100 Notable alumni of Ghent University

Pol Van Den Driessche is a Belgian ex-journalist, writer and politician.

Tom Vandendriessche is a Belgian politician and businessman currently serving as a Member of the European Parliament for the Vlaams Belang.

Frederik A. A. Willockx was a Belgian socialist politician, and member of the Flemish Different Socialist Party.

Maurice Auguste, Count Lippens was a noble Belgian businessman, politician, and colonial civil servant and lawyer.

Jean Marie Joseph "Jan", Baron Van Houtte was a Belgian politician who served as the Prime Minister of Belgium from 1952 to 1954.

Raymond De Belser, pseudonym Ward Ruyslinck, was a Belgian writer. He is the son of Leo De Belser and Germaine Nauwelaers. His father was a librarian at an oil company, and Ward Ruyslinck grew up in a Roman Catholic family. During the Second World War, the family moved to Mortsel.

Franz Hellens, born Frédéric van Ermengem was a prolific Belgian novelist, poet and critic. Although of Flemish descent, he wrote entirely in French, and lived in Paris from 1947 to 1971. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature four times.

Maksymilian Horwitz was a leader and theoretician of the Polish socialist and communist movement.

Hendrik "Rik" Cornelis was a Belgian colonial civil servant who served as the final Governor-General of the Belgian Congo from 1958 to 1960. His term ended with the independence of the Republic of the Congo.

Geert Lambert is a Belgian politician and lawyer. He was the president of Spirit, a Flemish political party, from 2004 until 2007, when he was succeeded by Bettina Geysen. In 2003 he became a member of the Chamber of Representatives, where he headed the Spirit fraction, and following the 2007 Belgian federal election held on 10 June 2007, he became...

Annelies Verbeke is a Belgian author who writes in Dutch. She made her name with the novel Slaap! (Sleep!) which has been translated into several languages.

Edilberto Evangelista was a Filipino civil engineer and a revolutionary.

Carolus Petrus Eduardus Maria "Karel" van de Woestijne was a Flemish writer and brother of the painter Gustave van de Woestijne. He went to highschool at the Koninklijk Athenaeum (E:Royal Athenaeum) at the Ottogracht in Ghent. He also studied Germanic philology at the University of Ghent, where he came into contact with French symbolism. He lived at Sint-Martens-Latem from April...

Joséphine Rebecca Marie Julienne Bertha "Fientje" Moerman is a Belgian liberal politician and currently a judge on the Constitutional Court of Belgium.

Marcel Gilles Jozef Minnaert was a Belgian-Dutch astronomer. He was born in Bruges and died in Utrecht. He is notable for his contributions to astronomy and physics and for a popular book on meteorological optics: Light and colour in the open air, first published in English in 1940.

Marc, Baron Van Montagu is a Belgian molecular biologist. He was full professor and director of the Laboratory of Genetics at the faculty of Sciences at Ghent University (Belgium) and scientific director of the genetics department of the Flanders Interuniversity Institute for Biotechnology (VIB). Together with Jozef Schell he founded the biotech company Plant Genetic Systems Inc. (Belgium) in 1982,...

Luíz Cruls or Luís Cruls or Louis Ferdinand Cruls was a Belgian-Brazilian astronomer and geodesist. He was Director of the Brazilian National Observatory from 1881 to 1908, led the commission charged with the survey and selection of a future site for the capital of Brazil in the Central Plateau, and was co-discoverer of the Great Comet of 1882. Cruls was...

Leo Apostel was a Belgian philosopher and professor at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel and Ghent University. Apostel was an advocate of interdisciplinary research and the bridging of the gap between exact science and humanities.

Victor Alter was a Polish Jewish socialist activist and Bund publicist, and a member of the executive committee of the Second International.

Joseph Guislain was a Belgian physician and a pioneer in psychiatry.

Dirk Verhofstadt is a Belgian social liberal and Rawlsian theorist and younger brother of former Belgian Prime Minister and former ALDE leader Guy Verhofstadt. He has a keen interest in political philosophy, and his philosophical outlook is influenced by Karl Popper, John Stuart Mill, Cesare Beccaria, Thomas Paine, Amartya Sen, and Martha Nussbaum.

Alicja Anna Gescinska is a Polish-Belgian philosopher.

Baroness Suzanne Lilar was a Flemish Belgian essayist, novelist, and playwright writing in French. She was the wife of the Belgian Minister of Justice Albert Lilar and mother of the writer Françoise Mallet-Joris and the art historian Marie Fredericq-Lilar.

Nicole de Moor is a Belgian politician, a member of CD&V, a Flemish Christian-democratic political party. She served as the Secretary of State for Asylum and Migration in the government of Alexander De Croo between 28 June 2022 and 3 February 2025. In that position, she contributed to the European Migration and Asylum Pact during the Belgian Presidency of the...

Jan Blommaert was a Belgian sociolinguist and linguistic anthropologist, Professor of Language, Culture and Globalization and Director of the Babylon Center at Tilburg University, the Netherlands. He also held appointments at Ghent University (Belgium) and University of the Western Cape (South Africa). He was considered to be one of the world's most prominent sociolinguists and linguistic anthropologists, who had contributed...

Johan Daisne was the pseudonym of Flemish author Herman Thiery. Born in Ghent, Belgium, he attended the Koninklijk Atheneum before studying Economics and Slavic languages at Ghent University, receiving his doctorate in 1936. In 1945 he was appointed chief librarian of the city of Ghent.

Maxime De Winne is a Flemish actor and theatre producer.

Wivina Demeester-De Meyer is a Belgian politician who served as a Member of the Flemish Parliament and its predecessor bodies between 1974 and 1995 and 1999 and 2004; she also held various ministerial posts in the national (i.e., Belgian) and Flemish governments.

Erwin Mortier is a Dutch-language Belgian author. Spending his youth in Hansbeke, he later moved to nearby Ghent, where he became city poet (2005–2006).

Stephanie D'Hose is a Belgian politician for Anders (formerly Open Flemish Liberals and Democrats) who served as President of the Senate from 2020 until 2024.

Philippe De Backer is an Open Vld politician and was a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) from September 2011 until April 2016, when he became Secretary of State for Social Fraud, Privacy and the North Sea in the Michel Government.

Knight Jan Hoet was the Belgian founder of SMAK (Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst or Municipal Museum for Contemporary Art) in Ghent, Belgium.

Hetty Hilde Helsmoortel is a Belgian scientist, author and organizer of the science festival Nerdland Festival (initially called Sound of Science). With a PhD in health sciences, she spent eight years as a cancer researcher at Ghent University. Beyond her research, she studied drama at the Royal Institute for Theatre, Cinema, and Sound in Brussels, which has enabled her to...

Egbert R. Lachaert is a Belgian lawyer, politician and was party chairman of the Open VLD.

Abbé Charles-Étienne Brasseur de Bourbourg was a noted French writer, ethnographer, historian, archaeologist, and Catholic priest. He became a specialist in Mesoamerican studies, travelling extensively in the region. His writings, publications, and recovery of historical documents contributed much to knowledge of the region's languages, writing, history and culture, particularly those of the Maya and Aztec civilizations. However, his speculations concerning...

Gerard Alfons August, Baron Mortier was a Belgian opera director and administrator of Flemish origin known for his innovative leadership of major European opera houses, including La Monnaie, the Salzburg Festival, and the Opéra National de Paris. He promoted contemporary works, challenged traditional staging, and sought to make opera more accessible. Mortier received multiple international honours and was made a...

Benjamin Dalle is a Belgian politician.

Gustave Henri Ange Hippolyte Rolin-Jaequemyns was a Belgian lawyer, diplomat, politician and Minister of the Interior (1878–1884) as a member of the Unitarian Liberal Party. He is the son of Hippolyte Rolin, the son in law of Edouard Jaequemyns, the brother of Albéric Rolin, the father of Edouard Rolin-Jaequemyns, and the uncle of Henri Rolin.Together with the Swiss jurist Gustave...

Karel Antonius Lucia Maria Van Miert was a Belgian politician of the Different Socialist Party and official of the European Commission.

Franz-Valéry-Marie Cumont was a Belgian archaeologist and historian, a philologist and student of epigraphy, who brought these often isolated specialties to bear on the syncretic mystery religions of Late Antiquity, notably Mithraism.

Corneille Jean François Heymans was a Belgian physiologist. He studied at the Jesuit College of Saint Barbara and then at Ghent University, where he obtained a doctor's degree in 1920.

Vincent Van Peteghem is a Belgian economist and politician of CD&V who has been serving as a Deputy Prime Minister and as the Minister of Budget in the De Wever Government since february 2025. He previously served as the Minister of Finance in the De Croo government from 1 October 2020 to 3 February 2025. He was a member of...

John Crombez is a Belgian politician. He was leader of the Socialist Party Differently (sp.a) from 2015 to 2019. In the Di Rupo Government (2011–2014) he was Secretary of State for combatting fraud.

Francisco de Paula Ramos de Azevedo was a Brazilian architect, known for designing various buildings and landmarks in São Paulo, such as the Teatro Municipal, the Mercado Municipal, and the Pinacoteca. He was one of the founders and director of the University of São Paulo's Polytechnical School.

Maarten Boudry is a Belgian philosopher and skeptic. He has been a researcher in philosophy and moral sciences at Ghent University since 2006.

Mathias Toon Cecil Willy De Clercq, esq. is a Belgian politician. He is a member of the Flemish liberal party. At the moment he is the mayor of Ghent. From 2007 until 2014, he was a federal representative, and from 2014 until 2019, he was a Flemish representative. From 2007 until 2019, he was a schepen in Ghent. He belongs...

Pierre François Verhulst was a Belgian mathematician and a doctor in number theory from the University of Ghent in 1825. He is best known for the logistic growth model.

Etienne Vermeersch was a Belgian moral philosopher, skeptic, opinion maker and debater. He is one of the founding fathers of the abortion, euthanasia law, and the Law on Patients' Rights in Belgium. Vermeersch became an atheist after five years with the Society of Jesus (Jesuits). Later he became a philosophical materialist. In January 2008, Vermeersch was chosen by hundred prominent...

Joke Schauvliege is a Belgian politician from Flanders.

Marietta Giannakou was a Greek politician, member of New Democracy. She served as Minister for National Education and Religious Affairs of Greece.

Siegfried Theofiel Hortense Bracke is a former Belgian politician and is affiliated to the N-VA. He was elected as a member of the Belgian Chamber of Representatives in 2010. Bracke was born in Ghent. Before his political career he had a long career as a journalist, working for the VRT (Vlaamse Radio- en Televisieomroep - the primary Flemish-Belgian broadcasting company),...

Tom Lanoye is a Belgian novelist, poet, columnist, screenwriter and playwright. He is one of the most widely read and honoured authors in his language area (the Netherlands and Flanders), and makes regular appearances at all the major European theatre festivals. He was born in Sint-Niklaas.

Charles de l'Écluse, L'Escluse, or Carolus Clusius, seigneur de Watènes, was an Artois doctor and pioneering botanist, perhaps the most influential of all 16th-century scientific horticulturists.

José Cándido Alejandrino y Magdangal was a Philippine Republican Army general during the Philippine Revolution and the Philippine–American War.

Catherine De Bolle is the executive director of Europol, succeeding Rob Wainwright whose term expired on 1 May 2018. Before that she was the chief commissioner of the Belgian federal police (1 March 2012–1 May 2018) and chief of the police of zone Ninove (2001–2012).

Meyrem Almaci is a Belgian politician from Flanders and member of the ecological party Groen. On 10 June 2007, she was elected to the Belgian Chamber of Representatives for the first time. She was re-elected in 2010 and in 2014 when she also became the president of Groen. In 2019 she left the Belgian parliament and was elected in the...

René Jacobs is a Belgian musician. He came to fame as a countertenor, but later in his career he became known as a conductor of baroque and classical opera.

Màiri Louise McAllan is a Scottish politician serving as Cabinet Secretary for Housing since 2025. She has previously served as Cabinet Secretary for Net Zero and Energy from 2024 to 2025, Cabinet Secretary for Transport, Net Zero and Just Transition from 2023 to 2024, and Minister for Environment, Biodiversity and Land Reform from 2021 to 2023. A member of the...

Hilde Urbanie Julia Crevits is a Belgian politician from Flanders and member of the Christian Democratic and Flemish party who is currently the Flemish minister of Economy, Innovation, Work, Social economy and Agriculture.

Freya Van den Bossche is a Belgian (Flemish) politician and daughter of prominent former Belgian politician Luc Van den Bossche. She is member of the SP.a political party, and she was Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Budget and Consumer Protection in the Belgian federal government. She was the youngest ever minister appointed in Belgium.

Leonard Clemence "Leo" Tindemans was a Belgian politician. He served as the prime minister of Belgium from 25 April 1974 until he resigned as minister on 20 October 1978. He was a member of the Christian Democratic and Flemish party.

Noémie Maria Alexis Ghislaine Wolfs is a Belgian singer from Scherpenheuvel-Zichem, a former member of Hooverphonic.

Tiesj Benoot is a Belgian cyclist, who currently rides for UCI WorldTeam Decathlon CMA CGM.

Yaakov Dori, born Yaakov Dostrovsky, was the first Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). He was also the President of the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology.

Lieven Scheire is a Belgian comedian, presenter and science communicator.

Dries Van Langenhove is a Belgian political activist, former politician. He is known for his far-right views and actions.

Dirk Dries David Damiaan, Viscount Frimout is a Belgian astrophysicist for the European Space Agency. He flew aboard NASA Space Shuttle mission STS-45 as a payload specialist, making him the first Belgian in space.

Geert Albert Bourgeois is a Belgian politician of the New Flemish Alliance (N-VA), which he founded in 2001, who is currently serving as a Member of the European Parliament since 2019. He previously served as the Minister-President of Flanders from 2014 to 2019. Prior to this, he was a member of the federal Chamber of Representatives for the People's Union...

George Alfred Leon Sarton was a Belgian-American chemist and historian. He is considered the founder of the discipline of the history of science as an independent field of study. His most influential works were the Introduction to the History of Science, which consists of three volumes and 4,296 pages, and the journal Isis. Sarton ultimately aimed to achieve an integrated...

Ben Weyts is a Belgian politician of the New Flemish Alliance (N-VA). He has been a Vice Minister-President of Flanders in the Flemish Government since 2019, and serves as the Flemish Minister for Budget and Finance, Brussels Periphery, Real Estate Heritage, and Animal Welfare in the current Diependaele Government, which took office in 2024.

Georges Raymond Constantin Rodenbach was a Belgian Symbolist poet and novelist.

Cao Jianming is a Chinese retired politician who served as a vice chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress from 2018 to 2023. Previously, he was the procurator-general of the Supreme People's Procuratorate.

Jean-Pierre Van Rossem was a Belgian economist, econometrician, activist, author, philosopher, stock-market guru, politician, and member of the Belgian and Flemish Parliaments.

Yves Camille Désiré Leterme is a Belgian politician, a leader of the Christian Democratic and Flemish party (CD&V). He was the prime minister of Belgium from March 2008 to December 2008, and later from November 2009 to December 2011.

Swen Johan Vincke is a Belgian video game designer, programmer and director. He is the founder and CEO of the video game company Larian Studios, where he has led the development of the Divinity series and Baldur's Gate 3.

Daniel Varoujan was an Armenian poet of the early 20th century. At the age of 31, when he was reaching international stature, he was deported and murdered by the Young Turk government, as part of the officially planned and executed Armenian genocide.

Johann Friedrich Wilhelm Adolf von Baeyer was a German chemist who synthesised indigo and developed a nomenclature for cyclic compounds (that was subsequently extended and adopted as part of the IUPAC organic nomenclature). He was ennobled in the Kingdom of Bavaria in 1885 and was the 1905 recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

Eefje Depoortere, known professionally as Sjokz, is a Belgian television presenter, reporter, and esports player who has hosted the League of Legends European Championship. She has also hosted multiple League of Legends World Championships.

Lambert Adolphe Jacques Quetelet FRSF or FRSE was a Belgian-French astronomer, mathematician, statistician, and sociologist who founded and directed the Brussels Observatory and was influential in introducing statistical methods to the social sciences. His name is sometimes spelled with an accent as Quételet.

Conner Rousseau is a Belgian politician and chairman of the social-democratic Flemish Vooruit party (formerly known as the sp.a). He became its chairman in November 2019 at the age of 26.

Robert Cailliau is a Belgian informatics engineer who proposed the first (pre-www) hypertext system for CERN in 1987 and collaborated with Tim Berners-Lee on the World Wide Web (jointly winning the ACM Software System Award) from before it got its name. He designed the historical logo of the WWW, organized the first International World Wide Web Conference at CERN in...

Guy Maurice Marie Louise Verhofstadt is a Belgian politician who served as the prime minister of Belgium from 1999 to 2008. He was a member of the European Parliament (MEP) from Belgium from 2009 until 2024. Verhofstadt was a member of the Belgian Chamber of Representatives from 1985 to 2009. He served as deputy prime minister of Belgium and minister...

Friedrich August Kekulé, later Friedrich August Kekule von Stradonitz, was a German organic chemist. From the 1850s until his death, Kekulé was one of the most prominent chemists in Europe, especially in the field of theoretical chemistry. He was the principal founder of the theory of chemical structure and in particular the Kekulé structure of benzene.

Petra De Sutter is a Belgian transgender gynaecologist and politician, who served as federal Deputy Prime Minister of Belgium. Following her term, she was elected rector of Ghent University.

Jacques Jean Marie, Count Rogge was a Belgian sports administrator, former athlete, and physician, who served as the eighth president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) from 2001 to 2013. In 2013, Rogge became the IOC's honorary president, a lifetime position, which he held until his death from Parkinson's disease in August 2021.

Henry Clemens van de Velde was a Belgian painter, architect, interior designer, and art theorist. Together with Victor Horta and Paul Hankar, he is considered one of the founders of Art Nouveau in Belgium. He worked in Paris with Siegfried Bing, the founder of the first gallery of Art Nouveau in Paris. Van de Velde spent the most important part...

Leo Hendrik Baekeland HonFRSE was a Belgian chemist. Educated in Belgium and Germany, he spent most of his career in the United States. He is best known for the inventions of Velox photographic paper in 1893, and Bakelite in 1907. He has been called "The Father of the Plastics Industry" for his invention of Bakelite, an inexpensive, non-flammable and versatile...

Johan Cyrille Corneel Vande Lanotte is a Belgian politician. He is a member of the SP.A, and became its party president on 15 October 2005. He handed down his leadership positions after the SP.A lost in the 2007 general election. Between 1995 and 2014, he served more than 13 years as Deputy Prime Minister, the longest period for a Flemish...

Dries Buytaert is a Belgian open-source software programmer. He is the founder and lead developer of the Drupal content management system. He also serves as the CTO of Acquia.

Sir Peter Karel, Baron Piot is a Belgian-British microbiologist known for his research into Ebola and AIDS.

Hans Bonte is a Belgian politician and has been a federal representative since 1995 (for the constituency of Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde). He is a member of Vooruit (formerly SP.A), the Flemish social-democratic party.

Bruno Tobback is the former president of the Flemish socialist party Vooruit from 2011 to 2015. He was Minister of Environment and Pensions in the Belgian federal government from 2004 until 2007. He is the son of a former minister and former mayor of Leuven Louis Tobback. He is a Licentiate in Law (Vrije Universiteit Brussel, 1992) and a Licentiate...

Tinne Van der Straeten is a Belgian politician of the Groen party who served as Minister of Energy in the government of Prime Minister Alexander De Croo from October 2020 until February 2025.

Paul Adriaan Jan, Baron Janssen was a Belgian physician. He was the founder of Janssen Pharmaceutica, a pharmaceutical company with over 20,000 employees which became a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson.

Marleen Temmerman is a Belgian gynaecologist, professor and former senator, currently heading the Centre of Excellence in Women and Child Health at Aga Khan University in Nairobi, Kenya.

Philippe Maria François Herreweghe, Knight Herreweghe is a Belgian conductor and choirmaster.

Wim Mertens is a Flemish Belgian composer, countertenor vocalist, pianist, guitarist, and musicologist.

Paul Bulcke is a Belgian businessman. He was CEO of Nestlé from 2008 to 2016. He has been chairman of Nestlé since 2017.

Marc Coucke is a Belgian businessman, billionaire and media figure. Founder of former BEL20 pharmaceutical company Omega Pharma, he has spread his business interests across several sectors including art, through his company Kamacoucka, and sports, through the co-ownership and sponsorship of the UCI ProTeam Soudal–Quick-Step cycling team, sponsorship of French Ligue 1 side Lille OSC and as major share holder...