100 Notable alumni of College of the Holy Cross

Cheryl Martin is an American chemist who serves as the head of the Centre for Global Industries at the World Economic Forum. She was previously the deputy director of the Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy, an initiative of the United States Department of Energy, from 2012 to 2014. Martin was also the deputy director for Commercialization at the agency where she...

Andrew Gerald McBride Jr. was an American lawyer who served as the Assistant United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia.

Conrad Keefe Cyr was an American jurist who served as a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit from 1989 until his death. He was previously a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Maine.

Timothy Hayes Murnane was an American baseball player who became a sportswriter specializing in baseball. He was the leading baseball writer at The Boston Globe for about 30 years until his death. At the same time, he organized and led professional sports leagues and helped govern the baseball industry. He was a professional baseball player for several seasons in the...

William J. Baroody Jr. was an American government official best known for running the White House Office of Public Liaison under President Gerald Ford, followed by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI). His leadership of the think tank saw AEI enjoy new levels of political influence but was cut short by financial problems.

Maurice James Murphy Jr. was an American politician and lawyer from New Hampshire. He was (for one month) the Attorney General of New Hampshire and (for eleven months) an appointed United States Senator.

Aquilino Edgardo Boyd de la Guardia was a Panamanian politician, diplomat and lawyer.

Brian Patrick Burns was an American entrepreneur, attorney and philanthropist. Burns was a distinguished collector of Irish art. In December 2016, Maggie Haberman of The New York Times reported that then president-elect Donald Trump intended to name Burns as the next United States Ambassador to Ireland. However, in June 2017, Burns withdrew his name from consideration, due to ill health.

Daniel Anthony Grabauskas is an American transportation executive and government figure, who is the former executive director and CEO of the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation (HART) and former general manager of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA).

Charles E. F. Millard is an American political figure and business executive specializing in pensions and investments. He is the former Director of the United States Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation. Appointed by President George W. Bush, Millard was the first Director of the PBGC to be Presidentially appointed and confirmed by the United States Senate. As Director, Millard was the...

James F. Quinn was an American athlete, winner of gold medal in 4 × 100 m relay at the 1928 Summer Olympics.

Michael Robert McNulty is a retired American politician from the U.S. state of New York. He served in the United States House of Representatives from 1989 to 2009 representing New York's Capital District and was chairman of the House Subcommittee on Social Security in the 110th Congress.

Paul LeClerc is a scholar in French literature, former President of Hunter College, and former President and CEO of the New York Public Library. LeClerc is also a trustee of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation as Director of the National Book Foundation, as Director of the Maison Française of Columbia University.

Joseph Clifford Fenton was a Catholic priest who promoted conservative theology. He was a professor of fundamental dogmatic theology at the Catholic University of America and editor of the American Ecclesiastical Review (1943–1963). A strong opponent of liberal beliefs, he was a significant American Catholic theologian of the 20th century. He served as a peritus for Cardinal Ottaviani at the...

Bruce Edward MacDonald is a retired United States Navy vice admiral who last served as the 40th Judge Advocate General of the Navy from July 2006 to August 2009. Prior to that, MacDonald served as Deputy Judge Advocate General of the Navy from November 2004 to July 2006.

Lawrence Joseph "Larry" DeNardis was an American politician who served as a U.S. Congressman for the state of Connecticut. He was also president of the University of New Haven.

Thomas William Hungerford was an American mathematician who worked in algebra and mathematics education. He is the author or coauthor of several widely used and widely cited textbooks covering high-school to graduate-level mathematics. From 1963 until 1980 he taught at the University of Washington and then at Cleveland State University until 2003. From 2003–2014 he was at Saint Louis University....

Edward Francis Harrington was an American lawyer who served as a senior United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts.

Cleo Albert O'Donnell was an American football player and coach. He played college football at Holy Cross from 1904 to 1907. He was a football coach at Everett High School (1909–1915), Purdue University (1916–1917), Holy Cross (1919–1930) and Saint Anselm College (1935–1940). His 1914 Everett team has been ranked as the greatest high school football team of all time, finishing...

Nancy S. Lacore is a retired United States Navy officer and political candidate who served as the 16th Chief of Navy Reserve from 2024 to 2025. A vice admiral, she previously served as the 93rd commandant of Naval District Washington from 2022 to 2024. She also served as the director of the Maritime Partnership Program, U.S. Naval Forces Europe/Africa/U.S. 6th...

Edmund Leo McNamara was an American law enforcement official and professional football player who served as commissioner of the Boston Police Department.

James Bernard Longley Jr. is an American politician from Maine. A Republican, he served one term in the United States House of Representatives representing Maine's 1st district from 1995 to 1997, and was the 1998 Republican nominee for Governor of Maine.

Joseph Daniel Early was an American politician. He represented the third district of Massachusetts in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1975 to 1993.

Robert Luke Devaney was an American mathematician. He was the Feld Family Professor of Teaching Excellence at Boston University, and served as the president of the Mathematical Association of America from 2013 to 2015. His research involves dynamical systems and fractals.

John Joseph Barry was an American shortstop, second baseman, and manager in Major League Baseball, and later a college baseball coach. From 1908 through 1919, Barry played for the Philadelphia Athletics (1908–1915) and Boston Red Sox (1915–1919).

James J. Collins is an American biomedical engineer and bioengineer who serves as the Termeer Professor of Medical Engineering & Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he is also a director at the MIT Abdul Latif Jameel Clinic for Machine Learning in Health.

Wendell Arthur Garrity Jr. was a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts notable for issuing the 1974 order in Morgan v. Hennigan which mandated that Boston schools be desegregated by means of busing.

Richard A. Davey is an American attorney and transportation executive who is the CEO of the Massachusetts Port Authority. He was the General Manager of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority from March 2010 to September 2011, Massachusetts Secretary of Transportation from September 2011 to October 2014, and the President of the New York City Transit Authority from 2022 to 2024.

Thomas Aloysius Burke was an American politician from Ohio. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as the 48th mayor of Cleveland, Ohio, from 1946 to 1953 and in the United States Senate from November 10, 1953 until December 2, 1954. Cleveland Burke Lakefront Airport is named after him.

Harry Keels Thomas Jr. is an American diplomat who served as the U.S. ambassador to Bangladesh, the Philippines, and Zimbabwe.

Ronald Kevin Perry is an American former basketball and baseball player. He is known particularly for his standout college career at Holy Cross.

Bernard E. Trainor was an American journalist and a United States Marine Corps lieutenant general. He served in the Marine Corps for 39 years in both staff and command capacities. After retiring from the Marine Corps, he began working as the chief military correspondent for The New York Times. He was subsequently a military analyst for NBC. With Michael R....

Robert Henry Dee was an American professional football player who was a defensive end in the National Football League (NFL) and the American Football League (AFL).

Togo Anthony Palazzi was an American basketball player who played in the National Basketball Association (NBA) for the Boston Celtics and Syracuse Nationals.

William Joseph McDonough was an American economist. He was president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York from 1993 to 2003. He was also on the board of the Bank for International Settlements and chairman of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision.

Robert Thompson King is an American lawyer and labor union activist and leader. He was elected president of the United Auto Workers (UAW) on June 15, 2010. His term of office ended in June 2014, and King announced his retirement, being succeeded by Dennis Williams as head of the UAW.

Alejandro Meleán Villarroel is an American-born Bolivian professional football player who currently plays for Oriente Petrolero in the Bolivian Liga de Fútbol Profesional Boliviano.

Ellis S. Rubin was an American attorney who gained national fame for handling a variety of highly publicized cases in a legal career that spanned 53 years. He was famous for his innovative defenses and his propensity for handling lost causes. Rubin won the first case in Florida using the “battered woman” defense. He also worked to free a man,...

Michael Arthur Delaney is an American lawyer and politician who served as the 28th New Hampshire Attorney General from 2009 to 2013. Delaney was appointed to the office of Attorney General by New Hampshire Governor John Lynch and decided not to seek reappointment by Governor Maggie Hassan at the end of his term, instead taking a position at the McLane...

Christopher Fitzgerald Droney is an American lawyer who formerly served as a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and judge of the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut.

Philip J. "P.J." Crowley is the former United States Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs, having been sworn into office on May 26, 2009. He resigned on March 13, 2011, following comments he made about the treatment of Chelsea (formerly Bradley) Manning.

Margaret Judith Ann Peterlin is an American lawyer. She served as the Chief of Staff to the United States Secretary of State from February 2017 until the end of March 2018. She was appointed to the position by former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. Since July 6, 2018, she has served as the senior vice president of global external and...

John Anthony Durkin was an American politician who served as a Democratic U.S. Senator from New Hampshire from 1975 until 1980.

Thomas Gunning Kelley is an American veteran and retired captain in the United States Navy who received the Medal of Honor for his actions during the Vietnam War. From 2003 to 2011 he served as Secretary of the Massachusetts Department of Veterans' Services. He served as the president of the Medal of Honor Society from 2015 to 2017.

Edward Daniel DiPrete was an American politician. He served as the 70th Governor of Rhode Island for three two-year terms, serving from 1985 to 1991. Convicted of numerous corruption charges, he was the only Rhode Island governor to have gone to prison.

Jehyve Jamal Floyd is an American professional basketball player for Petkim Spor of the Basketbol Süper Ligi (BSL). Floyd played college basketball for the Holy Cross Crusaders, with whom he was named Patriot League Defensive Player of the Year in both 2018 and 2019; in both years he led the league in blocked shots, as well as in shooting percentage...

William E. McGovern was an American college and professional football coach. A defensive coach for almost 40 years, his longest stint was with Boston College, serving 13 years from 2000 to 2012 as their linebackers coach and later as defensive coordinator. He was also a linebackers coach for eight years in the National Football League (NFL) with the Philadelphia Eagles,...

Matthew Blake is an American professional baseball coach. He is the pitching coach for the New York Yankees of Major League Baseball (MLB).

James Augustine Healy was an American prelate of the Catholic Church. He was the first known African American to serve as a Catholic priest or bishop. With his predominantly European ancestry, Healy passed for a white man and identified as such.

Michael Augustine Healy was an American career officer with the United States Revenue Cutter Service (predecessor of the United States Coast Guard), reaching the rank of captain. He has been recognized since the late 20th century as the first man of African-American descent to command a ship of the United States government.

John William Middendorf II was an American diplomat who was the 62nd Secretary of the Navy from 1974 to 1977 and the United States Ambassador to the European Communities from 1985 to 1987. He wrote books and articles on politics, security, and history.

Gordon Peterson is an American broadcast journalist and television news anchor. He was most recently the 6 p.m. co-anchor for ABC affiliate WJLA-TV and from 1988 to 2013 was also moderator and producer of Inside Washington, a political roundtable discussion about current political events in Washington. He has won multiple Emmy Awards during his broadcast career.

James W. Keyes is an American businessman who is the chairman of Key Development LLC. Previously, Keyes served as chief executive officer (CEO) of 7-Eleven and was the chairman and CEO of Blockbuster.

John Charles Demers is an Italian-born American lawyer who served as United States Assistant Attorney General for the National Security Division (NSD) from 2018 to 2021. He also served as acting United States Attorney General in his capacity as United States Assistant Attorney General for the NSD for a few hours following the resignation of Jeffrey Rosen at noon on...

David Ignatius Walsh was an American politician from Massachusetts. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as the state's 46th governor before winning election to several terms in the United States Senate, becoming the first Irish Catholic from Massachusetts to fill either office.

Bartlett B. Sher is an American theatre director. The New York Times has described him as "one of the most original and exciting directors, not only in the American theater but also in the international world of opera". Sher has been nominated for nine Tony Awards, winning a Tony Award for Best Direction of a Musical for the 2008 Broadway...

Joseph Peter Kerwin is an American physician and former NASA astronaut. He served as the science pilot for the Skylab 2 mission from May 25, 1973, to June 22, 1973. He was the first physician to be selected for astronaut training and the first doctor from the United States to enter space.

Joseph Anthony Califano Jr. is an American attorney, professor, and public servant. He is known for the roles he played in shaping welfare policies in the cabinets of Presidents Lyndon B. Johnson and Jimmy Carter and for serving as United States Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare in the Carter administration. He is also the founder and chairman of The...

Richard J. Leon is an American jurist who serves as a senior United States district judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. He was appointed in 2002 by President George W. Bush and assumed senior status in 2016.

Edward Bennett Williams was an American lawyer, businessman, and sports team owner. He received his undergraduate degree from the College of the Holy Cross before studying law at Georgetown University. He worked for Hogan & Hartson in Washington, D.C., beginning in the 1940s and later co-founded the law firm of Williams & Connolly in 1967. Williams worked as the treasurer...

Robert Charles Wright is an American lawyer, businessman, lobbyist, and author. He is a former NBC executive, having been president and CEO from 1986 to 2001, and chairman and CEO from 2001 until he retired in 2007. He has been credited with overseeing the broadcast network's expansion into a media conglomerate and leading the company to record earnings in the...

Michael Joseph Pazik is an American former Major League Baseball pitcher. He pitched parts of three seasons in the majors, from 1975 until 1977, for the Minnesota Twins.

Francis Michael Carroll was an American figure-skating coach and competitive skater. He had coached three skaters to win the World Figure Skating Championships: Linda Fratianne, Michelle Kwan and Evan Lysacek. Lysacek won the men's Olympic gold medal in 2010 at Vancouver.

Edward Paul Jones is an American novelist and short story writer. He became popular for writing about the African-American experience in the United States, and received the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the International Dublin Literary Award for The Known World (2003).

Ray Rayner was an American television presenter, actor and author. He was a staple of Chicago children's television in the 1960s and 1970s on WGN-TV.

Kevin O'Connor is an American television personality. He has been the host of the PBS home renovation series This Old House since replacing Steve Thomas in 2003.

Patrick Francis Healy SJ was an American Catholic priest and Jesuit who was an influential president of Georgetown University, becoming known as its "second founder". The university's flagship building, Healy Hall, bears his name. Though he considered himself and was widely accepted as White, Healy was posthumously recognized as the first Black American to earn a PhD, as well as...

William J. O'Malley was an American priest, teacher, author, and actor.

Neil Edward Hopkins is an American television and film actor. He is a trained actor and singer, best known for his portrayal of Charlie's heroin-addicted brother Liam on Lost.

Joseph Ralph McGinniss Sr. was an American non-fiction writer and novelist. He was the author of twelve books.

Mark Kennedy Shriver is an American Democratic politician who served as a member of the Maryland House of Delegates for two consecutive terms, from 1995 to 2003.

Mark James DeSaulnier is an American politician who has served as a U.S. representative from California since 2015. He has represented the 10th congressional district since 2023, although it was previously numbered the 11th district for his first eight years in office. The district includes most of Contra Costa County, a suburban county in the East Bay. Until 2000, he...

Robert Patrick Casey was an American lawyer and politician from Pennsylvania who served as the 42nd Governor of Pennsylvania from 1987 to 1995. He served as a member of the Pennsylvania Senate for the 22nd district from 1963 to 1968 and as Auditor General of Pennsylvania from 1969 to 1977.

Louis Francis Sockalexis, nicknamed the Deerfoot of the Diamond, was an American baseball player. Sockalexis played professional baseball in the National League for three seasons, spending his entire career (1897–1899) as an outfielder for the Cleveland Spiders. A Penobscot, Sockalexis is often identified as the first person of Native American ancestry to play in the National League and Major League...

Edward Michael Harrington Jr. was an American democratic socialist. As a writer, he was best known as the author of The Other America (1962). Harrington was also a political activist, theorist, professor of political science, and radio commentator. In 1982, he was a founding member of the Democratic Socialists of America, and its most influential early leader.

Jarosław Leszek Wałęsa is a Polish politician. He was elected to the Sejm on 25 September 2005, getting 14,709 votes in 25 Gdańsk district as a candidate from the Civic Platform list. He is the son of former Polish President Lech Wałęsa.

William James Collins is an American poet who served as the Poet Laureate of the United States from 2001 to 2003. He was a Distinguished Professor at Lehman College of the City University of New York, retiring in 2016. Collins was recognized as a Literary Lion of the New York Public Library (1992) and selected as the New York State...

Vito Acconci was an American performance, video and installation artist, whose diverse practice eventually included sculpture, architectural design, and landscape design. His performance and video art was characterized by "existential unease," exhibitionism, discomfort, transgression and provocation, as well as wit and audacity, and often involved crossing boundaries such as public–private, consensual–nonconsensual, and real world–art world. His work is considered to...

Thomas William Heinsohn was an American professional basketball player, coach, and broadcaster. He was associated with the Boston Celtics of the National Basketball Association (NBA) for six decades as a player, coach and broadcaster. He played for the Celtics from 1956 to 1965, and also coached the team from 1969 to 1978. He spent over 30 years as the color...

Peter Francis Welch is an American lawyer and politician serving since 2023 as the junior United States senator from Vermont. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the U.S. representative for Vermont's at-large congressional district from 2007 to 2023. He has been a major figure in Vermont politics for over four decades and is only the second Democrat to...

John Peterman is an American catalog and retail entrepreneur from Lexington, Kentucky, who operates the J. Peterman Company. He grew up in West Nyack, New York as the son of a banker and secretary. He is known for founding the J. Peterman Company after finding a cowboy duster on a business trip. He is also known for being fictionalized in...

Christopher John Matthews is an American political commentator, retired talk show host, and author. Matthews hosted his weeknight hour-long talk show, Hardball with Chris Matthews, on America's Talking and later on MSNBC, from 1997 until 2020. He announced on his final episode that he was retiring, following an accusation that he had made inappropriate comments to a Hardball guest four...

William John Simmons III is an American podcaster, sportswriter, and cultural critic who is the founder and CEO of the sports and pop culture website The Ringer. Simmons first gained attention with his website as "The Boston Sports Guy" and was recruited by ESPN in 2001, where he eventually operated the website Grantland and worked until 2015. At ESPN, he...

Robert Patrick Casey Jr. is an American lawyer and politician who served from 2007 to 2025 as a United States senator from Pennsylvania. He is a member of the Democratic Party.

Ann Dowd is an American actress. She has appeared in numerous films, including Green Card (1990), Lorenzo's Oil (1992), Philadelphia (1993), Garden State (2004), The Manchurian Candidate (2004), Marley & Me (2008), Compliance (2012), Side Effects (2013), St. Vincent (2014), Captain Fantastic (2016), Hereditary (2018), and Mass (2021). For Compliance, she won the National Board of Review Award for Best...

Robert Joseph Cousy is an American former professional basketball player. He played point guard for the Boston Celtics from 1950 to 1963, and briefly with the Cincinnati Royals during the 1969–70 season. A 13-time NBA All-Star and 1957 NBA Most Valuable Player (MVP), Cousy was a core piece during the early half of the Celtics dynasty winning six NBA championships...

Jonathan Edward Favreau is an American political commentator, podcaster, and the former director of speechwriting for President Barack Obama.

Clarence Thomas is an American lawyer and jurist who has served since 1991 as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. President George H. W. Bush nominated him to succeed Thurgood Marshall. After Marshall, Thomas is the second African American to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court and has been its longest-serving member since Anthony Kennedy's...

Anthony Stephen Fauci ForMemRS is an American physician-scientist and immunologist who served as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) from 1984 to 2022, and the chief medical advisor to the president from 2021 to 2022. Fauci was one of the world's most frequently cited scientists across all scientific journals from 1983 to 2002. In...

Mark Goddard was an American actor who starred in a number of television programs. He is probably best known for portraying Major Don West in the CBS series Lost in Space (1965–1968). He also played Detective Sgt. Chris Ballard, in The Detectives, starring Robert Taylor.

Peter Newsham was the Chief of Police of the Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia (MPD) from January 2017 to January 2021. He is currently Chief of the Prince William County Police Department in Virginia, having been appointed to that post in November 2020.

Michael Joseph Connolly is a former politician who served as Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth from 1979 to 1994.

Francis Joseph Shakespeare was an American diplomat, political consultant and media executive. He was a vice president of the CBS network, and an executive vice president, before entering public service. He served as the United States ambassador to Portugal from 1985 to 1986 and the United States ambassador to the Holy See from 1986 to 1989. He later served as...

Timothy Howard Bishop is an American politician who served as a U.S. Representative for New York's 1st congressional district from 2003 to 2015. He is a member of the Democratic Party.

Vice Admiral Barry Michael Costello is an American navy officer who served as commander of Third Fleet of the United States Navy from May 2005 to May 2007.

James Patrick Moran Jr. is an American politician who served as the mayor of Alexandria, Virginia, from 1985 until 1990, and as the U.S. representative for Virginia's 8th congressional district, including the cities of Falls Church and Alexandria, all of Arlington County, and a portion of Fairfax County) from 1991 until 2015.

Timothy Francis Leary was an American psychologist and author known for his strong advocacy of psychedelic drugs. Evaluations of Leary are polarized, ranging from "bold oracle" to "publicity hound". According to poet Allen Ginsberg, he was "a hero of American consciousness", while writer Tom Robbins called him a "brave neuronaut". President Richard Nixon disagreed, calling Leary "the most dangerous man...

Randall John "Randy" Tate is an American politician and a former Republican member of the United States House of Representatives from Washington.

Edward Robert Martin Jr. is an American conservative activist, politician, and lawyer who has served as the United States pardon attorney since May 2025. He previously served as interim United States attorney for the District of Columbia from January to May 2025, appointed by President Donald Trump. He was chair of the Missouri Republican Party from 2013 to 2015.