83 Notable alumni of Clark University

Walter William Ristow was the head librarian of the map library at the New York Public Library and later the Library of Congress. Ristow graduated with a degree in geography from the University of Wisconsin in 1931. He went on to earn a master's degree in geography from Oberlin College and a doctorate from Clark University. Ristow joined the Library...

Henry Davidson Sheldon was an American educator and historian. Sheldon was born while his parents were en route to Oregon from the New York area. He was educated at the University of the Pacific and Stanford University. He continued his education at Clark University, where he received a doctorate in education.

Burchard Woodson DeBusk was a professor of education at the University of Oregon, United States.

Walter Elmer Ekblaw was an American college professor who served as geologist, ornithologist and botanist on the Crocker Land Expedition (1913-1917).

Kevin O'Sullivan is an American non-profit executive and politician who served as president and CEO of Massachusetts Biomedical Initiatives from 2003 to 2018 and represented the 13th Worcester District in the Massachusetts House of Representatives from 1987 to 1995.

Clifford Emory “Pop” Horton was an American professor in physical education, collegiate coach, and founder of the oldest collegiate circus in the U.S., the Gamma Phi Circus.

William Henry Metzler was a Canadian mathematician.

Jackalyne Pfannenstiel served as the United States Assistant Secretary of the Navy (Installations and Environment) from March 5, 2010. until her resignation in July 2012.

Melanie Killen, Ph. D. is an American developmental psychologist and Distinguished University Professor in the Department of Human Development and Quantitative Methodology, and Professor of Psychology at the University of Maryland. She is also Honorary Professor of Psychology at the University of Kent, Canterbury, UK. She is the Director of the Social and Moral Development Lab at the University of...

Frederick Grinnell is an American cell biologist. He is currently the Robert McLemore Professor of Medical Science in the Department of Cell Biology at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, Texas.

Edward Conradi served as President of Florida State College for Women from 1909 to 1941, and as President Emeritus from 1941 until his death in 1944.

Ragnar E. Löfstedt is the Professor of Risk Management at King's College London and the Director of King's Centre for Risk Management (KCRM) and is the President-Elect (2022) of Society for Risk Analysis.

Jon Ljungberg is a Winnipeg television personality and comedian, most known as the host of Breakfast Television, on Citytv Winnipeg.

Meredith Rachelle Evans is an archivist, historian and scholar and the director of the Jimmy Carter Library and Museum in Atlanta. Her work focuses on the African-American experience in the United States, including the documentation of archival records from African-American churches in the Atlanta area, and the preservation of social media from recent civil rights protests such as those of...

Lieutenant General Willard Stewart Paul was a senior United States Army officer who commanded the 26th Infantry Division during World War II.

Robert Bruce Atwood was an American journalist who served as the long-time editor and publisher of the Anchorage Times. He was also an early advocate of Alaska statehood.

Richard T. Moore is a Democratic politician from Massachusetts and a former member of the Massachusetts State Senate.

Amy Eliza Tanner was an American psychologist who became well known for discrediting the then-famous medium Leonora Piper after Tanner was allowed to attend six séances with a fellow researcher.

Pinkhos Churgin was an Israeli scholar who was the first President of Bar-Ilan University.

Yoav Avni is a prominent Israeli author and translator. His books HaHamishit Shel Chong Levi (Chong Levi's Fifth) and Herzl Amar (Herzl Said) have earned him national recognition and both received the Geffen Award in 2010 and 2012 respectively.

Miriam Van Waters was an American prison reformer of the early to mid-20th century whose methods owed much to her upbringing as an Episcopalian involved in the Social Gospel movement. During her career as a penologist, which spanned most of the years from 1914 through 1957, she served as superintendent of three prisons: Frazier Detention Home for boys and girls...

Thu Nguyen is a Vietnamese-born American politician and community organizer who is a former member of the Worcester City Council, serving from 2022 to 2026. Nguyen is the first openly non-binary candidate elected to public office in Massachusetts history.

William Lowe Bryan was the 10th president of Indiana University, serving from 1902 to 1937.

Bernard Howard Lavenda is a retired professor of chemical physics at the University of Camerino and expert on irreversible thermodynamics. He has contributed to many areas of physics, including that of Brownian motion, and in the establishment of the statistical basis of thermodynamics, and non-Euclidean geometrical theories of relativity. He was the scientific coordinator of the "European Thermodynamics Network" in...

Spencer Platt is an American photojournalist.

Robert "Jay" Ash, Jr. is an American political figure who served as Massachusetts Secretary of Housing and Economic Development under Governor Charlie Baker from 2015 to 2018. He previously served as City Manager of Chelsea, Massachusetts.

Alexander Francis Chamberlain was a Canadian anthropologist, born in England. Under the direction of Franz Boas he received the first Ph.D. granted in anthropology in the United States from Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts. After graduating, he taught at Clark, eventually becoming full professor in 1911. Under the auspices of the British Association, his area of specialty was the Kootenay...

Libérat Mfumukeko is a Burundian diplomat and civil servant. He is currently an IDA / World Bank Borrowers’ Representative where he co-chairs the Africa Group 1, and is also a Chargé de Mission at the Office of the President of the Republic of Burundi.

Anthony Philip Thirlwall was a British economist who was Professor of Applied Economics at the University of Kent. He made major contributions to regional economics; the analysis of unemployment and inflation; balance of payments theory, and to growth and development economics with particular reference to developing countries. He was the author of the bestselling textbook Economics of Development: Theory and...

Vance Randolph was a folklorist who studied the folklore of the Ozarks in particular. He wrote a number of books on the Ozarks, as well as Little Blue Books and juvenile fiction.

Ruth Polsky was a booker and music promoter in New York City.

Margaret Rose Guzman is an American attorney serving as a United States District Judge of the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts. She previously served as a judge of the Ayer District Court in Middlesex County, Massachusetts.

Floyd Bixler McKissick Jr. is an American attorney who served as a Democratic member of the North Carolina Senate. He was appointed to the Senate by Governor Mike Easley on April 18, 2007 to replace the late Jeanne Hopkins Lucas and was later elected and re-elected in his own right. In 2011, he became Deputy Minority Leader in the Senate...

Lillian Rosanoff Lieber was a Russian-American mathematician and popular author. She often teamed up with her illustrator husband, Hugh Gray Lieber, to produce works.

Terri E. Bonoff is an American politician from the U.S. state of Minnesota. She is a former member of the Minnesota Senate, representing District 44, which included portions of Minnetonka, Plymouth and Woodland in Hennepin County in the Twin Cities metropolitan area. A member of the Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party (DFL), she was a candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives...

Matthew Linzee Sands was an American physicist and educator best known as a co-author of the Feynman Lectures on Physics. A graduate of Rice University, Sands served with the Naval Ordnance Laboratory and the Manhattan Project's Los Alamos Laboratory during World War II.

Evelyn Gibson Lowery was an American civil rights activist and leader.

Leah Penniman is an American farmer, educator, author, and food sovereignty activist. Penniman is co-founder, co-director and Program Manager of Soul Fire Farm, in Grafton, New York.

Adelbert Ames Jr. was an American scientist who made contributions to physics, physiology, ophthalmology, psychology, and philosophy. He pioneered the study of physiological optics at Dartmouth College, serving as a research professor, then as director of research at the Dartmouth Eye Institute. He conducted important research into aspects of binocular vision, including cyclophoria and aniseikonia. Ames is perhaps best known...

Elizabeth Rosalind "Betsy" Wollheim is the president, co-publisher, and co-editor-in-chief of science fiction and fantasy publisher DAW Books. The latter roles are shared with Sheila E. Gilbert. She started working at DAW as an associate editor in 1975 and took over leadership of DAW in 1985. One change with her leadership was the addition of DAW hardbacks for retail trade.

Mesfin Woldemariam was an Ethiopian academic and human rights activist.

William Leonard Langer was an American historian, intelligence analyst and policy advisor. He served as chairman of the history department at Harvard University. He was on leave during World War II as head of the Research and Analysis Branch of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). He was a specialist on the diplomacy of the periods 1840–1900 and World War...

Grayson Louis Kirk was an American political scientist who served as president of Columbia University during the Columbia University protests of 1968. He was also an advisor to the State Department and instrumental in the formation of the United Nations.

Alan Kotok was an American computer scientist known for his work at Digital Equipment Corporation (Digital, or DEC) and at the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). Steven Levy, in his book Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution, describes Kotok and his classmates at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) as the first true hackers.

Peng Chun Chang, commonly known as P. C. Chang, was a Chinese academic, philosopher, playwright, human rights activist, and diplomat. He was born in Tianjin, China, and died at his home in Nutley, New Jersey.

Edwin Eugene "Gene" Aldrin Sr. was an aviator and officer in the United States Army during World War I and World War II. He was assistant commandant of the Army's first test pilot school at McCook Field, Ohio, from 1919 to 1922, and founded the engineering school there that later became the Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT) at Wright-Patterson...

Libby Pataki is the former First Lady of New York and the wife of former New York Governor George Pataki. She served as First Lady from 1995 to 2006 during the three terms of her husband's administration.

Edward Franklin Frazier, was an American sociologist and author, publishing as E. Franklin Frazier. His 1932 Ph.D. dissertation was published as a book titled The Negro Family in the United States (1939); it analyzed the historical forces that influenced the development of the African-American family from the time of slavery to the mid-1930s. The book was awarded the 1940 Anisfield-Wolf...

Sonia Gardner is an American businesswoman, hedge fund manager and the co-founder of Avenue Capital Group.

Steven A. Kandarian was the president, chairman, and chief executive officer of MetLife. He became president and CEO on May 1, 2011, and chairman in January 2012 succeeding Robert Henrikson, who retired from those roles. Kandarian retired from MetLife on April 30, 2019 and was succeeded as president and CEO by Michel Khalaf and as chairman by Glenn Hubbard.

Michael Phillips Marcus was a commodities trader who, in less than 20 years, is reputed to have turned his initial $30,000 into $80 million.

Frederick Madison Smith, generally known among his followers as "Fred M.", was an American religious leader and author and the third Prophet-President of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (renamed the Community of Christ in 2001), serving from 1915 until his death.

Olta Xhaçka is an Albanian politician and Socialist Party member of Parliament. She served as the minister of Europe and foreign affairs from January 2021 to September 2023. She served as Albanian minister of social welfare and youth between March 2017 to August 2017 and as minister of defense from September 2017 to December 2020.

Solomon Lefschetz ForMemRS was a Russian-born American mathematician who did fundamental work on algebraic topology, its applications to algebraic geometry, and the theory of non-linear ordinary differential equations.

Mark Bittman is an American food journalist, author, and former columnist for The New York Times. Bittman has promoted VB6 (vegan before 6:00), a flexitarian diet.

Amy Dickinson is a former American newspaper columnist who wrote the syndicated advice column Ask Amy. Dickinson has appeared as a social commentator on ABC's Good Morning America and NBC's The Today Show.

Alexandra Elaine Fedotowsky-Manno is an American television personality best known as a cast member on the ABC reality shows The Bachelor and Bachelorette (2010).

Lewis Madison Terman was an American psychologist, academic, and proponent of eugenics. He was noted as a pioneer in educational psychology in the early 20th century at the Stanford School of Education. Terman is best known for his revision of the Stanford–Binet Intelligence Scales and for initiating the longitudinal study of children with high IQs called the Genetic Studies of...

G. Budisatrio Djiwandono, commonly known as Budi Djiwandono, is an Indonesian politician currently serving as the Chairman of the Gerindra Party Faction in the House of Representatives of the Republic of Indonesia (DPR RI) since 2024. He also holds the position of Deputy Chairman of Commission I of the DPR RI, overseeing matters related to Defense, Foreign Affairs, Intelligence, and...

Robert Hutchings Goddard was an American physicist, inventor, and engineer credited with creating and building the world's first liquid-fueled rocket, which was successfully launched on March 16, 1926. By 1915 his pioneering work had dramatically improved the efficiency of the solid-fueled rocket, signaling the era of the modern rocket and innovation. He and his team launched 34 rockets between 1926...

Alexander Jerome Gould is an American actor. He is known for voicing the title character of the Pixar animated film Finding Nemo and for his portrayal of Shane Botwin on the Showtime drama series Weeds, the latter of which earned him two Screen Actors Guild Award nominations.

Mitchell Aram Glazer is an American writer, producer, and actor.

John Heard Jr. was an American actor. Heard made his debut appearance in film with the ensemble Between the Lines (1977). He appeared in a number of successful films, including Heart Beat (1980), Cutter's Way (1981), Cat People (1982), Beaches (1988), and Deceived (1991). He was nominated for an Emmy Award in 1999 for his recurring role as Vin Makazian...

Padma Parvati Lakshmi is an American television host, model, author, entrepreneur, and activist. She rose to prominence by hosting the Bravo cooking competition program Top Chef (2006–2023). Lakshmi is the creator, host, and executive producer of the docuseries Taste the Nation with Padma Lakshmi, which premiered in 2020 on Hulu. For her work with these two series, as an executive...

Jeffrey Robert Lurie is an American businessman, documentary film producer, and, since 1994, owner of the Philadelphia Eagles of the National Football League (NFL). The Eagles have won two Super Bowls under his tenure as owner.

Michael P. Ross is an American lawyer and former politician from Boston, Massachusetts, who represented District 8 (which includes Beacon Hill, Back Bay, and the Fenway) on the Boston City Council from 2000 through 2013. He was an unsuccessful candidate for mayor of Boston in 2013. Ross is now a real estate lawyer at Prince Lobel Tye LLP, and is...

Margaret Morse Nice was an American ornithologist, ethologist, and child psychologist who made an extensive study of the life history of the song sparrow and was author of Studies in the Life History of the Song Sparrow (1937). She observed and recorded hierarchies in chicken about three decades ahead of Thorleif Schjelderup-Ebbe who coined the term "pecking order". After her...

Harriette L. Chandler is an American politician who was the 94th President of the Massachusetts Senate and the Massachusetts State Senator for the 1st Worcester district, which includes parts of the city of Worcester, where she resides, and the towns of Boylston, Holden, Princeton, and West Boylston, and parts of Clinton and Northborough. She is a Democrat who has served...

Valerie Barsom is an American attorney and politician who served as a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives for the 13th Hampden district from 1993 to 1996.

Shannon Savick is a Minnesota politician and former member of the Minnesota House of Representatives. A member of the Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party (DFL), she represented District 27A in southern Minnesota.

Joseph Irwin France was a Republican member of the United States Senate, representing the State of Maryland from 1917 to 1923.

Keith Ralph Hall is a United States government official who served as the 12th director of the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO).

Shannon Boyd-Bailey McCune was an American geographer who was the civil administrator of the Ryukyu Islands from 1962 to 1964, the first civilian to hold that office. He was president of the University of Vermont from 1964 to 1966.

Henry Herbert Goddard was an American psychologist, eugenicist, and segregationist during the early 20th century. He is known especially for his 1912 work The Kallikak Family: A Study in the Heredity of Feeble-Mindedness, which he himself came to regard as flawed for its ahistoric depiction of the titular family, and for translating the Binet-Simon Intelligence Test into English in 1908...

Michael Arrington Brown is an American politician in Washington, D.C. In 2008, he was elected an at-large member of the Council of the District of Columbia and served one four-year term.

Henry Hugh Proctor was a minister of the First Congregational Church in Atlanta, the second-oldest African American Congregational church in the United States. He was also an author and lecturer.

Mohammad Hassan Ganji, Ph.D. was an Iranian meteorologist and academic. He was born in Birjand. He is credited as being the father of modern geography in Iran.

Moti Bodek is an Israeli architect. He is the CEO of Bodek Architects based in Tel Aviv and a Professor of Architecture at Bezalel Academy of Art and Design, Jerusalem & at Tel Aviv University.

Li Ji, also commonly romanized as Li Chi, was an influential Chinese archaeologist. He is considered to be one of the foremost figures in modern Chinese archaeology and his work was instrumental in proving the historical authenticity of the Shang dynasty.

Xu Zhimo was a Chinese poet. Best known for his work in modern Chinese poetry, he strove to loosen Chinese poetry from its traditional forms, incorporating influences from Western poetry and writing in vernacular Chinese. He died in a plane crash at age 34.

Vjačeslavs Dombrovskis is a Latvian Russian politician and economist, who has previously served as the Minister for Education and Science and as Minister of Economics of Latvia.

Edward Bradford Titchener was an English psychologist who studied under Wilhelm Wundt for several years. Titchener is best known for creating his version of psychology that described the structure of the mind: structuralism. After becoming a professor at Cornell University, he created the largest doctoral program at that time in the United States. His first graduate student, Margaret Floy Washburn,...