100 Notable alumni of Cornell University

Updated: June 23, 2026 EliteDegrees

Cornell University is ranked #5 in the world and #4 in United States by aggregated alumni prominence. Below is the list of 100 notable alumni from Cornell University sorted by their wiki pages popularity. The directory includes famous graduates and former students along with research and academic staff. Many individuals affiliated with Cornell University won Nobel Prizes for Peace, in Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, and Economics.

Karen Chen

1. Karen Chen

1999-. (aged 27)
figure skater
Karen Chen is an American figure skater. She is a 2022 Olympic Games team event gold medalist, two-time CS U.S. Classic bronze medalist (2016, 2017), the 2015 CS Golden Spin of Zagreb bronze medalist, the 2017 U.S. national champion, 2022 U.S. national silver medalist, and a three-time U.S. national bronze medalist (2015, 2018, 2021). She graduated from Cornell University in...
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Barry Voight

2. Barry Voight

1937-. (aged 89)
volcanologist geologist
Barry Voight is an American geologist, volcanologist, author, and engineer. After earning his PhD at Columbia University, Voight worked as a professor of geology at several universities, including Pennsylvania State University, where he taught from 1964 until his retirement in 2005. He remains an emeritus professor there and still conducts research, focusing on rock mechanics, plate tectonics, disaster prevention, and...
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Sarah Spain

3. Sarah Spain

1980-. (aged 46)
journalist
Sarah Colby Spain is an American sports reporter. She hosts the daily iHeart women's sports podcast "Good Game with Sarah Spain," is the co-author of the book "Runs In The Family," and works as an espnW "talent." Previous jobs including ESPN television personality, ESPN podcast and radio host, espnW columnist, and occasional SportsCenter reporter.
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Kate Snow

4. Kate Snow

1969-. (aged 57)
journalist
Kate Snow is an American television journalist for NBC News, serving as Senior National Correspondent to various NBC platforms, including Today, NBC Nightly News, Dateline NBC, and MSNBC. Snow also anchors NBC News Daily, and frequently substitutes for the weekday and weekend broadcast. Snow also previously hosted MSNBC Live and anchored the Sunday edition of NBC Nightly News.
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Mark Hyman

5. Mark Hyman

1959-. (aged 67)
medical writer physician
Mark Adam Hyman is an American physician and author. He is the founder and medical director of The UltraWellness Center. Hyman was a regular contributor to the Katie Couric Show until the show's cancellation in 2013. He hosts an eponymous podcast, The Dr. Hyman Show, which examines many topics related to human health. He is the author of several books...
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Gordon G. Chang

6. Gordon G. Chang

1951-. (aged 75)
writer jurist lawyer journalist
Gordon Guthrie Chang is an American lawyer, political analyst and conservative columnist known for his hawkish rhetoric on China. He is the author of the 2001 book The Coming Collapse of China in which he predicted the collapse of China by 2011. In December 2011, he changed the timing of the year of the predicted collapse to 2012.
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Alan Keyes

7. Alan Keyes

1950-. (aged 76)
politician
Alan Lee Keyes is an American politician, political scientist, and perennial candidate who served as the Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs from 1985 to 1987. A member of the Republican Party, Keyes sought the nomination for President of the United States in 1996, 2000, and 2008.
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Thelma Schoonmaker

8. Thelma Schoonmaker

1940-. (aged 86)
film editor television actor
Thelma Schoonmaker is an American film editor, best known for her collaboration over five decades with director Martin Scorsese. She has received numerous accolades, including three Academy Awards, two BAFTA Awards, and four ACE Eddie Awards. She has been honored with the British Film Institute Fellowship in 1997, the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement in 2014, and the BAFTA Fellowship...
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Rob Manfred

9. Rob Manfred

1958-. (aged 68)
sports executive
Robert Dean Manfred Jr. is an American lawyer and business executive who is serving as the tenth commissioner of Major League Baseball (MLB). He previously served as MLB's chief operating officer. Manfred succeeded Bud Selig as commissioner on January 25, 2015. Manfred's tenure has seen a number of rule changes to the sport, including the introduction of the pitch clock...
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Robert Moog

10. Robert Moog

1934-2005 (aged 71)
musical instrument maker inventor university teacher musician
Robert Arthur Moog was an American engineer and electronic music pioneer. He was the founder of the synthesizer manufacturer Moog Music and the inventor of the first commercial synthesizer, the Moog synthesizer, which debuted in 1964. In 1970, Moog released a more portable model, the Minimoog, described as the most famous and influential synthesizer in history. Among Moog's honors are...
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Barry Weiss

11. Barry Weiss

1959-. (aged 67)
music executive
Barry Weiss is an American music executive. He co-founded the record label RECORDS in 2015, an imprint of Sony Music Entertainment which specializes in young recording artists.
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George Friedman

12. George Friedman

1949-. (aged 77)
geopolitical analyst businessperson non-fiction writer political scientist
George Friedman is a Hungarian-born American futurologist, political scientist, and writer. He is a geopolitical author on international relations. He is the founder and chairman of Geopolitical Futures. Prior to founding Geopolitical Futures, he was chairman of the publishing company Stratfor. He is best known for his 1991 book The Coming War With Japan, co-authored with his wife Meredith LeBard,...
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Junot Díaz

13. Junot Díaz

1968-. (aged 58)
writer science fiction writer novelist university teacher
Junot Díaz is a Dominican American writer, creative writing professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a former fiction editor at Boston Review. Central to Díaz's work is the immigrant experience, particularly the Latino immigrant experience.
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Thomas Nagel

14. Thomas Nagel

1937-. (aged 89)
university teacher philosopher writer
Thomas Nagel is an American philosopher. He is the University Professor of Philosophy and Law Emeritus at New York University, where he taught from 1980 until his retirement in 2016. His main areas of philosophical interest are political philosophy, ethics and philosophy of mind.
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Ronald D. Moore

15. Ronald D. Moore

1964-. (aged 62)
showrunner actor writer television producer blogger
Ronald Dowl Moore is an American screenwriter and television producer. He is best known for his work on Star Trek, as well as on the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica television series, for which he won a Peabody Award, and on Outlander, based on the novels of the same name by Diana Gabaldon. In 2019, he created and wrote the series For...
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Edmund Muskie

16. Edmund Muskie

1914-1996 (aged 82)
lawyer diplomat military officer politician
Edmund Sixtus Muskie was an American statesman and politician who served as the 58th United States Secretary of State under President Jimmy Carter from 1980 to 1981. A member of the Democratic Party, he previously served as a U.S. Senator from Maine from 1959 to 1980, the 64th governor of Maine from 1955 to 1959, and a member of the...
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Anna Roosevelt Halsted

17. Anna Roosevelt Halsted

1906-1975 (aged 69)
writer socialite journalist
Anna Eleanor Roosevelt Halsted was an American writer who worked as a newspaper editor and in public relations. Halsted also wrote two children's books published in the 1930s. She was the eldest child and only daughter of U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. Halsted assisted her father as his advisor during World War II.
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Leonard Susskind

18. Leonard Susskind

1940-. (aged 86)
scientist university teacher physicist string theorist non-fiction writer
Leonard Susskind is an American theoretical physicist, professor of theoretical physics at Stanford University and founding director of the Stanford Institute for Theoretical Physics. His research interests are string theory, quantum field theory, quantum statistical mechanics and quantum cosmology. He is a member of the US National Academy of Sciences, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, an associate...
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Gary Bettman

19. Gary Bettman

1952-. (aged 74)
jurist NHL Commissioner lawyer
Gary Bruce Bettman is an American sports executive who serves as the commissioner of the National Hockey League (NHL), a post he has held since February 1, 1993. Previously, Bettman was a senior vice president and general counsel to the National Basketball Association (NBA). Bettman is a graduate of Cornell University and New York University School of Law. Bettman was...
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Ed Marinaro

20. Ed Marinaro

1950-. (aged 76)
actor television actor American football player
Ed Marinaro is an American actor and former professional football running back who played in the National Football League (NFL) for the Minnesota Vikings. He played college football for the Cornell Big Red, where he was a unanimous All-American and won the Maxwell Award in 1971.
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Ricky Jay

21. Ricky Jay

1946-2018 (aged 72)
television actor
Richard Jay Potash was an American stage magician, actor, and writer. In a 1993 profile for The New Yorker, Mark Singer called Jay "perhaps the most gifted sleight of hand artist alive". In addition to sleight of hand, he was known for his card tricks, card throwing, memory feats, and stage patter. He also wrote extensively on magic and its...
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Greg Graffin

22. Greg Graffin

1964-. (aged 62)
biologist musician composer guitarist singer
Gregory Walter Graffin is an American singer who is the lead vocalist and only constant member of the punk band Bad Religion, which he co-founded in 1980. He has also released three solo albums.
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Steven Weinberg

23. Steven Weinberg

1933-2021 (aged 88)
cosmologist university teacher physicist writer theoretical physicist
Steven Weinberg was an American theoretical physicist. He shared the 1979 Nobel Prize in Physics with Abdus Salam and Sheldon Glashow "for their contributions to the theory of the unified weak and electromagnetic interaction between elementary particles, including, inter alia, the prediction of the weak neutral current".
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Dan Duryea

24. Dan Duryea

1907-1968 (aged 61)
film actor actor television actor
Dan Duryea was an American actor in film, stage, and television. Known for portraying villains, he had a long career in a variety of leading and secondary roles.
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Franchot Tone

25. Franchot Tone

1905-1968 (aged 63)
stage actor producer director actor film producer
Stanislaus Pascal Franchot Tone was an American actor, producer, and director of stage, film and television. He was a leading man in the 1930s and early 1940s, and at the height of his career was known for his gentlemanly sophisticate roles, with supporting roles by the 1950s. His acting crossed many genres including pre-Code romantic leads to noir layered roles...
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Paul Wolfowitz

26. Paul Wolfowitz

1943-. (aged 83)
banker politician diplomat political scientist economist
Paul Dundes Wolfowitz is an American political scientist and diplomat who served as the 10th President of the World Bank, U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense, U.S. Ambassador to Indonesia, and dean of Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at Johns Hopkins University. He is currently a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.
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Ethan Phillips

27. Ethan Phillips

1955-. (aged 71)
playwright television actor actor film actor
John Ethan Phillips is an American actor. He is best known for his television roles as Neelix on Star Trek: Voyager (1995–2001) and PR man Pete Downey on Benson (1979–1986). His film roles include Critters (1986) and its sequel Critters 3 (1991), as well as The Island (2005), Inside Llewyn Davis (2013), and Irrational Man (2015).
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Lauren Weisberger

28. Lauren Weisberger

1977-. (aged 49)
novelist writer journalist
Lauren Weisberger is an American writer. She is author of the 2003 bestseller The Devil Wears Prada, a roman à clef of her experience as an assistant to Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour. Weisberger worked as a writer and editor for Vogue and Departures magazines prior to writing The Devil Wears Prada, which was adapted into a film of the same...
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Thomas Midgley

29. Thomas Midgley

1889-1944 (aged 55)
chemist engineer inventor
Thomas Midgley Jr. was an American mechanical and chemical engineer. He played a major role in developing leaded gasoline (tetraethyl lead) and some of the first chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), better known in the United States by the brand name Freon; both products were later banned from common use due to their harmful impact on human health and the environment. He was...
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Reggie Fils-Aimé

30. Reggie Fils-Aimé

1961-. (aged 65)
businessperson business executive
Reginald Fils-Aimé is an American businessman best known for being the president and chief operating officer of Nintendo of America, the North American branch of the Japanese video game company Nintendo, from 2006 to 2019. Prior to his promotion to president and COO, Fils-Aimé was executive vice president of sales and marketing.
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Robert Smigel

31. Robert Smigel

1960-. (aged 66)
television actor film director actor voice actor film producer
Robert Smigel is an American actor, comedian, writer, director, producer, and puppeteer, known for his Saturday Night Live "TV Funhouse" cartoon shorts and as the puppeteer and voice behind Triumph the Insult Comic Dog. He also co-wrote the first two Hotel Transylvania films, You Don't Mess with the Zohan, and Leo, all starring Adam Sandler.
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Cheryl Crane

32. Cheryl Crane

1943-. (aged 83)
writer real-estate agent
Cheryl Christina Crane is an American former model, real estate broker, author, and the only child of actress Lana Turner. Her father was Turner's second husband, actor-turned-restaurateur Steve Crane. She was the subject of significant media attention in 1958 when, at fourteen years old, she stabbed to death her mother's lover, Johnny Stompanato, during a domestic struggle; she was not...
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E. B. White

33. E. B. White

1899-1985 (aged 86)
journalist writer children's writer poet novelist
Elwyn Brooks White was an American writer. He was the author of highly popular books for children: Stuart Little (1945), Charlotte's Web (1952), and The Trumpet of the Swan (1970).
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Harold Bloom

34. Harold Bloom

1930-2019 (aged 89)
literary critic writer university teacher literary theorist literary historian
Harold Bloom was an American literary critic and the Sterling Professor of humanities at Yale University. In 2017, Bloom was called "probably the most famous literary critic in the English-speaking world". After publishing his first book in 1959, Bloom wrote more than 50 books, including over 40 books of literary criticism, several books discussing religion, and one novel. He edited...
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Justin H. Min

35. Justin H. Min

1989-. (aged 37)
television actor actor photographer reality television participant
Justin Hong-Kee Min is an American actor. He began his acting career with roles in several Wong Fu productions. He is known for portraying Ben Hargreeves in the Netflix original series The Umbrella Academy (2019–2024), and for portraying the title role in After Yang (2021).
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Peter Yarrow

36. Peter Yarrow

1938-2025 (aged 87)
singer guitarist composer singer-songwriter string player
Peter Yarrow was an American singer and songwriter who found fame as a member of the 1960s folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary along with Paul Stookey and Mary Travers.
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Andrew Ross Sorkin

37. Andrew Ross Sorkin

1977-. (aged 49)
writer journalist television producer screenwriter
Andrew Ross Sorkin is an American journalist and author. He is a financial columnist for The New York Times and a co-anchor of CNBC's Squawk Box. He is also the founder and editor of DealBook, a financial news service published by The New York Times. He wrote the bestselling book Too Big to Fail and co-produced a movie adaptation of...
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Frank Morgan

38. Frank Morgan

1890-1949 (aged 59)
film actor character actor stage actor
Francis Phillip Wuppermann, known professionally as Frank Morgan, was an American character actor. He was best known for his appearances in films starting in the silent era in 1916, and then numerous sound films throughout the 1930s and 1940s, with a career spanning 35 years mostly as a contract player at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. He was also briefly billed early in his...
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Ato Essandoh

39. Ato Essandoh

1972-. (aged 54)
film actor actor television actor
Ato Essilfi Bracato Essandoh is an American television and film actor. He has appeared in numerous films and TV series, including a major role in the 2023 Netflix political drama series The Diplomat.
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Hu Shih

40. Hu Shih

1891-1962 (aged 71)
writer university teacher philosopher politician journalist
Hu Shih was a Chinese academic, writer, diplomat, and politician. Hu contributed to Chinese liberalism and language reform, and was a leading advocate for the use of written vernacular Chinese. He participated in the May Fourth Movement and China's New Culture Movement. He was a president of Peking University and Academia Sinica.
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Elissa Slotkin

41. Elissa Slotkin

1976-. (aged 50)
expert civil servant politician
Elissa Blair Slotkin is an American politician and former intelligence analyst serving since 2025 as the junior United States senator from Michigan. A member of the Democratic Party, she served in the United States House of Representatives from 2019 to 2025.
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Steve Reich

42. Steve Reich

1936-. (aged 90)
videographer composer musician
Stephen Michael Reich is an American composer best known as a pioneer of minimal music in the mid to late 1960s. Reich's work is marked by its use of repetitive figures, slow harmonic rhythm, and canons. Reich describes this concept in his essay "Music as a Gradual Process" by stating, "I am interested in perceptible processes. I want to be...
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S. E. Cupp

43. S. E. Cupp

1979-. (aged 47)
ballet dancer political pundit journalist television presenter
Sarah Elizabeth Cupp is an American television host, political commentator, and writer. In August 2017, she began hosting S. E. Cupp: Unfiltered, a political panel show, co-hosted by Andrew Levy, on HLN and later CNN.
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Harry Chapin

44. Harry Chapin

1942-1981 (aged 39)
film director pianist banjoist singer-songwriter guitarist
Harry Forster Chapin was an American singer-songwriter, philanthropist, and hunger activist best known for his folk rock and pop rock songs. He achieved worldwide success in the 1970s. Chapin, a Grammy Award-winning artist and Grammy Hall of Fame inductee, has sold over 16 million records worldwide.
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Ari Melber

45. Ari Melber

1980-. (aged 46)
news presenter correspondent lawyer journalist analyst
Ari Naftali Melber is an American attorney and Emmy Award-winning journalist who is the Chief Legal Correspondent for MS NOW and host of The Beat with Ari Melber.
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Catherine Hicks

46. Catherine Hicks

1951-. (aged 75)
film actor television actor stage actor
Catherine Mary Hicks is an American retired actress. She played the character Annie Camden on the long-running television series 7th Heaven. Other roles included Dr. Faith Coleridge on the soap opera Ryan's Hope (1976–1978), her Emmy Award-nominated performance as Marilyn Monroe in Marilyn: The Untold Story (1980), Dr. Gillian Taylor in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986), Carol Heath...
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Willis Carrier

47. Willis Carrier

1876-1950 (aged 74)
technician engineer inventor businessperson
Willis Haviland Carrier was an American engineer, best known for inventing modern air conditioning, inventing the 1st electrical air conditioning unit in 1902. In 1915, he founded Carrier Corporation, a company specializing in the manufacture and distribution of heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (now abbreviated "HVAC") systems.
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Howard Hawks

48. Howard Hawks

1896-1977 (aged 81)
producer writer film editor aircraft pilot film screenwriter
Howard Winchester Hawks was an American film director, producer, and screenwriter of the classic Hollywood era. The critic Leonard Maltin called him "the greatest American director who is not a household name." Roger Ebert called Hawks "one of the greatest American directors of pure movies, and a hero of auteur critics because he found his own laconic values in so...
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Rebekah Neumann

49. Rebekah Neumann

1978-. (aged 48)
business executive
Rebekah Victoria Neumann is an American businesswoman. Until September 22, 2019, she served as chief brand and impact officer at WeWork, a company founded by her husband, Adam Neumann, and oversaw its education program WeGrow.
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Keith Olbermann

50. Keith Olbermann

1959-. (aged 67)
writer journalist television presenter television producer
Keith Theodore Olbermann is an American sports and political commentator and writer. Olbermann spent the first 20 years of his career in sports journalism. He was a sports correspondent for CNN and for local TV and radio stations in the 1980s, winning the Best Sportscaster award from the California Associated Press three times. He co-hosted ESPN's SportsCenter from 1992 to...
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Peter Ostrum

51. Peter Ostrum

1957-. (aged 69)
film actor stage actor basketball player songwriter television actor
Peter Gardner Ostrum is an American retired veterinarian and former child actor, whose only film role was as Charlie Bucket in the 1971 motion picture Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory.
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Leo Frank

52. Leo Frank

1884-1915 (aged 31)
mechanical engineer
Leo Max Frank was an American lynching victim wrongly convicted of the murder of 13-year-old Mary Phagan, an employee in a factory in Atlanta, Georgia, where he was the superintendent. Frank's trial, conviction, and unsuccessful appeals attracted national attention. His kidnapping from prison and lynching became the focus of social, regional, political, and racial concerns, particularly regarding antisemitism. Modern researchers...
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Martin D. Ginsburg

53. Martin D. Ginsburg

1932-2010 (aged 78)
lawyer
Martin David Ginsburg was an American lawyer who specialized in tax law and was the husband of American lawyer and U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. He taught law at Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, D.C., and was of counsel in the Washington, D.C., office of the American law firm Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson.
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Janet Reno

54. Janet Reno

1938-2016 (aged 78)
prosecutor lawyer politician
Janet Wood Reno was an American lawyer and public official who served as the 78th United States attorney general from 1993 to 2001 under President Bill Clinton. A member of the Democratic Party, Reno was the second-longest serving attorney general, behind only William Wirt, and the first woman to serve in the position.
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Robert F. Smith

55. Robert F. Smith

1962-. (aged 64)
investment banker investor
Robert Frederick Smith is an American businessman. He is the founder, chairman, and CEO of private equity firm Vista Equity Partners. Globally, Smith is among theThe World's Billionaires with a net worth exceeding US$10.6 billion as of 2025.
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Andrea Savage

56. Andrea Savage

1973-. (aged 53)
screenwriter television actor film director film actor
Andrea Kristen Savage is an American actress and comedian best known for creating, writing and starring in the show I'm Sorry (2017–2019). The show originally aired on TruTV but became a hit when it streamed on Netflix. In 2022, she starred as Stacy Beale opposite Sylvester Stallone in the series Tulsa King on Paramount+. That same year she also starred...
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Huey Lewis

57. Huey Lewis

1950-. (aged 76)
actor street artist singer-songwriter film actor musician
Hugh Anthony Cregg III, known professionally as Huey Lewis, is an American actor and former singer-songwriter.
Thomas Pynchon

58. Thomas Pynchon

1937-. (aged 89)
writer science fiction writer novelist essayist
Thomas Ruggles Pynchon Jr. is an American novelist. He is known for his dense, complex works of postmodern fiction, which are distinguished by their paranoid tone, absurd humor, and references to history, art, science, and popular culture. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest American novelists. Pynchon is notoriously reclusive. Few photographs of him have been published, and...
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Edward Bernays

59. Edward Bernays

1891-1995 (aged 104)
public relations scholar journalist non-fiction writer psychologist
Edward Louis Bernays was an Austrian-American pioneer in the field of public relations and propaganda, referred to in his obituary as "the father of public relations". While credited with advancing the profession of public relations, his techniques have been criticized for manipulating public opinion, often in ways that undermined individual autonomy and democratic values.
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Jane Lynch

60. Jane Lynch

1960-. (aged 66)
voice actor stage actor game show host television actor writer
Jane Marie Lynch is an American actress, comedian, and singer. Known for playing starring and recurring roles in comedic television, her accolades include one Golden Globe, five Primetime Emmys and two Screen Actors Guild Awards. In 2013, Lynch received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
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Toni Morrison

61. Toni Morrison

1931-2019 (aged 88)
university teacher children's writer writer librettist audiobook narrator
Chloe Anthony Wofford "Toni" Morrison was an American novelist and editor. She was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1993. Her first novel, The Bluest Eye, was published in 1970. The critically acclaimed Song of Solomon (1977) brought her national attention and won the National Book Critics Circle Award. In 1988, Morrison won the Pulitzer Prize for Beloved (1987).
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Gillian Anderson

62. Gillian Anderson

1968-. (aged 58)
voice actor stage actor human rights defender television actor film actor
Gillian Leigh Anderson is an American actress. Her credits include the roles of FBI Special Agent Dana Scully in the series The X-Files, socialite Lily Bart in Terence Davies's film The House of Mirth (2000), DSU Stella Gibson in the BBC/RTÉ crime drama television series The Fall, sex therapist Jean Milburn in the Netflix comedy-drama Sex Education, and British Prime...
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Bill Maher

63. Bill Maher

1956-. (aged 70)
television presenter film producer comedian journalist actor
William Maher is an American television host, comedian, actor and political commentator. Known for his political satire, he is the host of the HBO political talk show Real Time with Bill Maher (2003–present) and podcast Club Random (2022–present). He previously hosted late-night show called Politically Incorrect (1993–2002) on ABC and Comedy Central.
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Ann Coulter

64. Ann Coulter

1961-. (aged 65)
author columnist lawyer writer pundit
Ann Hart Coulter is an American conservative political activist, author, syndicated columnist, and lawyer. She became known as a media pundit in the late 1990s, appearing in print and on cable news as an outspoken critic of the Clinton administration. Her first book concerned the impeachment of Bill Clinton and drew from her experience writing legal briefs for Paula Jones's...
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Ruth Bader Ginsburg

65. Ruth Bader Ginsburg

1933-2020 (aged 87)
jurist lawyer judge
Joan Ruth Bader Ginsburg was an American lawyer and jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1993 until her death in 2020. She was nominated by President Bill Clinton to replace retiring justice Byron White, and at the time was viewed as a moderate consensus-builder. Ginsburg was the first Jewish woman...
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Harold Gould

66. Harold Gould

1923-2010 (aged 87)
film actor actor television actor
Harold Vernon Goldstein, better known as Harold Gould, was an American character actor. He appeared as Martin Morgenstern on the sitcom Rhoda (1974–78) and Miles Webber on the sitcom The Golden Girls (1985–92). A five-time Emmy Award nominee, Gould acted in film and television for nearly 50 years, appearing in more than 300 television shows, 20 major motion pictures, and...
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Vera Rubin

67. Vera Rubin

1928-2016 (aged 88)
scientist astronomer physicist
Vera Florence Cooper Rubin was an American astronomer who pioneered work on galaxy rotation rates. She uncovered the discrepancy between the predicted and observed angular motion of galaxies by studying galactic rotation curves, the first evidence for the galaxy rotation problem, one key piece of evidence for dark matter. Measurements by other astronomers using 21 centimeter hydrogen line radio telescopes...
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William Sadler

68. William Sadler

1950-. (aged 76)
film actor actor television actor
William Thomas Sadler is an American actor. He began his career in various Broadway productions including Neil Simon's Biloxi Blues (1985). Known as a character actor, his best known film roles include Die Hard 2 (1990), Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey (1991), The Shawshank Redemption (1994), The Green Mile (1999), The Mist (2007), and Bill & Ted Face the Music...
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Katherine Clark

69. Katherine Clark

1963-. (aged 63)
prosecutor politician lawyer law clerk general counsel
Katherine Marlea Clark is an American lawyer and politician who has served as House Minority Whip since 2023 and is currently in her seventh term as the U.S. representative for Massachusetts's 5th congressional district, having held the post since 2013. She previously served as Assistant Speaker from 2021 to 2023 and Vice Chair of the House Democratic Caucus from 2019...
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Christopher Reeve

70. Christopher Reeve

1952-2004 (aged 52)
voice actor stage actor actor television actor director
Christopher D'Olier Reeve was an American actor, activist, director, and author. He amassed several stage and screen credits in his 34-year career, including playing the title character in the Superman film series (1978–1987). He won a British Academy Film Award, an Emmy Award, a Grammy Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award. He was also known for his activism.
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Herb Edelman

71. Herb Edelman

1933-1996 (aged 63)
television actor stage actor actor film actor
Herbert "Herb" Edelman was an American comedian, and actor of stage, film and television. He was twice nominated for an Emmy Award for his television work. His best-known role was as Stanley Zbornak, the ex-husband of Dorothy Zbornak (played by Bea Arthur) on The Golden Girls. He also had a recurring role on the 1980s medical drama St. Elsewhere.
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Jimmy Smits

72. Jimmy Smits

1955-. (aged 71)
television actor film producer actor film actor
Jimmy L. Smits is an American actor. He is best known for his roles as Attorney Victor Sifuentes on the legal drama L.A. Law, NYPD Detective Bobby Simone on the police drama NYPD Blue, Matt Santos on the political drama The West Wing and Bail Organa in the Star Wars franchise. He has also appeared as ADA Miguel Prado in...
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Barbara McClintock

73. Barbara McClintock

1902-1992 (aged 90)
cytogeneticist
Barbara McClintock is an American illustrator and author of children's books.
Mark Whitacre

74. Mark Whitacre

1957-. (aged 69)
businessperson biochemist
Mark Edward Whitacre is an American business executive who came to public attention in 1995 when, as president of the Decatur, Illinois-based BioProducts Division at Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), he became the highest-level corporate executive in U.S. history to become a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) whistleblower. For three years (1992–95), Whitacre acted as a cooperating witness for the FBI,...
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Margaret Bourke-White

75. Margaret Bourke-White

1904-1971 (aged 67)
war photographer artist writer photojournalist photographer
Margaret Bourke-White was an American documentary photographer and photojournalist. She was known as an architectural and commercial photographer for the first half of her career, representing corporate clients and highlighting the success of industrial capitalism with black and white images of steel factories and skyscrapers. In 1930, she became the first foreign photographer permitted to take pictures of the Soviet...
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Paul Graham

76. Paul Graham

1964-. (aged 62)
writer essayist venture capitalist programmer journalist
Paul Graham is an English-American computer scientist, writer, essayist, entrepreneur and investor. His work includes the programming language Arc, the startup Viaweb (later renamed Yahoo! Store), co-founding the startup accelerator and seed capital firm Y Combinator, a number of essays and books, and the media webpage Hacker News.
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Kurt Vonnegut

77. Kurt Vonnegut

1922-2007 (aged 85)
writer
Kurt Vonnegut was an American author known for his satirical and darkly humorous novels. His published work includes fourteen novels, three short-story collections, five plays, and five nonfiction works over fifty years; further works have been published since his death.
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Christopher Rich

78. Christopher Rich

1953-. (aged 73)
actor
Christopher Rich Wilson is an American actor, best known for his roles on Murphy Brown, Reba, and Boston Legal.
Jim Bridenstine

79. Jim Bridenstine

1975-. (aged 51)
consultant military officer politician
James Frederick Bridenstine is a politician who served as the 13th administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Bridenstine was the United States representative for Oklahoma's 1st congressional district, based in Tulsa from January 3, 2013, to April 23, 2018. He is a member of the Republican Party. Bridenstine currently works in the private sector and holds positions...
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Pearl S. Buck

80. Pearl S. Buck

1892-1973 (aged 81)
novelist writer autobiographer translator missionary
Pearl Comfort Sydenstricker Buck was an American writer and humanitarian. She is best known for The Good Earth, the best-selling novel in the United States in 1931 and 1932, which won her the Pulitzer Prize in 1932. In 1938, Buck became the first American woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature "for her rich and truly epic descriptions of...
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Abraham Maslow

81. Abraham Maslow

1908-1970 (aged 62)
university teacher psychologist
Abraham Harold Maslow was an American psychologist who created Maslow's hierarchy of needs, a theory of psychological health predicated on fulfilling innate human needs in priority, culminating in self-actualization.
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Ken Dryden

82. Ken Dryden

1947-2025 (aged 78)
executive director lawyer entrepreneur writer jurist
Kenneth Wayne Dryden PC OC was a Canadian professional ice hockey goaltender, politician, lawyer, businessman and author. He played for the Montreal Canadiens of the National Hockey League (NHL) from 1971 to 1979, winning the Stanley Cup six times, the Vezina Trophy as the goaltender on the team allowing the fewest goals five times, and the Conn Smythe Trophy along...
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Gad Saad

83. Gad Saad

1964-. (aged 62)
political scientist YouTuber writer university teacher television producer
Gad Saad is a Canadian marketing professor at the John Molson School of Business at Concordia University. He has argued for applying evolutionary psychology to marketing and consumer behaviour. He wrote a blog for Psychology Today and hosts a podcast titled "The Saad Truth".
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Hubert Reeves

84. Hubert Reeves

1932-2023 (aged 91)
astrophysicist environmentalist university teacher science communicator
Hubert Reeves CC GOQ was a French-Canadian astrophysicist and popularizer of science.
Bajrakitiyabha, Princess Rajasarinisiribajra

85. Bajrakitiyabha, Princess Rajasarinisiribajra

1978-. (aged 48)
lawyer diplomat military officer social worker
Bajrakitiyabha, Princess Rajasarini Siribajra is a Thai princess and diplomat of Thailand, the first grandchild of King Bhumibol Adulyadej and Queen Sirikit of Thailand, and the only one of the seven children of King Vajiralongkorn born to his first wife Princess Soamsawali.
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Simon Chang

86. Simon Chang

1954-. (aged 72)
university teacher politician
Chang San-cheng, also known by his English name Simon Chang, is a Taiwanese civil engineer, academic, and politician who has served as the mayor of Taoyuan City since 2022. He previously served as premier of Taiwan from 1 February 2016 to 20 May 2016 after being appointed by President Ma Ying-jeou. Before assuming the premiership, he had served as vice...
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Lee Teng-hui

87. Lee Teng-hui

1923-2020 (aged 97)
agricultural economist politician
Lee Teng-hui was a Taiwanese statesman, economist, and agronomist who served as the president of the Republic of China and chairman of the Kuomintang from 1988 to 2000. He was the first president to be born in Taiwan, the last to be indirectly elected, and the first to be directly elected.
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Francis Fukuyama

88. Francis Fukuyama

1952-. (aged 74)
economist political scientist writer blogger philosopher
Francis Yoshihiro Fukuyama is an American political scientist, political economist, and international relations scholar. He is best known for his book The End of History and the Last Man (1992), which controversially argued that the worldwide spread of liberal democracies and Western free-market capitalism may represent the final step in humanity's sociocultural evolution and political struggle and the final form...
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Ryosei Akazawa

89. Ryosei Akazawa

1960-. (aged 66)
politician
Ryōsei Akazawa is a Japanese politician of the Liberal Democratic Party and member of the House of Representatives in the Diet (national legislature), representing the Tottori 2nd district in Tottori Prefecture.
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Huang Kuo-chang

90. Huang Kuo-chang

1973-. (aged 53)
researcher legal scholar lawyer politician
Huang Kuo-chang is a Taiwanese legal scholar and politician. A member of the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), he has led the party's caucus in the Legislative Yuan since 2024, after being elected from its party list. He has served as the TPP’s chairman since 2025.
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Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak

91. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak

1942-. (aged 84)
literary critic university teacher writer philosopher translator
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak ( Bengali pronunciation: [ɡajotri t͡ʃɔkɾoborti spiβak]; FBA is an Indian scholar, literary theorist, and feminist critic. She is a University Professor at Columbia University and a founding member of the establishment's Institute for Comparative Literature and Society.
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Iddo Netanyahu

92. Iddo Netanyahu

1952-. (aged 74)
playwright radiologist
Iddo Netanyahu is an Israeli physician, author, and playwright. He is the younger brother of Benjamin Netanyahu, the Prime Minister of Israel, and Yonatan Netanyahu, a highly decorated soldier who was killed leading the Entebbe raid, a hostage rescue mission in 1976.
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Isaac Herzog

93. Isaac Herzog

1960-. (aged 66)
advocate lawyer politician
Isaac "Bougie" Herzog is an Israeli politician who has been serving since 2021 as the president of Israel. He is the first president to have been born in Israel after its Declaration of Independence.
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Mark Kirk

94. Mark Kirk

1959-. (aged 67)
congressional staff lawyer military officer politician
Mark Steven Kirk is an American retired politician and attorney who served as a United States senator from Illinois from 2010 to 2017, and as the United States representative for Illinois's 10th congressional district from 2001 to 2010. A member of the Republican Party, Kirk describes himself as socially liberal and fiscally conservative. As of 2025, he is the last...
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Tsai Ing-wen

95. Tsai Ing-wen

1956-. (aged 70)
jurist lawyer university teacher politician
Tsai Ing-wen is a Taiwanese politician and legal scholar who served as the seventh president of the Republic of China from 2016 to 2024. A member of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), she intermittently served as chair of the DPP from 2008 to 2012, 2014 to 2018, and 2020 to 2022. She was the first woman to hold the presidency...
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Sister Souljah

96. Sister Souljah

1964-. (aged 62)
songwriter writer autobiographer film producer rapper
Lisa Williamson, known as Sister Souljah, is an American author, activist, rapper, and film producer.
Hans Bethe

97. Hans Bethe

1906-2005 (aged 99)
physicist university teacher
Hans Albrecht Eduard Bethe was a German-American physicist who made major contributions to nuclear physics, astrophysics, quantum electrodynamics and solid-state physics, and received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1967 for his work on the theory of stellar nucleosynthesis. For most of his career, Bethe was a professor at Cornell University.
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Ernst Albrecht

98. Ernst Albrecht

1930-2014 (aged 84)
politician
Ernst Carl Julius Albrecht was a German politician of the Christian Democratic Union and a former high-ranking European civil servant. He was one of the first European civil servants appointed in 1958 and served as director-general of the Directorate-General for Competition from 1967 to 1970. He served as Minister President of the state of Lower Saxony from 1976 to 1990....
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Václav Klaus

99. Václav Klaus

1941-. (aged 85)
economist teacher politician
Václav Klaus is a Czech economist and politician who served as the second president of the Czech Republic from 2003 to 2013. From July 1992 until the dissolution of Czechoslovakia in January 1993, he served as the second and last prime minister of the Czech Republic while it was a federal subject of the Czech and Slovak Federative Republic, and...
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José Serra

100. José Serra

1942-. (aged 84)
economist writer politician
José Serra Chirico is a Brazilian politician who has served as a Congressman, Senator, Minister of Planning, Minister of Health, Mayor of São Paulo, Governor of São Paulo state, and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Brazil.
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