100 Notable alumni of Hamilton College

William Johnson Bacon, was an American politician and a U.S. Representative from New York.

Frank Morrison Pixley was an American journalist, attorney, and politician. Pixley was the 8th attorney general of California.

Bela Hubbard was a 19th-century naturalist, geologist, writer, historian, surveyor, explorer, lawyer, real estate dealer, lumberman and civic leader of early Detroit, Michigan, United States. Hubbard is noted as one of the pioneer geologists of Michigan starting with expeditions undertaken, while in his twenties, with Michigan's geologist Douglass Houghton. These early expeditions explored the salt springs of Michigan's Grand and...

Jay Reise is an American composer.

Sheldon Dibble was a missionary to Hawaii who organized one of the first books on Hawaiian history, and inspired students to write more.

Levi Silliman Ives was an American Catholic theologian. Formerly a Protestant, he served as the Episcopal Bishop of North Carolina from 1831 until 1852, when he converted to Catholicism. Ives subsequently became a noted professor at colleges in the New York area. He was the founder and first president of the New York Catholic Protectory, an institution for the shelter...

William Matthew Fenton was an American politician from the U.S. state of Michigan. He is the namesake of the city of Fenton, Michigan.

Theodore William Dwight was an American jurist and educator, cousin of Theodore Dwight Woolsey and of Timothy Dwight V. He founded Columbia Law School in 1858 and New York Law School in 1891.

David Aldrich Nelson was a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.

John Gelston Floyd was an American lawyer and politician who served three terms as a U.S. Representative from New York from 1839 to 1853, and from 1851 to 1853. He was a grandson of William Floyd.

Edward Austin Sheldon was an American educator, and the founding president of the State University of New York at Oswego (then Oswego Primary Teachers' Training School). He also served as superintendent of schools for the cities of Syracuse, New York and Oswego, New York. Sheldon introduced the principles and teachings of Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi into American education through the Oswego...

Abijah Gilbert was an American politician who served one term as a United States senator from Florida, from 1869 to 1875.

Bill Smith is an American sports executive, who served as the fifth general manager for the Minnesota Twins. He took over October 1, 2007 from longtime manager and mentor Terry Ryan. The Twins fired Smith as general manager on November 7, 2011, and replaced him with his predecessor, Ryan. Six weeks later, Smith was given a new role in the...

Samih K. Farsoun was a professor emeritus of sociology at American University, where he taught for thirty years until his retirement in 2003.

William Seymour Tyler was the Amherst College, Massachusetts, historian during his tenure as professor of Latin, Greek, and Greek literature from 1832 to 1893.

Philip Andrew Serge Hadji is an American lawyer who is serving as a judge of the United States Court of Federal Claims.

Ashbel Parsons Willard was state senator, the 12th lieutenant governor, and the 11th governor of the U.S. state of Indiana. His terms in office were marked by increasingly severe partisanship leading to the breakup of the state Democratic Party in the years leading up to the American Civil War. His brother-in-law John Edwin Cook was involved in John Brown's raid...

David Jewett Baker was an American politician in the U.S. state of Illinois. He briefly served as a U.S. Senator in 1830.

Samuel Eells was a 19th-century American lawyer, philosopher, essayist, and orator who founded the Alpha Delta Phi fraternity in 1832 at Hamilton College in Clinton, New York.

John Hewko is an American lawyer and public policy scholar who is the current General Secretary and Chief Executive Officer of Rotary International and The Rotary Foundation.

Harvey Joshua Levin was an American economist. He was university research professor in the Department of Economics at Hofstra University (1989–92), Augustus B. Weller Professor of Economics at Hofstra (1964–89), and founder and director of its Public Policy Workshop (1975–92). He had previously served as professor at Columbia University. He was also a senior research associate at the Center for...

Thomas Lemuel James was an American journalist, government official, and banker who served as the United States Postmaster General in 1881.

Edward S. Walker Jr. is a former U.S. Ambassador to Israel, Egypt, and the UAE and is a Middle East specialist.

Joseph Roswell Hawley was the 42nd Governor of Connecticut, a U.S. politician in the Republican and Free Soil parties, a Civil War general, and a journalist and newspaper editor. He served two terms in the United States House of Representatives and was a four-term U.S. Senator.

Seth D. DuCharme is an American attorney who served as the acting United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York. DuCharme appointed by Attorney General William Barr and sworn in on July 10, 2020, succeeding Richard Donoghue, who left to become the principal associate deputy attorney general to Jeffrey A. Rosen.

Natasha Rath Marcus is a former Democratic member of the North Carolina Senate who represented the 41st district.

John Curtiss Underwood was an attorney, abolitionist politician and a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Virginia and the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.

Jess Klein is an American singer-songwriter. A native of Rochester, New York, Klein learned to play acoustic guitar and started writing songs as a college student in Kingston, Jamaica, while working on a thesis "documenting dub poets and studying the musical landscape of that country." Klein moved to Boston upon her return home, and began performing locally. After independently releasing...

Robert Edward "Bob" Brown was an American ethnomusicologist who is credited with coining the term "world music". He was also well known for his recordings of music from Indonesia. Many of these recordings, among the first widely distributed and commercially available in the United States, inspired a generation of musicians to study and perform Indonesian gamelan music.

Sidney Breese, a lawyer, soldier, author and jurist born in New York, became an early Illinois pioneer and represented the state in the United States Senate as well as served as Chief Justice of the Illinois Supreme Court and Speaker of the Illinois House of Representatives, and has been called "father of the Illinois Central Railroad".

John Ripley Myers was a co-founder (along with William McLaren Bristol) of the pharmaceutical company Bristol-Myers.

Michael John Murphy is an American diplomat who served as the United States ambassador to Bosnia and Herzegovina from 2022 to 2025.

Asa Mahan was an American Congregational minister and educator and the first president of both the Oberlin Collegiate Institute (later Oberlin College) and Adrian College. He described himself as "a religious teacher and an instructor of youth".

William Henry Harrison Miller was an American lawyer and Attorney General of the United States.

John Cochrane was an American lawyer, soldier, and politician from New York. He was a U.S. representative, the New York attorney general, and a Union Army general.

Daniel Willard Fiske was an American librarian and scholar, born on November 11, 1831, at Ellisburg, New York. He was awarded American Library Association Honorary Membership in 1895.

Daniel Darwin Pratt was a United States senator from Indiana. Born in Palermo, Maine, he moved to New York with his parents, who settled in Fenner. He attended the public schools and Cazenovia Seminary, and graduated from Hamilton College in 1831. He moved to Indiana in 1832 and taught school; in 1834, he settled in Indianapolis and was employed in...

Algernon Emory Smith was an officer in the U.S. 7th Cavalry Regiment who was killed in the Battle of the Little Bighorn in the Montana Territory.

William Henry Luers was an American career diplomat and museum executive. He was the director of the Iran Project. In addition to a thirty-one-year career in the Foreign Service, Luers served as a U.S. Navy officer, as president of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, and as president of the United Nations Association of the United States...

John Van Alstyne Weaver, Jr. was an American poet, novelist and screenwriter whose poems attracted the approbation of H. L. Mencken, whose works were produced on stage and on film, and who had several screenwriting credits for work on properties where he was not the author of the original work.

Joseph Irwin France was a Republican member of the United States Senate, representing the State of Maryland from 1917 to 1923.

Eric Kuhn is an American theatrical producer and entrepreneur. A three-time Tony Award winner, he is the co-founder and co-CEO of Folk Media Group, a creative studio and private investment fund focused on production companies for live entertainment.

Victor Howard Metcalf was an American politician; he served in President Theodore Roosevelt's cabinet as Secretary of Commerce and Labor, and then as Secretary of the Navy.

Austin Blair was a 19th-century American lawyer and politician who served as the 13th governor of Michigan during the American Civil War and in Michigan's House of Representatives and Senate as well as the U.S. Senate. He was known as a strong opponent of slavery and secession. He also led efforts to provide women and black citizens the right to...

Drew Saunders Days III was an American legal scholar who served as Solicitor General of the United States from 1993 to 1996 under President Bill Clinton. He also served as the first African American Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division in the Carter Administration from 1977 to 1980. He was the Alfred M. Rankin Professor of Law at...

Evan Smith is an American journalist. He is the former CEO of The Texas Tribune and host of the weekly interview program Overheard with Evan Smith.

William Paxson Purcell III is an American politician who served as the fifth mayor of the Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County, elected first in 1999 and reelected to a second term in 2003. He is a member of the Democratic Party. On June 24, 2008 he was named director of Harvard University's Institute of Politics (IOP) at the...

Irving McNeil Ives was an American politician and founding dean of the Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations. A Republican, he served as a United States Senator from New York from 1947 to 1959. He was previously a member of the New York State Assembly for sixteen years, serving as Minority Leader (1935), Speaker (1936), and Majority Leader...

Henry B. Payne was an American politician from Ohio. Moving to Ohio from his native New York in 1833, he quickly established himself in law and business while becoming a local leader in Democratic politics. After serving in the Ohio Senate, Payne was elected to a single term in the United States House of Representatives in 1874. In the House,...

Philip Caryl Jessup was a 20th-century American diplomat, scholar, and jurist notable for his accomplishments in the field of international law.

Amanda Filipacchi is a French-American novelist. She was born in Paris and educated in both in France and in the U.S. She is the author of four novels, Nude Men (1993), Vapor (1999), Love Creeps (2005), and The Unfortunate Importance of Beauty (2015). Her fiction has been translated into 13 languages.

Robert Kinkel is an American professional session keyboardist and music engineer most known for his role as a co-creator/co-producer/co-composer and touring keyboardist with Trans-Siberian Orchestra along with extensive studio work with the progressive metal band Savatage. He attended Hamilton College and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in music with a minor in physics.

Frank Dwight Baldwin, a resident of Constantine, Michigan, and born in Manchester, Michigan, is one of only 19 servicemen to receive the Medal of Honor twice. Baldwin received his first award for his actions during the Atlanta Campaign where he led his company in battle at Peachtree Creek and captured two commissioned officers in the American Civil War. He received...

Dean Alfange was an American politician who held nominations and appointments from a number of parties, including the Democratic Party, the Republican Party, the American Labor Party, and the Liberal Party of New York, of which he was a founding member. Born in the Ottoman Empire to two native Greek parents, Alfange remained involved in Greek-American organizations for much of...

Charles Dudley Warner was an American essayist, novelist, and friend of Mark Twain, with whom he co-authored the novel The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today.

Randolph Daniel Moss is a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia.

Charles Holland Duell was the Commissioner of the United States Patent Office from 1898 to 1901, and was later an associate judge of the Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia.

Edward Robinson was an American biblical scholar known for his magnum opus, Biblical Researches in Palestine, the first major work in biblical geography and biblical archaeology, which earned him the epithets "Father of Biblical Geography" and "Founder of Modern Palestinology."

Albert Barnes was an American theologian, clergyman, abolitionist, temperance advocate, and author. Barnes is best known for his extensive Bible commentary and notes on the Old and New Testaments, published in a total of 14 volumes in the 1830s.

Theodore Medad Pomeroy was an American businessman and politician from New York who served as the 26th speaker of the United States House of Representatives for one day, from March 3, 1869, to March 4, 1869, the shortest American speakership term. He represented New York's 24th congressional district in the United States House of Representatives from 1861 to 1869. He...

Samuel Hopkins Adams was an American writer who was an investigative journalist and muckraker.

Yance Ford is an American producer and director.

Mark T. Sullivan is an American author who writes mystery, suspense and historical fiction novels. His fourteen published works that are written solely by him include The Fall Line, The Purification Ceremony, Triple Cross, Rogue and the USA Today and Washington Post bestselling novel, Beneath a Scarlet Sky. He has also written, as of June 2016, five novels with James...

Theodore Dwight Weld was one of the architects of the American abolitionist movement during its formative years from 1830 to 1844, playing a role as writer, editor, speaker, and organizer. He is best known for his co-authorship of the authoritative compendium American Slavery as It Is: Testimony of a Thousand Witnesses, published in 1839. Harriet Beecher Stowe partly based Uncle...

Michael D. Dubke is an American entrepreneur and political aide who was the White House Communications Director for U.S. President Donald Trump from March to June 2, 2017.

John Bonnell Emerson is an American diplomat, lawyer, business executive and the former United States Ambassador to Germany, having served from 2013 to 2017. Emerson was the 2015 recipient of the State Department’s Sue M. Cobb Award for Exemplary Diplomatic Service, which is given annually to a non-career ambassador who has used private sector leadership and management skills to make...

Alan George "A. G." Lafley is an American businessman who led consumer goods maker Procter & Gamble (P&G) for two separate stints, from 2000 to 2010 and again from 2013 to 2015, during which he served as chairman, president and CEO. In 2015, he stepped down as CEO to become executive chairman of P&G, eventually retiring in June 2016.

Arnold Lewis Raphel was an American diplomat who served as the 18th United States Ambassador to Pakistan from June 1987 until his death in an airplane crash in Punjab, Pakistan, alongside Pakistani president Zia-ul-Haq and 28 others, in August 1988.

Gerrit Smith, also spelled Gerritt Smith, was an American social reformer, abolitionist, businessman, public intellectual, and philanthropist. Married to Ann Carroll Fitzhugh, Smith was a candidate for President of the United States in 1848, 1856, and 1860. He served a single term in the House of Representatives from 1853 to 1854.

Henry Wheeler Shaw, better known by the pen name Josh Billings, was a 19th-century American humorist and lecturer.

Robert Parris Moses was an American educator and civil rights activist known for his work as a leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) on voter education and registration in Mississippi during the Civil Rights Movement, and his co-founding of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. As part of his work with the Council of Federated Organizations (COFO), a coalition...

Paul Greengard was an American neuroscientist best known for his work on the molecular and cellular function of neurons. In 2000, Greengard, Arvid Carlsson and Eric Kandel were awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for their discoveries concerning signal transduction in the nervous system. He was Vincent Astor Professor at Rockefeller University, and served on the Scientific Advisory...

Michael Newbold Castle was an American politician and lawyer who served as the U.S. representative for Delaware's at-large congressional district from 1993 to 2011. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as the 69th Governor of Delaware from 1985 to 1992, Lieutenant Governor from 1981 to 1985, and as a member of the Delaware General Assembly from 1967...

Álvaro Alejandro Eder Garcés is a Colombian politician and specialist in international security policies. He was elected Mayor of Cali in October 2023 and assumed office on 1 January 2024. From 2010 to 2014 he served as Senior Presidential Advisor for Reintegration.

Kamila Shamsie is a Pakistani and British writer and novelist who is best known for her award-winning novel Home Fire (2017). Named on Granta magazine's list of 20 best young British writers, Shamsie has been described by The New Indian Express as "a novelist to reckon with and to look forward to." She also writes for publications including The Guardian,...

Alexander Humphreys Woollcott was an American drama critic for The New York Times and The New York Herald, critic and commentator for The New Yorker magazine, a member of the Algonquin Round Table, an occasional actor and playwright, and a prominent radio personality.

Grayson Jonathan McCouch is an American actor. He is known for his roles as Morgan Winthrop on the daytime soap opera Another World and Dusty Donovan in the daytime soap opera As the World Turns. He also starred as Don Masters on the Nick at Nite family drama Hollywood Heights.

James Schoolcraft Sherman was the 27th vice president of the United States, serving from 1909 until his death in 1912, under President William Howard Taft. A member of the Republican Party, Sherman was previously a United States representative from New York from 1887 to 1891 and 1893 to 1909. He was a member of the interrelated Baldwin, Hoar, and Sherman...

Marc Erik Elias is an American elections attorney for the Democratic Party. He founded Democracy Docket, a website focused on voting rights and election litigation in the United States, in 2020. He left his position as a partner at Perkins Coie to start the Elias Law Group in 2021. According to The New York Times, "Elias has arguably done more...

Kevin Burns was an American television and film producer, director, and screenwriter. His work can be seen on A&E, National Geographic Channel, E!, Animal Planet, AMC, Bravo, WE tv, Travel Channel, Lifetime, and The History Channel. Burns created and executive-produced more than 800 hours of television programming.

David Michael Solomon is an American investment banker who has been chief executive officer (CEO) of Goldman Sachs since October 2018 and chairman since January 2019.

Thomas J. Tull is an American billionaire businessman, entrepreneur, and film producer. He is co-chairman of TWG Global, a holding group where he is developing investments using artificial intelligence and other technologies to guide investing. He is the former chairman and chief executive officer (CEO) of Legendary Entertainment and Tulco LLC. As of January 2026, he is worth approximately US$5.3...

Elihu Root was an American lawyer, Republican politician, and statesman who served as the 41st United States Secretary of War under presidents William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt and the 38th United States Secretary of State, also under Roosevelt. In both positions as well as a long legal career, he pioneered the American practice of international law. Root is sometimes considered...

Marc Bernays Randolph is an American tech entrepreneur, advisor and speaker. He is the co-founder and first CEO of Netflix.

Terence Dean Brooks is an American writer of fantasy fiction. He writes mainly epic fantasy, and has also written two film novelizations. He has written 23 New York Times bestsellers during his writing career, and has sold over 25 million copies of his books in print. He is one of the most successful living fantasy writers. In March 2025, he...

Ryan Serhant is an American real estate broker and reality television personality. He is founder and CEO of Serhant, an American real estate firm, as well as the lead and executive producer of Owning Manhattan, a reality show on Netflix.

David Farrington Thornton is an American actor. He has appeared in John Q, Home Alone 3 as Earl Unger, Law & Order, The Notebook, and The Other Woman, among other roles. He is the husband of singer, songwriter and actress Cyndi Lauper.

Nathaniel Wales Faxon is an American actor and comedian. A frequent presence on comedic films and TV series, he won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for co-writing The Descendants (2011). He starred in the Fox comedy series Ben and Kate (2012–2013) and the FX comedy series Married (2014–2015), and voices Elfo in the Netflix adult animated television series...

Burrhus Frederic Skinner was an American psychologist, behaviorist, inventor, and social philosopher. He was the Edgar Pierce Professor of Psychology at Harvard University from 1948 until his retirement in 1974.

Paul Bevan Lieberstein is an American actor, screenwriter, television director and television producer. A Primetime Emmy Award winner, he is best known as a writer, executive producer, and supporting cast member on the NBC sitcom The Office, playing the role of Toby Flenderson. He served as the series' showrunner from seasons five to eight.

Peter Michael Falk was an American actor. He is best known for his role as Lieutenant Columbo on the NBC/ABC series Columbo (1968–1978, 1989–2003), for which he won four Primetime Emmy Awards (1972, 1975, 1976, 1990) and a Golden Globe Award (1973). In 1996, TV Guide ranked Falk No. 21 on its 50 Greatest TV Stars of All Time list....

Anthony Howard Goldwyn is an American actor and director. He made his debut appearing as Darren in the slasher film Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives (1986) and had his breakthrough starring as Carl Bruner in the fantasy thriller film Ghost (1990), which earned him a nomination for the Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actor. He went on to...

Rev Edwin Otway Burnham was a Congregational minister and missionary.

Thomas James Vilsack is an American politician. He served as the 30th and 32nd United States Secretary of Agriculture from 2009 to 2017, during the Barack Obama administration, and again from 2021 to 2025 during the Joe Biden administration. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as the 40th Governor of Iowa from 1999 to 2007.

Matthew Alton Cartwright is an American lawyer and politician who served as the U.S. representative for Pennsylvania's 8th congressional district from 2013 to 2025. The district includes a large swath of northeastern Pennsylvania, anchored by Scranton, Wilkes-Barre, and the Poconos. He is a member of the Democratic Party. Cartwright was first elected to Congress in 2012 after defeating incumbent Tim...

George William Clinton was an American lawyer, politician, judge, author, and amateur naturalist. He served as mayor of Buffalo, New York from 1842 to 1843.

Peter Alan Bell is an American osteopathic physician. He is the current Vice Provost and Dean at Baptist College of Health Sciences, now known as Baptist Health Sciences University in Memphis, TN. Additionally, Bell is nationally known for his continued work on health policy reform and the impact of health policy on the medical profession. Finally, Bell has served as...

Sarah Rafferty is an American actress, best known for her role as Donna Paulsen on the USA Network legal drama Suits and for her role as Katherine Walter on the American teen drama My Life with the Walter Boys, for which she received a Children's and Family Emmy Award nomination in the Outstanding Supporting Performer category. She currently co-hosts a...

Konstantinos Alexandrou Karamanlis, commonly known as Kostas Karamanlis (Greek: Κώστας Καραμανλής, pronounced [ˈkostas karamanˈlis]), is a Greek politician who served as the prime minister of Greece from 2004 to 2009. He was also the president of the centre-right New Democracy party, founded by his uncle Konstantinos Karamanlis, from 1997 to 2009, and a member of the Hellenic Parliament from 1989...