87 Notable alumni of Grinnell College

Wilfred Charles Bleamaster was an American football and basketball coach. He served as the head football coach at Carroll College—now Carroll University—in Waukesha, Wisconsin from 1909 to 1911, Alma College from 1912 to 1915, and the University of Idaho from 1916 to 1917, and Albany College—now known as Lewis & Clark College—from 1926 to 1927. Bleamaster was also the head...

William Arthur Sloane was an associate justice of the Supreme Court of California from May 15, 1920, to January 1923.

Beth Holmgren is an American literary critic and a cultural historian in Polish and Russian studies. She is Professor and Chair of the Department of Slavic and Eurasian Studies at Duke University. Recognised for her scholarship in Russian women's studies and Polish cultural history (with a special emphasis on theater), she is as of July 2018 working on a multicultural...

Bernard E. Pedersen was an American businessman and politician.

John Capouya is an author and professor of journalism and non-fiction writing at the University of Tampa in Tampa, Florida. During his career in journalism he worked at Newsweek, The New York Times, SmartMoney, and New York Newsday. He wrote the books Florida Blues, Gorgeous George, and Real Men Do Yoga. He has also written for various publications, including Sports...

Russell Allen Berg was a brigadier general in the United States Air Force. During World War II he flew Supermarine Spitfires with the British Royal Air Force, earning the British Distinguished Flying Cross and bar. He also flew reconnaissance missions during the Korean War.

Frances Harshbarger was an American mathematician.

Aad John Vinje was a Norwegian American immigrant, lawyer, and jurist. He was the 12th chief justice of the Wisconsin Supreme Court, serving from 1922 until his death in 1929. He previously served 15 years as a Wisconsin circuit court judge in the northwest of the state.

Adam H. Sterling is a retired American diplomat. He previously served as the Ambassador to Slovakia from September 2016 to August 2019.

Dana Webster Bartlett was an American Congregationalist minister, settlement house director, and writer. He was an early advocate of the City Beautiful movement.

J. Scott Raecker is a politician. He served in the Iowa House of Representatives from January 1999 to December 2012, representing the 63rd District. He received his BA in Political Science and Religious Studies from Grinnell College.

John Cushman Truesdale Jr. was an American lawyer and civil servant who served two terms as executive secretary of the National Labor Relations Board, four terms as a board member, and one term as board chair.

Jesse Macy was an American political scientist and historian of the late 19th and early 20th century, specializing in the history of American political parties, party systems, and the Civil War. He spent most of his professional career at his alma mater, Grinnell College.

Frederic O. MacCartney was an American Unitarian minister and socialist politician. MacCartney is best remembered for having been elected to four terms of office in the state legislature of Massachusetts under the banner of the Social Democratic Party of America and its organizational successor, the Socialist Party of America.

Sarah Shay Mirk is an author, zinester, and journalist based in Portland, Oregon, in the United States.

Eli P. Clark was a pioneer railway builder of Southern California and a leader in the civic, philanthropic and social activities of Los Angeles.

A. Gregory Thielmann is a former mid-level official in the U.S. State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research who, after retiring in September 2002, publicly disputed the rationale for the U.S. invasion of Iraq offered by the George W. Bush administration. He is currently a board member of the Arms Control Association and member of the Council on Foreign Relations....

Henry B. Throop, is an American astronomer and planetary scientist who specializes in the dynamics of rings and dust in the outer solar system. Throop is a member of the science team for NASA's New Horizons mission to Pluto and the Kuiper Belt, and has been involved with NASA missions throughout the Solar System. Throop lives in Washington, DC where...

James Waters Gilchrist is an American politician who served as delegate for Maryland's 17th legislative district from 2007 to 2023, representing Rockville and Gaithersburg.

Erica Lehrer is an anthropologist, curator, and academic specializing in post-Holocaust Jewish culture, museum studies, ethnography, and public scholarship. She is associate professor of History and Sociology/Anthropology at Concordia University, where she holds a Canada Research Chair in Museum and Heritage Studies and serves as director of the Curating and Public Scholarship Lab at Concordia University.

Donald Hayworth was a politician from the U.S. state of Michigan.

Christopher C. Hall is a former Iowa State Representative from the 13th District. A Democrat, he served in the Iowa House of Representatives from 2011 to 2023. Hall was born and lives in Sioux City, Iowa. He has a B.A. in political science from Grinnell College.

Charles Augustus Rawson was an unelected United States Senator from Iowa for nine months in 1922.

Otha Donner Wearin was an American writer and politician. Elected as the youngest member of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's first "New Deal" Congress, his political career stalled in 1938 when he gave up his seat in the United States House of Representatives at Roosevelt's urging to run for a U.S. Senate seat held by another Democrat, Guy Gillette, but primary...

Paul H. Patterson was an American neuroscientist and the Anne P. and Benjamin F. Biaggini Professor of Biological Sciences at the California Institute of Technology.

Hilary Mason is an American entrepreneur and data scientist. She is the co-founder of the startup Fast Forward Labs.

Ezra Perin Savage was an American politician and the 12th governor of Nebraska from 1901 to 1903. He was the tenth lieutenant governor in 1901 serving under Governor Charles H. Dietrich.

Louise Frankel Rosenfield Noun was a feminist, social activist, philanthropist, and civil libertarian.

Oliver Ellsworth Buckley was an American electrical engineer known for his contributions to the field of submarine telephony.

Albert Shaw was an American journalist and academic.

Harold Jaffe was an American writer of novels, short fiction, drama, and essays. He was the author of 30 books, including 14 collections of fiction, four novels, and two volumes of essays. He was also the editor of the literary-cultural journal Fiction International. He had won two NEA grants in fiction and two Fulbright fellowships. His works have been translated...

Roger William Koenker is an American econometrician mostly known for his contributions to quantile regression. He is currently a Honorary Professor of Economics at University College London.

Kevin Cannon is an American cartoonist and illustrator.

Charles A. Shibell was a teamster, miner, hotel owner, customs inspector, recorder, and Pima County, Arizona County Sheriff and a contemporary of Wyatt Earp and his brothers. Shibell promised a job as Deputy Sheriff to Earp, but when Earp announced his support for Bob Paul as the next sheriff, Shibell appointed Earp's antagonist Johnny Behan to the position instead.

Patricia T. O'Conner is the author of five books about the English language. A former staff editor at The New York Times Book Review, she has appeared regularly as a language commentator for WNYC and Iowa Public Radio. She has written extensively for The New York Times, including book reviews, On Language columns, and articles for the op-ed page and...

Ray Hilborn is a marine biologist and fisheries scientist, known for his work on conservation and natural resource management in the context of fisheries. He is currently professor of aquatic and fishery science at the University of Washington. He focuses on conservation, natural resource management, fisheries stock assessment and risk analysis, and advises several international fisheries commissions and agencies.

Dana Lynn Ulery is an American computer scientist and pioneer in scientific computing applications.

Heidi Shierholz is the president of the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank based in Washington, D.C. She previously served as Chief Economist of the United States Department of Labor under Secretary Thomas Perez.

William Albert Noyes was an American analytical and organic chemist. He made pioneering determinations of atomic weights, chaired the chemistry department at the University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign from 1907 to 1926, was the founder and editor of several important chemical journals, and received the American Chemical Society's highest award, the Priestley Medal, in 1935.

George Allison Wilson was an American politician and lawyer. He was a United States senator and 28th governor of Iowa.

Alexander Cannon is an American cartoonist, known for his work on books such as Top 10, Smax and Kaijumax.

Erastus Milo Cravath was a pastor and American Missionary Association (AMA) official who after the American Civil War, helped found Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee, and numerous other historically black colleges in Georgia and Tennessee for the education of freedmen. He also served as president of Fisk University for more than 20 years.

John Bell Hatcher was an American paleontologist and fossil hunter known as the "king of collectors" and best known for discovering Torosaurus and Triceratops, two genera of dinosaurs described by Othniel Charles Marsh. He was part of a new, professional middle class in American science, having financed his education with his labor while also being more educated than older fossil...

Henry Carter Adams was a U.S. economist and Professor of Political Economy and finance at the University of Michigan.

Cha Liang-chao was a Taiwanese educator and philanthropist.

Frederick Morgan Taylor was an American hurdler and the first athlete to win three Olympic medals in the 400 m hurdles. He was the flag bearer for the United States at his last Olympics in 1932.

Alan Dupree Wheat is an American economist, lobbyist, and politician who served six terms in the U.S. House of Representatives from the state of Missouri from 1983 to 1995.

Bruce Gregory Friedrich is co-founder and president of The Good Food Institute (GFI), a Y Combinator funded non-profit that promotes plant-based and cultivated meat. He is also a co-founder of the alternative protein venture capital firm New Crop Capital. Friedrich previously worked for PETA and Farm Sanctuary.

Michele Weiner-Davis is a licensed clinical social worker, marriage and family therapist and author in the field of family therapy. She is frequently quoted in the media and has been interviewed significantly on television news programs regarding divorce prevention. Weiner-Davis has often been referred to as The Divorce Buster after coining the term “divorce busting” at an American Association for...

George Edward Moose is an American diplomat who served as the chair of the board of directors of the United States Institute of Peace from 2021-2025. He formerly served as Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs from 1993 to 1997, Representative to the United Nations in Geneva from 1997 to 2001, and as Ambassador to the Republics of Benin...

Marshall Tillbrook Poe is an American historian, writer, editor and founder of the New Books Network, an online collection of podcast interviews with a wide range of non-fiction authors. He has taught Russian, European, Eurasian and World history at various universities including Harvard, Columbia, University of Iowa, and the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He has also taught courses on new...

Hallie Flanagan Davis was an American theatrical producer and director, playwright and author, best known for running the Federal Theatre Project, a part of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) during the New Deal.

Edward M. Hirsch is an American poet and critic who wrote a national bestseller about reading poetry. He has published nine books of poems, including The Living Fire: New and Selected Poems (2010), which brings together thirty-five years of work, and Gabriel: A Poem (2014), a book-length elegy for his son that The New Yorker called "a masterpiece of sorrow."...

Gary Giddins is an American jazz critic and author. He wrote for The Village Voice from 1973; his "Weather Bird" column ended in 2003. In 1986, Gary Giddins and John Lewis created the American Jazz Orchestra which presented concerts using a jazz repertory with musicians such as Tony Bennett.

Eleonore Stump is an American philosopher and the Robert J. Henle Professor of Philosophy at Saint Louis University, where she has taught since 1992.

Theodore Elijah Burton was an American attorney and Republican politician from Ohio. He served in the United States House of Representatives, the U.S. Senate, and the Cleveland City Council.

Kenneth Lee Adelman is an American diplomat, political writer, policy analyst and Shakespeare scholar. Adelman has been a member of the board of directors of the global data collection company RIWI Corp. since June 2016.

Mary Sue Wilson Coleman is an American chemist and academic administrator who served the University of Michigan as the 13th president from 2002 to 2014 and as interim president from January to October 2022.

James Norman Hall was an American writer best known for The Bounty Trilogy, a series of historical novels co-authored with Charles Bernard Nordhoff: Mutiny on the Bounty (1932), Men Against the Sea (1934), and Pitcairn's Island (1934). During World War I, Hall uniquely served in the armed forces of three Allied nations—Great Britain as an infantryman, and later France and...

Roberta Smith is co-chief art critic of The New York Times and a lecturer on contemporary art. She is the first woman to hold that position at the Times.

Benjamin R. Barber was an American political theorist and author, perhaps best known for his 1995 bestseller, Jihad vs. McWorld, and for 2013's If Mayors Ruled the World. His 1984 book of political theory, Strong Democracy, was revised and reissued in 2004. He was an adviser to political leaders including Bill Clinton, Howard Dean, and Muammar Gaddafi. He was a...

Martha Cooper is an American photojournalist. She worked as a staff photographer for the New York Post during the 1970s. She is best known for documenting the New York City graffiti scene of the 1970s and 1980s.

Chase Strangio is an American lawyer and transgender rights activist. He is the deputy director for transgender justice and staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). He is the first known transgender person to make oral arguments before the Supreme Court of the United States.

Thomas Robert Cech is an American chemist who shared the 1989 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Sidney Altman for their discovery of the catalytic properties of RNA.

Joseph Nye Welch was an American lawyer who served as the chief counsel for the United States Army while it was under investigation for Communist activities by Senator Joseph McCarthy's Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, an investigation known as the Army–McCarthy hearings. His confrontation with McCarthy during the hearings, in which he asked McCarthy "Have you no sense of decency,...

Clair Cameron Patterson was an American geochemist. Born in Mitchellville, Iowa, Patterson graduated from Grinnell College. He later received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago and spent his entire professional career at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech).

Anne Emily Bergl is an English-born American actress. Bergl is known for her roles as Rachel Lang in the supernatural horror film The Rage: Carrie 2 (1999), Francie Jarvis on Gilmore Girls (2001–2003), Annie O'Donnell on the ABC series Men in Trees (2006–2008), Tammi Bryant on the TNT drama series Southland (2009–2013), Beth Young on Desperate Housewives (2010–2012), Sammi Slott...

Harold Lloyd Hopkins was an American statesman, public administrator, and presidential advisor. A trusted deputy to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Hopkins directed New Deal relief programs before serving as the eighth United States secretary of commerce from 1938 to 1940 and as Roosevelt's chief foreign policy advisor and liaison to Allied leaders during World War II.

Florin Vasile Cîțu is a Romanian politician who served as Prime Minister of Romania between December 2020 and November 2021 (acting/ad interim between October and November 2021). Sometimes labeled as Romania's first libertarian Prime Minister, he was also the leader of the National Liberal Party (PNL) between September 2021 and April 2022.

Walter Marvin Koenig is an American actor and screenwriter. He began acting professionally in the mid-1960s and quickly rose to prominence for his supporting role as Ensign Pavel Chekov in Star Trek: The Original Series (1967–1969). He went on to reprise this role in all six original-cast Star Trek films, and later voiced President Anton Chekov in Star Trek: Picard...

Bernice Albertine King is an American lawyer, minister, and the youngest child of civil rights leaders Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King. Just one week after her fifth birthday, her father was assassinated. In her adolescence, King chose to work towards becoming a minister after having a breakdown from watching a documentary about her father. King was 17...

Kumail Ali Nanjiani is a Pakistani and American stand-up comedian, actor, and screenwriter. His accolades include a Screen Actors Guild Award, in addition to nominations for an Academy Award, Golden Globe Award, and two Emmy Awards. In 2018, Time magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world.

Herbert Jeffrey Hancock is an American jazz musician, bandleader, and composer. He started his career with trumpeter Donald Byrd's group. Hancock soon joined the Miles Davis Quintet, where he helped to redefine the role of a jazz rhythm section and was one of the primary architects of the post-bop sound. In the 1970s, he experimented with jazz fusion, funk, and...

Peter Coyote is an American actor, director, screenwriter, author, and narrator of films, theater, television, and audiobooks. He is known for his appearances in films such as E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), Cross Creek (1983), Jagged Edge (1985), Bitter Moon (1992), Kika (1993), Patch Adams (1998), Erin Brockovich (2000), A Walk to Remember (2002), and Femme Fatale (2002).

Gary Cooper was an American actor known for his strong, silent screen persona and understated acting style. He won the Academy Award for Best Actor twice and had a further three nominations, as well as an Academy Honorary Award in 1961 for his career achievements. He was one of the top-10 film personalities for 23 consecutive years and one of...

Robert Norton Noyce, nicknamed "the Mayor of Silicon Valley", was an American physicist and entrepreneur who co-founded Fairchild Semiconductor in 1957 and Intel Corporation in 1968. He was also credited with the realization of the first monolithic integrated circuit or microchip made with silicon, which fueled the personal computer revolution and gave Silicon Valley its name.

Fred Hersch is an American jazz pianist, composer, and a 17-time Grammy nominée. He was the first person to play weeklong engagements as a solo pianist at the Village Vanguard in New York City. He has written and recorded more than 75 original compositions.

Joseph Fidler Walsh is an American guitarist, singer, and songwriter. Best known as a member of the rock band Eagles, his five-decade career includes solo work and stints in other bands: the James Gang, Ringo Starr & His All-Starr Band, and New Zealand's Herbs. He was part of the supergroup The Best and had success as a solo artist and...

Thomas Jeffery Cole is an American politician and former educator serving as the U.S. representative for Oklahoma's 4th congressional district since 2003. A Republican, he previously served in the Oklahoma Senate from 1988 to 1991 and as the 26th secretary of state of Oklahoma from 1995 to 1999. An enrolled member of the Chickasaw Nation, Cole is the longest-serving Native...

Sen Katayama, born Yabuki Sugataro (藪木 菅太郎, Yabuki Sugatarō), was an early Japanese Marxist political activist and journalist, one of the original members of the American Communist Party and co-founder, in 1922, of the Japanese Communist Party. After 1884, he spent most of his life abroad, especially in the United States and the Soviet Union, where he was very active...

K. C. Wu was a Chinese political figure and writer. Among other offices, he served as Mayor of Shanghai and as Chairman of the Taiwan Provincial Government.

James Wilson was a Scottish American Founding Father, legal scholar, jurist, and statesman who served as an associate justice of the United States Supreme Court from 1789 to 1798. Wilson was elected twice to the Continental Congress, and was a signatory of the Declaration of Independence. In 1787 he was a major participant in drafting the U.S. Constitution, and became...

Gabriel Rockhill is an American philosopher, writer, and cultural critic. He is Professor of Philosophy & Global Interdisciplinary Studies, Director of Cultural Studies, and Director of the Critical Theory Workshop at Villanova University, as well as former program director at the Collège International de Philosophie.

Wallace Dao-kui Loh is an American university administrator. He was the president of the University of Maryland, College Park, from 2010 until 2020.

John Garang De Mabior was a Sudanese politician and revolutionary leader. From 1983 to 2005, he led the Sudan People's Liberation Army/Movement (SPLA/M, Now known as South Sudan People's Defense Forces) as a commander in chief during the Second Sudanese Civil War. He served as First Vice President of Sudan for three weeks, from the comprehensive peace agreement of 2005...

Yoweri Kaguta Museveni Tibuhaburwa is a Ugandan politician and former military officer who has served as the president of Uganda since 1986. Born in Ntungamo, Uganda (then under British control), Museveni studied political science from the University of Dar es Salaam where he initiated the University Students' African Revolutionary Front. In 1972, he joined the failed invasion of Uganda against...