29 Notable alumni of Cornell College

Emma A. Cranmer was an American temperance reformer, woman suffragist, and author. A talented suffrage speaker and prohibition representative, she served as president of the South Dakota Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) and the South Dakota Equal Suffrage Association. Some of her epigrams were published by the press.

John Crockett Chapple was an American newspaper editor and politician.

Joanna Baker was an American linguist and child prodigy, holding her first college teaching job at the age of 16 and publishing her first book of translations from the Greek at the age of 18. For more than a quarter of a century, she was professor of ancient languages at Simpson College in Iowa, and she also taught at Lake...

Kathryn Haesler Stone was an American teacher, housewife, writer, civic activist and Democratic politician who represented Arlington, Virginia part-time in the Virginia House of Delegates from 1954 to 1966.

Roger Tabor Stewart is an American politician in the state of Iowa. A Democrat, he served in the Iowa Senate for the 13th district between 2003 and 2011.

William Wallace "W. W." McCredie was a U.S. Representative from Washington.

Lester Jesse Dickinson (October 29, 1873 – June 4, 1968) was a Republican United States representative and senator from Iowa. He was, in the words of Time magazine, "a big, friendly, white-thatched Iowa lawyer." In early 1936, he dreamed of winning the presidency. However, the only race he would enter that year would be for his own seat in the...

Frank Hole is an American Near Eastern archaeologist known for his work on the prehistory of Iran, the origins of food production, and the archaeology of pastoral nomadism. He is C. J. MacCurdy Professor Emeritus of Anthropology at Yale University.

Burton Erwin Sweet was a four-term Republican U.S. Representative from Iowa's 3rd congressional district, then a wide but short chain of counties in north-central and northeastern Iowa, in the shape of a monkey wrench.

Matthew J. Brouillette is an American businessman and entrepreneur who is the founder and president of Commonwealth Partners Chamber of Entrepreneurs, a 501(c)(6) membership organization based in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. He is the former president and CEO of the Commonwealth Foundation for Public Policy Alternatives, a free-market think tank in Pennsylvania. He served in that position from February 2002 through June...

Edward Thomas Devine was a professor at Columbia University and American University who advocated for social welfare.

Robert Gordon Cousins was an eight-term Republican U.S. Representative from Iowa's 5th congressional district. He represented the Cedar Rapids, Iowa, area for the last eight years of the 19th century and the first eight years of the 20th century.

Cato Sells was a commissioner at the Bureau of Indian Affairs from 1913 to 1921.

John Quincy Adams Tufts was an American Republican politician from Iowa and California. He was founder of a sporting goods company in Los Angeles.

Franklin Hamlin Littell was an American Protestant scholar. He is known for his writings rejecting supersessionism and, in light of the Holocaust, advocated educational programs to improve relations between Christians and Jews.

Maryann Mahaffey was an American politician and activist.

Frank Jeremiah Armstrong was an American physician who was the first African-American graduate of Cornell College. He was the assistant of Booker T. Washington and later became a physician. He was murdered in his office in 1946, possibly by a burglar after a hospital's narcotics.

Thomas Robert Zinkula is an American Catholic prelate who has served as Archbishop of Dubuque since 2023. He previously served as Bishop of Davenport from 2017 to 2023.

Lee Alvin DuBridge was an American physicist and academic administrator. He led the MIT Radiation Laboratory, served as president of Caltech, and advised three U.S. presidents on science policy.

Michael W. Allen is an American software developer, educator, and author. He is known for his work on e-learning, and led the development of the Authorware software.

Don Edward Fehrenbacher was an American historian. He wrote on politics, slavery, and Abraham Lincoln. He won the 1979 Pulitzer Prize for History for The Dred Scott Case: Its Significance in American Law and Politics, his book about the Dred Scott Decision. In 1977 David M. Potter's The Impending Crisis, 1848-1861, which he edited and completed, won the Pulitzer Prize....

George W. Keister was an American architect. His work includes the Hotel Gerard (1893), the Astor Theatre (1906), the Belasco Theatre (1907), the Bronx Opera House (1913), the Apollo Theater in Harlem (1914), the Selwyn Theatre (now Todd Haimes Theatre, 1918), and the First Baptist Church in the City of New York. He also designed Woodbridge Hall at 431 Riverside...

David Carl Hilmers is a former NASA astronaut who flew four Space Shuttle missions. He was born in Clinton, Iowa, but considers DeWitt, Iowa, to be his hometown. He has two grown sons. His recreational interests include playing the piano, gardening, electronics, spending time with his family, and all types of sports. His parents are deceased. With five academic degrees,...

Harper Reed is an American entrepreneur and former Head of Commerce at Braintree, a subsidiary of PayPal. In 2011, he served as Chief Technology Officer for Barack Obama's 2012 re-election campaign. According to The Guardian, Reed's "background in crowd-sourcing and cloud-computing... gives a significant clue to what the Obama team hoped to achieve in 2012".

Leslie Mortier Shaw was an American businessman, lawyer, and politician. He served as the 17th Governor of Iowa and was a Republican candidate in the 1908 United States presidential election. He was Secretary of the Treasury from 1902 to 1907.

James Firman Daly was an American actor. Recognized for his work on stage and screen, he is perhaps best known for his role as Paul Lochner in the hospital drama series Medical Center, in which he played Chad Everett's superior.

Leo Leroy Beranek was an American acoustics expert, former MIT professor, and a founder and former president of Bolt, Beranek and Newman (now BBN Technologies). He authored Acoustics, considered a classic textbook in this field, and its updated and extended version published in 2012 under the title Acoustics: Sound Fields and Transducers. He was also an expert in the design...

Deborah L. "Deb" Mell is an American politician from Chicago. She is a Democrat and was formerly a member of the Chicago City Council, representing the 33rd ward. She previously served in the Illinois House of Representatives from 2009 to 2013.