirke began her...

Jordan Bridges is an American actor, best known as Frankie Rizzoli on Rizzoli & Isles (2010–2016).

Adrian Sean Grenier is an American actor. He is best known for his portrayal of Vincent Chase in the television series Entourage (2004–2011). He has appeared in films such as Drive Me Crazy (1999), The Devil Wears Prada (2006), Trash Fire (2016), and Marauders (2016), as well as the Netflix series Clickbait (2021).

Gabrielle Mary Antonia Hoffmann is an American actress. She made her film debut in Field of Dreams (1989) and found success as a child actress in Uncle Buck (1989), This Is My Life (1992), The Man Without a Face (1993), Sleepless in Seattle (1993), and then later as a teenager with Now and Then (1995), Everyone Says I Love You...

Donald Jay Fagen is an American singer-songwriter and musician who is the co-founder, lead singer, co-songwriter, and keyboardist of the rock band Steely Dan, formed in the early 1970s with musical partner Walter Becker. In addition to his contributions to Steely Dan, Fagen has released four solo albums, beginning with The Nightfly in 1982, which was nominated for seven Grammys.

John Peter Sarsgaard is an American actor. He studied at the Actors Studio, before rising to prominence playing atypical and sometimes villainous roles in film and television.

Blythe Katherine Danner is an American actress. Accolades she has received include two Primetime Emmy Awards for Best Supporting Actress in a Drama Series for her role as Izzy Huffstodt on Huff (2004–2006), and a Tony Award for Best Featured Actress for her performance in Butterflies Are Free on Broadway (1969–1972). Danner was twice nominated for the Primetime Emmy for...

Larry Martin Hagman was an American actor, best known for playing ruthless oil baron J. R. Ewing in the 1978–1991 primetime television soap opera Dallas, and the handsome astronaut Major Anthony Nelson in the 1965–1970 sitcom I Dream of Jeannie. Hagman had supporting roles in numerous films, including Fail-Safe, Harry and Tonto, S.O.B., Nixon, and Primary Colors. His television appearances...

Adam Nathaniel Yauch, also known by the stage name MCA, was an American rapper, bassist, filmmaker, and a founding member of the hip hop group Beastie Boys. Besides his musical work, he also directed many of the band's music videos and did much of their promotional photography, often using the pseudonym Nathanial Hörnblowér for such work.

Jonah Hill is an American actor and filmmaker. Hill ranked 28th on Forbes's list of highest-paid actors from June 2014 to June 2015, at $16 million. Among his accolades are nominations for two Academy Awards, a BAFTA Award, and two Golden Globe Awards.

Lee Knox Ostertag is an American cartoonist and writer. His work includes the animated series The Owl House, webcomic Strong Female Protagonist, the middle grade graphic novel series The Witch Boy, The Hidden Witch, and The Midwinter Witch, and on the series Tales of the Night Watchman. He was named one of Forbes magazine's 30 Under 30 in 2021.

Christine Sun Kim is an American sound artist, performer and activist based in Berlin. Working predominantly in drawing, performance, and video, Kim's art practice considers how sound operates in society. Musical notation, written language, American Sign Language (ASL), and the use of the body are all recurring elements in her work. Her work has been exhibited in major cultural institutions...

Alison Bechdel is an American cartoonist. Originally known for the long-running comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For, she came to critical and commercial success in 2006 with her graphic memoir Fun Home. Fun Home was subsequently adapted as a musical, which won a Tony Award for Best Musical in 2015. In 2012, she released her second graphic memoir Are...

Anthony Evan Hecht was an American poet. His work combined a deep interest in form with a passionate desire to confront the horrors of 20th century history, with the Second World War, in which he fought, and the Holocaust being recurrent themes in his work.

Alva Rogers is an American playwright, composer, actor, vocalist, and arts educator. She is known for the use of dolls and puppetry in interdisciplinary work. Rogers performed in the role of Eula Peazant in Julie Dash's 1991 film Daughters of the Dust. and was a vocalist in the New York City alternative rock band Band of Susans.

Ben Goertzel is a computer scientist, artificial intelligence researcher, and businessman. He helped popularize the term artificial general intelligence (AGI).

Ada Palmer is an American historian and writer and winner of the 2017 John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. Her first novel, Too Like the Lightning, was published in May 2016. The work has been well received by critics and was a finalist for the Hugo Award for Best Novel.

Cornelius Crane "Chevy" Chase is an American comedian, actor and writer.

Todd Haynes is an American film director, screenwriter, and producer whose work is known for its engagement with melodrama, historical pastiche, and queer cinema. Across four decades, his films frequently explore the emotional and psychological consequences of social repression, particularly as they relate to sexuality, identity, illness, and conformity. Haynes is often associated with the New Queer Cinema movement of...

Michael L. Tolkin is an American screenwriter, novelist, and director. He has written numerous screenplays, including The Player (1992), which he adapted from his own 1988 novel of the same name, and for which he received the Edgar Award for Best Motion Picture Screenplay (1993) and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. He later wrote a...

Charlotte Dean is a writer, illustrator, and visual artist known for writing and co-directing the show Charlotte's Shorts, along with Emmy award writer, director, and producer Tracy Newman.

Satchel Ronan O'Sullivan Farrow is an American journalist. The son of actress Mia Farrow and filmmaker Woody Allen, he is known for his investigative reporting on sexual abuse allegations against film producer Harvey Weinstein, which was published in The New Yorker magazine. The magazine won the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for this reporting, sharing the award with The...

Pierre Joris was a Luxembourgish-American poet, essayist, translator, and anthologist. He moved between Europe, North Africa, and the United States for fifty-five years, publishing over eighty books.

Matthew Colin Taibbi is an American author, journalist and podcaster. A former contributing editor for Rolling Stone, he is the author of several books and publisher of Racket News (formerly TK News). He has reported on finance, media, politics and sports.