100 Notable alumni of Emerson College

Peter O'Brian is a Canadian film producer and broadcast executive. Films produced by O'Brian's company, Independent Pictures, have won nineteen Genie Awards. His production credits include Blood and Guts, The Grey Fox, Outrageous!, John and the Missus, Milk and Honey and My American Cousin.

Marion Fairfax was an American screenwriter, playwright, actress, and producer.

Don Lee is an American novelist, fiction writer, literary journal editor, and creative writing professor.

Thomas Lux was an American poet who held the Margaret T. and Henry C. Bourne, Jr. Chair in Poetry at the Georgia Institute of Technology and ran Georgia Tech's "Poetry @ Tech" program. He wrote fourteen books of poetry.

Rachel Louise Snyder is an American journalist, writer, and professor. She has written about domestic violence and worked as a foreign correspondent for the public radio program Marketplace, and also contributed to All Things Considered and This American Life. She is a professor in the Department of Literature at American University.

Laura van den Berg is an American fiction writer. She is the author of five works of fiction. Her first two collections of short stories were each shortlisted for the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award, in 2010 and 2014. In 2021, she was awarded the Strauss Livings Award from the American Academy of Arts & Letters and a Guggenheim...

Jaclyn Friedman is an American feminist writer and activist known as the co-editor (with Jessica Valenti) of Yes Means Yes: Visions of Sexual Power and a World Without Rape and Believe Me: How Trusting Women Can Change the World, the writer of Unscrewed: Women, Sex, Power and How to Stop Letting the System Screw Us All and What You Really...

Kathleen Rooney is an American writer, publisher, editor, and educator.

Kizzy Yuanda Constance Getrouw is a Dutch actress, singer and television host who performs mononymously as Kizzy. She became a household name in the Netherlands Antilles with hit songs and TV shows. In the United States, she presented TV shows on both The Gossip Swapp on XY TV and CN8. Her best known poems are Supervrouwen and Cel Voor Cel....

Louise Closser Hale was an American actress, playwright and novelist.

Alice Moore Hubbard was a noted American feminist and writer. She and her husband, Elbert Hubbard, were leading figures in the Roycroft movement, a branch of the Arts and Crafts Movement in England with which it was contemporary. Moore Hubbard served as the general manager for the collective, along with managing the Roycraft Inn. She was also the principal of...

Charles Wesley Emerson was the founder, namesake and first president of Emerson College of Oratory (now Emerson College) in Boston, Massachusetts. Charles Emerson was also a minister with the Unitarian Church and the author of a number of books dealing with oratory.

William Dawes Schulz is an American journalist, writer, and television personality. He is co-host of Mornin'!!! w/ Bill & Joanne, and is a freelance writer and a former senior editor of Stuff Magazine. He is best known for being on the Fox News late-night show Red Eye w/ Greg Gutfield.

Elaine Noble is an American politician and LGBT activist who served in the Massachusetts House of Representatives for two terms starting in January 1975. She was the first openly lesbian or gay candidate elected to a state legislature. She served two terms as representative for the Fenway-Kenmore and Back Bay neighborhoods of Boston.

Maurene Goo is an American author. Her books have been translated into twelve languages and two of her novels, I Believe in a Thing Called Love and Somewhere Only We Know, have been optioned to be made into feature films by Netflix.

Gabriel Shane Dunn is an American writer, podcaster, actor, and filmmaker. Since 2014, Dunn has hosted the YouTube comedy show and podcast Just Between Us with fellow former BuzzFeed writer Allison Raskin. Dunn also hosts the podcast Bad with Money, which launched in 2016 and which primarily focuses on personal finances, while also discussing subjects including poverty and economic oppression....

Doris "Granny D" Haddock was an American political activist from New Hampshire. Haddock achieved national fame when, between the ages of 88 and 90, starting on January 1, 1999, and culminating on February 29, 2000, she walked over 3,200 miles (5,100 km) across the continental United States to advocate for campaign finance reform. In 2004, she ran unsuccessfully as a...

Morton Dean Dubitsky, better known as Morton Dean, is an American retired television and radio anchor, news correspondent and author.

Gerry Duggan is an American comics writer, director and photographer living in Los Angeles.

Doug Herzog is an American television executive. He was formerly the president of Viacom Music and Entertainment Group, he oversaw MTV, VH1, Logo TV, Comedy Central, Palladia, TV Land and Spike. Herzog has been credited with evolving the MTV brand by steering the network away from music related programming.

Jack Gantos is an American author of children's books. He is best known for the fictional characters Rotten Ralph and Joey Pigza. Rotten Ralph is a cat who stars in twenty picture books written by Gantos and illustrated by Nicole Rubel from 1976 to 2014. Joey Pigza is a boy with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), featured in five novels from...

Alicyn Packard is an American voice actress, writer, singer and retired stand-up comedian nominated for a 2014 Voice Arts Award. As of 2004–2005, she provided the voice of Bulb from Disney Channel's Magnet-Tude. She also voices the characters Little Miss Sunshine, Little Miss Naughty, and Little Miss Whoops on the Cartoon Network animated series The Mr. Men Show. She also...

Danny A. Ledonne is an American film director and former video game developer. From 2011 to 2014, he worked as a professor in Film and Media Arts at American University, served on the board of the Southern Colorado Film Commission, and became the director for the 2015 edition of the festival. He is known for the documentary Playing Columbine, about...

Michael Anthony Rulli is an American politician and businessman serving as the U.S. representative for Ohio's 6th congressional district since 2024. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as an Ohio State Senator for the 33rd district from 2019 to 2024.

Elyse E. "Lisi" Harrison is a Canadian novelist of young adult fiction, known for the three series The Clique, Alphas and Monster High.

Samia "Sam" Doumit is an American actress.

Morgan Wolf Page is an American DJ and music producer. His tracks include "The Longest Road", "Fight for You" and "In the Air". Page has received two Grammy Award nominations; a personal nomination for best remix with Nadia Ali and in 2009 his song was nominated for best remix; "The Longest Road" (Deadmau5 Remix). Page is signed to Armada Music...

Todd Strauss-Schulson is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, editor, and cinematographer, best known for directing the comedy film A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas (2011), the horror comedy film The Final Girls (2015), and the romantic comedy film Isn't It Romantic (2019). He has also directed episodes of the television series The Inbetweeners (2012) and Zach Stone Is...

Rob Laakso was an American musician, record producer and engineer, best known as the recording partner of indie rock musician Kurt Vile and as a multi-instrumentalist in his backing band the Violators. Laakso also played in the shoegaze band Swirlies, among others. Born in Massachusetts in 1979, Laakso graduated from Emerson College.

Vincent John "Vin" Di Bona is an American television producer of the television shows MacGyver, Entertainment Tonight, America's Funniest Home Videos and Dancing with the Stars. He runs an eponymous production company called Vin Di Bona Productions. In 2010, Di Bona launched a second business, FishBowl Worldwide Media, an independent production company developing properties for film, television, digital platforms and...

Donzaleigh Abernathy is an American actress, author and civil rights activist.

Christopher Laird Hurst is an American journalist, former news anchor and former member of the Virginia House of Delegates for the state's 12th district.

Philip Ettinger is an American actor. He first gained attention for his supporting role as the troubled environmental activist, Michael, in Paul Schrader's First Reformed (2017). Other significant roles have been as Garrett Drimmer in the CBS All Access series One Dollar (2018), as the young-adult version of Mark Ruffalo's twin characters, Dominick and Thomas Birdsey, in HBO's I Know...

Eric Hutchinson is an American singer-songwriter best known for his songs "Rock & Roll", "OK, It's Alright with Me", "Not There Yet", "Watching You Watch Him", and "Tell the World". Hutchinson was named an AOL "About to Pop" artist, Yahoo! Who's Next Artist, MSN "One to Watch" Artist and a "VH1 You Oughta Know" Artist. Hutchinson also wrote and performed...

Paul Kreppel is an American actor and director. On television, he was best known as pianist Sonny Mann on the show It's a Living. In his work as theater director-producer-creator, he received the 2007 Tony Award for Jay Johnson: The Two and Only.

Alex Tse is an American screenwriter and television show creator active since 2004. He was one of the creators and executive producers of the 2019 TV series Wu-Tang: An American Saga. Prior to that, Tse wrote the 2004 gangster film Sucker Free City, co-wrote the 2009 superhero film Watchmen, and wrote the 2018 film Superfly.

Erik Messerschmidt, ASC is an American cinematographer.

Penny Peyser is an American actress, writer, and filmmaker.

Veronica Ann Belmont is an American online media personality. She was formerly the co-host of the Revision3 show Tekzilla alongside Patrick Norton. Belmont was the co-host of the former TWiT.tv gaming show Game On! along with Brian Brushwood, and the former host of the monthly PlayStation 3-based video on demand program Qore. Additionally, she was the host for the Mahalo...

Anthony Atamanuik is an American writer, actor, and comedian.

Jamie Bethany Loftus is an American writer, stand up alternative comedian, podcaster and actor based in Los Angeles.

Kotaro Tatsumi is a Japanese politician who serves in the House of Representatives as a member of the Japanese Communist Party. Tatsumi was in the House of Councillors from 2013 to 2019. Tatsumi is opposed to the MagLev system, saying that it is a waste of resources. He was a candidate in the 2023 Osaka gubernatorial election.

Michael John Angelakos is an American musician, singer, songwriter, and record producer. He is best known as the frontman of the indietronica band Passion Pit.

Eugene Harrison Roche was an American actor and the original "Ajax Man" in 1970s television commercials.

Mary Kay Adams is an American actress. She is best knowing for playing the roles of India von Halkein on the CBS soap opera Guiding Light (1984 to 1987, return appearances from 1990 to 2005) and Na'Toth on the science fiction television series Babylon 5 (1994 to 1995). She also had a recurring role as Grilka on Star Trek: Deep...

William Szathmary, known as Bill Dana, was an American comedian, actor, and screenwriter. He often appeared on television shows such as The Steve Allen Show, frequently in the guise of a heavily accented Bolivian character named José Jiménez. Dana often portrayed the Jiménez character as an astronaut.

Joseph Mande is an American comedian, actor and screenwriter. He has received various accolades including a Primetime Emmy Award, a Producers Guild of America Award and three Writers Guild of America Awards.

Jim Cummings is an American filmmaker, actor, and composer. He is known for writing, directing and starring in the 2016 short film Thunder Road, which he extended into a 2018 feature film of the same name. He also wrote, directed and starred in The Wolf of Snow Hollow (2020), and The Beta Test (2021). He also starred in The Last...

Emily Skeggs is an American actress and singer. She was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical in 2015 for playing the role of Medium Alison in Fun Home.

Nicola Yoon /ˈnɪkələ/ is a Jamaican-American author. She is best known for writing the 2015 young adult novel Everything, Everything, a New York Times best seller and the basis of a 2017 film of the same name. In 2016, she released The Sun Is Also a Star, a novel that was adapted to a 2019 film of the same name.

Adele Lim is a Malaysian screenwriter, producer, and director. She is best known for being a co-writer on Crazy Rich Asians, the first film by a major Hollywood studio to feature a majority cast of Asian descent in a modern setting since The Joy Luck Club in 1993, and Raya and the Last Dragon in 2021, an animated fantasy adventure...

Kevin S. Bright is an American television executive producer and director. He is best known as the showrunner of the sitcoms Dream On and Friends.

Jessie Lynn Whitney is an American television producer and retired professional wrestler.

Rosemary "Rosebud" Baker is an American comedian, actress, and writer. Based in New York City, she is known for her dark humor based on personal, often satirical stories. In 2010, she worked as an actress in independent films, non-union television projects, and off-Broadway. She later began appearing in a recurring role on the Hulu series Life & Beth. In 2013,...

George Virden Watsky is an American rapper, singer, songwriter, record producer, poet, author, and illustrator.

Spencer Tunick is an American photographer best known for organizing large-scale nude shoots.

Sophie Paatovna Shevardnadze (Russian: София (Софико) Паатовна Шеварднадзе; Georgian: სოფო შევარდნაძე; born 23 September 1978) is a Georgian/Russian journalist, presenter, author and producer. She is the creator and executive producer of the show Simply Complicated on the platform Yandex.Efir, Russia's equivalent of Google. She is the host of SophieCo Visionaries, and between 2006 and 2015 she was a presenter on...

Richard Allen Dysart was an American actor. He is best known for his role as senior partner Leland McKenzie in the television series L.A. Law (1986–1994), for which he won a 1992 Primetime Emmy Award as Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series after four consecutive nominations. In film, he held supporting roles in The Hospital (1971), Being There (1979),...

Seth Grahame-Smith is an American writer and film producer, best known as the author of The New York Times best-selling novels Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter, both of which have been adapted as feature films. Grahame-Smith is also the co-creator, head writer and executive producer of The Hard Times of RJ Berger, a scripted television...

Princess Noor bint Asem is a member of the Jordanian royal family.

Justin Willman is an American magician, comedian, producer, and television personality. He is the creator and star of Magic for Humans on Netflix. The third season of Magic for Humans was released on May 15, 2020. He has made regular appearances on The Tonight Show, The Ellen DeGeneres Show, and Conan. His debut comedy/magic special Sleight of Mouth premiered on...

Pearl Aday is an American singer. She is the adopted daughter of vocalist Marvin Lee Aday, better known as Meat Loaf, and was a member of his touring band Neverland Express for nine years starting in the mid-1990s. She has appeared on numerous albums and in various tours and television performances with her father, both as backing singer and in...

Lori Alan is an American actress. She has played a long-running role as Pearl Krabs from the animated television series SpongeBob SquarePants. She also voiced Diane Simmons from Family Guy, the Invisible Woman from Fantastic Four, and The Boss in the Metal Gear video game series.

Dan Finnerty is an American actor and singer.

Hartley Sawyer is an American former actor known for his roles as Brian Sommers on Glory Daze (2010–11), Kyle Abbott on The Young and the Restless (2013–14), and Ralph Dibny / Elongated Man on The Flash (2017–20).

Benjamin Zachary Bronfman is an American businessman and musician. Bronfman is a founding partner and board member of Global Thermostat, a direct air capture company that removes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

Paul McClaran Dini is an American writer, animator, and comic book artist. He has served as a producer and writer for several Warner Bros. Animation/DC Comics animated series, most notably Batman: The Animated Series (1992–1995), and the subsequent DC Animated Universe. Dini and Bruce Timm co-created the characters Harley Quinn and Terry McGinnis.

Bobbi Brown is an American professional make-up artist, author, and the founder of Bobbi Brown Cosmetics. She created ten natural-shade lipsticks, which, according to Entrepreneur "revolutionized the beauty industry". She has written ten books about beauty and wellness. In 2025, Time magazine listed her as one of the world's 100 most influential people.

Mario Cantone is an American comedian, writer, actor, singer, and television host. He played Anthony Marentino in Sex and the City (2000–2004) and its revival And Just Like That... (2021–2025) and Terri in Men in Trees (2006–2008). He hosted the children's television program Steampipe Alley, which aired on WWOR-TV from 1988 to 1993.

Steven Alexander Wright is an American stand-up comedian, actor, writer and film producer. He is known for his distinctive lethargic voice and slow, deadpan delivery of ironic, philosophical and sometimes nonsensical jokes, paraprosdokians, non sequiturs, anti-humor, and one-liners with contrived situations.

Cazzie Laurel David is an American scriptwriter and actress. David co-created and co-starred in the web series Eighty-Sixed (2017). Her first collection of essays No One Asked For This was released in 2020. She also appears in the third season of Netflix's The Umbrella Academy.

Joanna Catherine Going is an American actress known for the television series Kingdom, House of Cards, Mad Men and the movie Wyatt Earp.

May El Calamawy is an Egyptian-Palestinian actress. Calamawy gained recognition for her portrayal of Layla El-Faouly / Scarlet Scarab in the Marvel Studios miniseries Moon Knight (2022), marking the first Egyptian and Arab superhero in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Andrea Louise Martin is an American and Canadian actress and comedian, best known for her work in the television series SCTV and Great News. She has appeared in films such as Black Christmas (1974) and its 2006 remake, Wag the Dog (1997), Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001), My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2002), My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2...

Elden Henson is an American actor. He is best known for playing Fulton Reed in The Mighty Ducks trilogy (1992–1996), Foggy Nelson in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), and Pollux in The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1 (2014) and Part 2 (2015).

Michael Nouri is an American screen and stage actor. He is best known for his television roles, including Dr. Neil Roberts on The O.C., Phil Grey on Damages, Caleb Cortlandt on All My Children, Eli David in NCIS, and Bob Schwartz on Yellowstone. He is also known for his starring roles in the films Flashdance (1983) and The Hidden (1987),...

Joely Fisher is an American actress and singer, the daughter of singer Eddie Fisher and actress Connie Stevens, and half-sister of actress Carrie Fisher. Her breakthrough came in 1994, starring as Paige Clark in the ABC sitcom Ellen, for which she was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Series, Miniseries or Television Film at...

Abbi Jacobson is an American comedian, actress, writer, producer, and illustrator. She co-created and co-starred in the Comedy Central series Broad City (2014–2019) with Ilana Glazer, based on the web series of the same name. She is a writer and co-creator of the Amazon Prime series A League of Their Own (2022), in which she also stars as Carson Shaw,...

Natasha Gregson Wagner is an American actress. She is the daughter of film producer Richard Gregson and actress Natalie Wood. She has appeared in films including Lost Highway, Two Girls and a Guy, First Love, Last Rites (all 1997), Urban Legend, Another Day in Paradise (both 1998) and High Fidelity (2000).

Denis Colin Leary is an American stand-up comedian and actor. He first came to prominence as a stand-up comedian, especially through appearances on MTV (including the comedic song "Asshole") and through the stand-up specials No Cure for Cancer (1993) and Lock 'n Load (1997). Leary began taking roles in film and television starting in the 1990s, including substantial roles in...

Norman Milton Lear was an American screenwriter and producer who produced, wrote, created, or developed over 100 shows. Lear created and produced numerous popular 1970s sitcoms, including All in the Family (1971–1979), Maude (1972–1978), Sanford and Son (1972–1977), One Day at a Time (1975–1984), The Jeffersons (1975–1985), and Good Times (1974–1979). His works introduced political and social themes to the...

Maria Menounos is an American television host. She has hosted Extra and E! News; she was a TV correspondent for Today, Access Hollywood, and co-hosted the Eurovision Song Contest 2006 in Athens, Greece. She also co-created and is currently CEO of online podcast series network AfterBuzz TV. She is currently signed to WWE where she has served as an ambassador...

David Cross is an American stand-up comedian, actor, writer, and television producer. Cross is best known for his stand-up performances, the HBO sketch comedy series Mr. Show with Bob and David (1995–1998), his role as Ian Hawke in the first three Alvin and the Chipmunks movies, and his role as Tobias Fünke in the Fox/Netflix sitcom Arrested Development (2003–2006, 2013–2019)....

Kerem Bürsin is a Turkish actor, known for his work predominantly in films, television and streaming series. After graduating from Emerson College in Marketing Communications Department, Bürsin began his acting career. He gained fame with the role in the TV shows Güneşi Beklerken (2013−2014) and Şeref Meselesi (2014−2015). Bürsin received attention after playing Ali Smith in romance action series Bu...

Iliza Vie Shlesinger is an American stand-up comedian, actress and television host. She has released six comedy specials on Netflix. She was the 2008 winner of NBC's Last Comic Standing and went on to host the syndicated dating show Excused from 2011 to 2013. She has hosted the TBS game show Separation Anxiety.

William Frederic Burr is an American stand-up comedian, podcaster, actor, writer and director. He started his career as a stand-up comedian before expanding his career as an actor on stage and screen. As a comedian he is known for his sharp confrontational observational humor often tackling subjects such as social issues, politics and the absurdities of the human condition.

James Douglas Muir Leno is an American television host, comedian, and writer. After doing stand-up comedy for years, Leno was chosen in 1992 to replace Johnny Carson as the host of NBC's The Tonight Show; Leno hosted The Tonight Show until September 2009 when Conan O'Brien took over as host and Leno started a primetime talk show, The Jay Leno...

Gina L. Gershon is an American actress and singer. She has starred in such films as Cocktail (1988), Red Heat (1988), Showgirls (1995), Bound (1996), Face/Off (1997), The Insider (1999), Demonlover (2002), P.S. I Love You (2007), Five Minarets in New York (2010), Killer Joe (2011), and House of Versace (2013). She has also had supporting roles in FX's Rescue...

Brandon Bruce Lee was an American actor and martial artist. Establishing himself as a rising action star in the early 1990s, Lee landed what was to be his breakthrough role as Eric Draven in the supernatural superhero film The Crow (1994). However, Lee's career and life were cut short by his accidental death during the film's production.

Jennifer Coolidge is an American actress. She gained recognition for her comedic roles, most notably the American Pie (1999–2012) and Legally Blonde (2001–2003) film series.

Paul Thomas Anderson, also known by his initials PTA, is an American filmmaker. Often described as one of the preeminent filmmakers of his generation, his accolades include two Golden Globe Awards, a BAFTA Award, two Critics Choice Awards, and nominations for fourteen Academy Awards, and a Grammy. He is the only person to have won Best Director at the Cannes...

Adam Green is an American actor, filmmaker and musician, best known for his work in horror and comedy films, including the Hatchet franchise, 2010's Frozen, and the television series Holliston. He was also the lead singer for the hard rock and metal band Haddonfield.

Suzan Denise Johnson Cook is a U.S. presidential advisor, pastor, theologian, author, activist, and academic who served as the United States Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom under The Obama Administration from April 2011 to October 2013. She has served as a policy advisor to President Bill Clinton and later to the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Henry Cisneros, a...

Glenn Branca was an American avant-garde composer, guitarist, and luthier. Known for his use of volume, alternative guitar tunings, repetition, droning, and the harmonic series, he was a driving force behind the genres of no wave, totalism and noise rock. Branca received a 2009 Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists Award.

Olen Steinhauer is an American writer of spy fiction novels, including The Tourist, part of the Milo Weaver series, and the Yalta Boulevard Sequence. Steinhauer also created the TV series Berlin Station, focused on a fictional Central Intelligence Agency branch operating in Berlin, which began airing in 2016.

Henry Franklin Winkler is an American actor, producer, director, and author. Widely known as Arthur "Fonzie" Fonzarelli on the sitcom Happy Days (1974–1984), Winkler has distinguished himself as a character actor for roles on stage and screen. His many accolades include three Emmy Awards, two Golden Globe Awards and two Critics Choice Awards.

Wishnutama Kusubandio is a former Indonesian journalist and businessman. He was co-founder and CEO of NET. Mediatama Television and NET. Visi Media Asia, from founding on 18 May 2013 until his resignation on 22 October 2019. He served as Minister of Tourism and Creative Economy under Joko Widodo between 23 October 2019 and 22 December 2020. His deputy minister before...

Daniel Joseph Levy is a Canadian actor and filmmaker. He began his career as a television host on MTV Canada. He received international prominence for starring as David Rose in the CBC sitcom Schitt's Creek (2015–2020), which he co-created and co-starred in with his father, Eugene Levy.

Chou Shou-hsun is a Taiwanese politician who served in the Legislative Yuan from 2005 to 2012. He is known in English as Justin Chou.