100 Notable alumni of Lafayette College

Thomas A. Ferguson is an American government official who was Director of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing from 1998 to 2005.

Laird Howard Barber was an American lawyer, jurist and politician who was a Democratic member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Pennsylvania, serving one term from 1899 to 1901.

Edwin Atlee Barber was an American archaeologist and author.

Kameisha Jerae Hodge is an American writer, publisher, poet, and spoken word artist from Washington, D.C. She is the founder and CEO of Sovereign Noir Publications, a publishing company established in 2019 that elevates Black women's voices.

Isaiah Dunn Clawson was an American Opposition Party / Republican Party politician who represented New Jersey's 1st congressional district in the United States House of Representatives from 1855 to 1859.

Grosvenor P. Lowrey was a 19th-century American corporate lawyer who served as counsel to numerous powerful interests such as Thomas Edison, Western Union, Wells Fargo and the New York Metropolitan Railway Company.

William Stephen Wasmund was an American football player and coach.

John Lindsay Withrow was an American Presbyterian minister and theologian.

Ralph Cooper Hutchison was president of Washington & Jefferson College and Lafayette College.

Samuel Brinckerhoff "Brinck" Thorne was an American college football player and coach. He played at Yale University as halfback from 1893 to 1894. As a senior and team captain in 1895, Thorn was named an All-American. He returned to Yale in 1896 to serve as head football coach for a season, during which he guided the Bulldogs to a 13–1...

Stephen D. Pryor is an American business executive who was president of ExxonMobil Chemical Company from April 1, 2008 to January 1, 2015, and was vice-president of Exxon Mobil Corporation from December 1, 2004 to January 1, 2015.

Franklin Thomas Grube was an American professional baseball and professional football player. In baseball, he was a catcher whose career lasted for 14 seasons (1928–1941), including 394 games in Major League Baseball as a member of the Chicago White Sox (1931–1933 and 1935–1936) and St. Louis Browns (1934–1935 and 1941). In football, he played left end for the New York...

William McMurtrie was an American chemist. His work helped launch the sugar beet industry in the United States.

General John Albert Shaud is a retired United States Air Force four-star general who served as Chief of Staff, Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (COFS SHAPE) from 1988 to 1991.

Douglas Reichley is a politician from the U.S. state of Pennsylvania; he was elected to the Pennsylvania House of Representatives in 2002, representing the 134th district. He sat on the House Appropriations, Consumer Affairs, Health and Human Services and Professional Licensure Committees and was also a member of the House Republican Policy Committee. In 2011, he was elected Judge on...

Harry Newton Hempstead was the owner of the New York Giants of the National League from 1912 through 1919.

Paul A. Brodeur was the mayor of Melrose, Massachusetts. Previously, he was a state legislator in the Massachusetts House of Representatives, representing the 32nd Middlesex district.

Ross John Swartz Hoffman was an American historian, writer, educator, and conservative intellectual who specialized in Modern European History and International Affairs.

Garrett E. Brown Jr. is a former United States District Judge and later the Chief Judge of the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey.

Charles Bunstein Stover was a social activist and the Parks Commissioner for New York City from 1910 to 1913.

Samuel McLean was an American politician who represented Montana in the United States House of Representatives from 1865 to 1867.

Albert Leon Bedner was an American professional football player who played three seasons in the National Football League (NFL) with the Frankford Yellow Jackets and New York Giants. He played college football at Lafayette College.

James Gayley was an American chemist and steel metallurgist who served as managing director of the Carnegie Steel Company, and as the first vice president of U.S. Steel from 1901 to 1908. He is credited with many inventions which greatly improved the fields of steel and iron making. For his contributions in the field of metallurgy, he was awarded the...

Yolanda Wisher is an American poet, educator and spoken-word artist who focuses on the experience of being African-American. She is a graduate of Temple University and was selected as the third Poet Laureate of Philadelphia in 2016.

John Davenport Clarke was a Republican member of the United States House of Representatives from New York.

Frank Walter Hiller was an American professional baseball pitcher who played in the Major Leagues from 1946 to 1953 for the New York Giants, Chicago Cubs, New York Yankees and Cincinnati Reds.

Snowden Ashford was an American architect who worked in Washington, D.C., his native city. Born on January 1, 1866, Ashford was educated at Rittenhouse Academy and at the Christian Brothers Roman Catholic school. He studied architecture at Lafayette College and, upon graduation, entered the office of Alfred B. Mullett, who had formerly been supervising architect of the United States Treasury....

James Wilson Bright was an American philologist active in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. He was a Professor of English Philology at Johns Hopkins University, and specialized in early Germanic languages and Old and Middle English specifically.

John Richard Farr was an American politician. He served as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Pennsylvania.

Eby G. Friedman is an electrical engineer, and Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Rochester. Friedman is also a visiting professor at the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology. He is a Senior Fulbright Fellow and a Fellow of the IEEE.

Wallace McCamant was an American jurist in Oregon. A Pennsylvania native, he served as the 46th justice of the Oregon Supreme Court from 1917 to 1918. Later he served briefly as a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. As a delegate to the Republican National Convention in 1920, McCamant surprised the...

Gerald Martin Bordman was an American theatre historian, best known for authoring the reference volume The American Musical Theatre, first published in 1978. In reviewing an updated version of American Musical Theatre in 2011, Playbill wrote that the book had "altered the scope of American musical theatre history" and "remained the only book of its kind, and an invaluable one."

Harry Arista Mackey was an American college football player and coach, lawyer, and politician. He served as the mayor of Philadelphia from 1928 to 1932.

Cyrus E. Woods was an American attorney, diplomat and politician.

Harmar Denny McKnight was an early baseball manager and executive. On October 15, 1881 he founded the Allegheny Base Ball Club of Pittsburgh in anticipation of playing in the new American Association. The club then became known as the Pittsburgh Alleghenys (now known as the Pittsburgh Pirates).

Jeremiah Alfred LeConey was an American athlete, winner of the gold medal in the 4 × 100 meter relay race at the 1924 Summer Olympics.

Michael H. Moskow is currently vice chairman and distinguished fellow on the global economy at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. From 1994 to 2007, he served as president and chief executive officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. In that capacity, he was a member of the Federal Open Market Committee, the Federal Reserve System's most important monetary...

Scott Vincent was an American radio and television announcer and newscaster.

William James McAvoy was an American football, basketball, and baseball coach. He served as the head football coach at the University of Delaware (1908–1916, 1922–1924), Drexel University (1920–1921), and the University of Vermont (1925–1927), compiling a career college football head coaching record of 52–70–14.

Alan Lawrence Hoffman is an American lawyer, government official, and corporate executive who is chief policy officer at U.S. electric vehicle manufacturer Rivian.

Julie Ann Ahringer FMedSci FRS is an American/British Professor of Genetics and Genomics, Director of the Gurdon Institute and a member of the Department of Genetics at the University of Cambridge. She leads a research lab investigating the control of gene expression.

William Burr McIntosh was an American lecturer, photographer, film studio owner, silent film actor, author, publisher of The Burr McIntosh Monthly, reporter and a pioneer in the early film and radio business.

Joel A. Pisano was a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey from 2000 to 2015. He served as a United States magistrate judge of the same court from 1991 to 2000.

Frank M. Gaziano is an associate justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court.

Edgar Jadwin, C.E. was a U.S. Army officer who fought in the Spanish–American War and World War I, before serving as Chief of Engineers from 1926 to 1929.

Robin L. Wiessmann is an American attorney and government official serving as the executive director and CEO of the Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency. Wiessmann previously served as secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Banking and Securities from 2015 to 2020 and treasurer of Pennsylvania from 2007 to 2009.

Stuart W. Risch is a retired United States Army lieutenant general who last served as the 41st Judge Advocate General of the United States Army. He was previously the Deputy Judge Advocate General of the United States Army and before that the commanding general of the United States Army Legal Services Agency.

Ralph Elihu Becker Jr. is an American politician, planner, and attorney who served as the Minority Leader of the Utah State House of Representatives and the 34th mayor of Salt Lake City, Utah.

William Edgar Geil was an unordained evangelist, explorer, lecturer, photographer, and author of 10 books related to his travels. He lectured all over the world, illustrating his talks with lantern slides. He is believed to be the first American to have traveled the entire length of the 2,500-kilometer-long Ming section of the Great Wall of China. He visited the Five...

William Harkness was an astronomer. He was born at Ecclefechan, Scotland, a son of James (1803–78) and Jane (née Wield) Harkness. His father was a pastor and moved the family to the United States. Harkness served in the military, traveled extensively, and headed research missions developing techniques and equipment for astronomical study.

William Frederick Durand was a United States naval officer and pioneer mechanical engineer. He contributed significantly to the development of aircraft propellers. He was the first civilian chair of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, the forerunner of NASA.

Charles Francis Berry was an American athlete and sports official who enjoyed careers as a catcher and umpire in Major League Baseball and as an end and official in the National Football League. His father, Charlie Sr., was a second baseman who played in the Union Association in 1884.

Travis Hutson is an American politician who served as a Republican member of the Florida Senate from 2015–2024. Hutson represented the 7th district, which includes Flagler, St. Johns, and northern Volusia County from 2016–2024. He previously represented the 6th district from 2015–2016. Hutson also served in the Florida House of Representatives from 2012 until he was elected to the Senate...

David Bernard Cornstein is an American businessman and diplomat who was the United States Ambassador to Hungary between 2018 and 2020. Cornstein made a career in the gambling, jewelry, and telemarketing industries. Cornstein was nominated to the ambassadorship by President Donald Trump. As Ambassador, Cornstein vocally defended the government of Viktor Orbán.

Blake Costanzo is an American former professional football player who was a linebacker in the National Football League (NFL). He played college football for the Lafayette Leopards and was signed by the New York Jets as an undrafted free agent in 2006.

Michael Arthur Raynor is an American Foreign Service Officer specializing in relations with Africa who had served as the United States ambassador to Senegal and the United States ambassador to Guinea-Bissau. He was the United States ambassador to Ethiopia until January 2021. He previously served as the director of the Office of Career Development and Assignments in the Bureau of...

Winston Lewis Prouty was an American banker and Republican politician who represented Vermont in the United States House of Representatives from 1951 to 1959 and the United States Senate from 1959 until his death in 1971. He also served as mayor of the city of Newport and a member of the Vermont House of Representatives. He was elected Speaker of...

Jim Rosenhaus is a radio broadcaster for the Cleveland Guardians Major League Baseball team. Rosenhaus also hosts Guardians Warm Up and Guardians Weekly on WTAM.

William Henry Green, was an American scholar of the Hebrew language. He was born in Groveville, near Bordentown, New Jersey.

Justin Kyle Jaworski is an American professional basketball player for Bilbao Basket of the Liga ACB. He played college basketball for the Lafayette Leopards.

Anthony Howard Palumbo is an American Republican Party politician who currently represents the 1st district of the New York State Senate. He previously served as a member of the New York State Assembly.

John Work Garrett was an American merchant turned banker who became president of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O) in 1858 and led the railroad for nearly three decades. The B&O became one of the most important American railroads by the time Garrett died. The rail magnate would also become a noted philanthropist, providing Johns Hopkins University with B&O stock...

William Alexander Parsons Martin, also known as Dīng Wěiliáng (Chinese: 丁韙良), was an American Presbyterian missionary to China and translator, famous for having translated a number of important Western treatises into Chinese, such as Henry Wheaton's Elements of International Law.

George Henry Decker was a general in the United States Army, who served as Chief of Staff of the United States Army from 1960 to 1962.

John William Griggs was an American lawyer and Republican Party politician who served as the 29th Governor of New Jersey from 1896 to 1898 and the 43rd United States Attorney General from 1898 to 1901.

John Anderson Fry is an American academic administrator, currently serving as the president of Temple University. Fry formerly served as president of Drexel University, as well as Franklin & Marshall College. In 2024, he was elected to the American Philosophical Society.

Barry Wellman FRSC was an American-Canadian sociologist and was the co-director of the Toronto-based international NetLab Network. His areas of research were community sociology, the Internet, human–computer interaction and social structure, as manifested in social networks in communities and organizations. His overarching interest was in the paradigm shift from group-centered relations to networked individualism. He wrote and co-authored more than...

Marcia Stephens Bloom Bernicat is an American diplomat who served as the 32nd Director General of the Foreign Service from 2022 to 2025. She is a former United States Ambassador to Bangladesh. She served as Ambassador to Senegal and Guinea-Bissau from 2008 to 2011. From January 1, 2019, to April 3, 2020, she was Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary in the...

Robert Baumle Meyner was an American Democratic Party politician and attorney who served as the 44th governor of New Jersey from 1954 to 1962. Before being elected governor, Meyner represented Warren County in the New Jersey Senate from 1948 to 1951.

Lawrence Roger Fast is an American synthesizer player and composer. He is best known for his 1975–1987 series of synthesizer music albums (Synergy) and for his contributions to a number of popular music acts, including Peter Gabriel, Foreigner, Nektar, Bonnie Tyler, and Hall & Oates.

Haldan Keffer Hartline ForMemRS was an American physiologist who was a co-recipient (with George Wald and Ragnar Granit) of the 1967 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work in analyzing the neurophysiological mechanisms of vision.

Russell Benjamin Harrison, also known as Russell Lord Harrison, was a businessman, lawyer, diplomat, and politician. Harrison was the son of U.S. President Benjamin Harrison and Caroline Harrison, and a great-grandson of U.S. President William Henry Harrison.

Alexander Ramsey was an American politician, who became the first Minnesota Territorial Governor and later became a U.S. Senator. He served as a Whig and Republican over a variety of offices between the 1840s and the 1880s.

General Peyton Conway March was a senior officer of the United States Army. He served in the Philippines, on the Mexican border, and World War I. March was the ninth Chief of Staff from 1918 to 1921, accomplishing centralized control over supply, the creation of the Air Service, Tank Corps, and Chemical Warfare Service.

Philip Showalter Hench was an American physician. Hench, along with his Mayo Clinic co-worker Edward Calvin Kendall and Swiss chemist Tadeus Reichstein was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1950 for the discovery of the hormone cortisone, and its application for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis. The Nobel Committee bestowed the award for the trio's "discoveries relating...

Brian Hutchison is an American actor based in New York City. He has appeared on such network shows as The Gilded Age, The Equalizer, Blue Bloods, Madam Secretary, Chicago Med, Jessica Jones, Elementary, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Godfather of Harlem, The Sinner, FBI: Most Wanted and Lisey's Story.

William Edward Simon was an American businessman and philanthropist who served as the 63rd United States Secretary of the Treasury. He became the Secretary of the Treasury on May 9, 1974, during the Nixon administration. After Nixon resigned, Simon was reappointed by President Gerald Ford and served until 1977 when President Jimmy Carter took office. Outside of government, he was...

Fielding Harris Yost was an American college football player, coach and athletics administrator. He served as the head football coach at: Ohio Wesleyan University, the University of Nebraska, the University of Kansas, Stanford University, San Jose State University, and the University of Michigan, compiling a coaching career record of 198–35–12. During his 25 seasons as the head football coach at...

Ross Gay is an American poet, essayist, and professor of English at Indiana University who won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry and the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award for his 2014 book Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude, which was also a finalist for the National Book Award for Poetry.

Bruce Lee Castor Jr. is an American lawyer and former Republican politician from Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. He was appointed as the first Solicitor General of Pennsylvania in March 2016, and also first deputy attorney general the following July. Castor became acting attorney general less than a month later. He investigated the Penn State fraternity hazing scandal and led for the...

James McKeen Cattell was the first professor of psychology in the United States, teaching at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. He was a long-time editor and publisher of scientific journals and publications, including Science, and served on the board of trustees for Science Service, now known as Society for Science from 1921 to 1944.

Dominique Lapierre was a French author.

Joseph Force Crater was an American lawyer who served as a New York State Supreme Court justice and mysteriously vanished shortly after the state began an investigation into corruption in New York City. Despite massive publicity, the missing persons case was never solved and was officially closed forty years after Crater was declared dead.

Edward Francis Blewitt was an American civil engineer, businessman, and politician who served as a Democratic member of the Pennsylvania State Senate for the 22nd district from 1907 to 1910. He was a maternal great-grandfather of Joe Biden, the 46th president of the United States.

Joel Silver is an American film producer.

Elizabeth Mowins is an American play-by-play announcer and sports journalist for ESPN, CBS, and Marquee Sports Network. She typically calls women's college sports, and became the second woman to call nationally televised college football games for ESPN in 2005. She began doing play-by-play for NFL games in 2017 and became the first woman to call a nationally televised NFL game....

Lorene Scafaria is an American filmmaker and actress. She wrote and directed the films Seeking a Friend for the End of the World (2012), The Meddler (2015), and Hustlers (2019), and wrote the film Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist (2008).

Joseph John Maddon is an American former professional baseball manager. He has managed the Tampa Bay Rays, Chicago Cubs, and Los Angeles Angels of Major League Baseball (MLB).

Michael S. Schmidt is an American journalist, author, and correspondent for The New York Times in Washington, D.C. He covers national security and federal law enforcement, and has broken several high-profile stories about politics, media and sports. He is also a national security contributor for MSNBC and NBC News.

Nathaniel Barratt Smithers was an American lawyer and politician from Dover, in Kent County, Delaware. He was a member of the Republican Party, and served as U.S. Representative from Delaware.

James Cameron Mackenzie was an American educator and Presbyterian minister, born in Aberdeen, Scotland.

Arthur Granville Dewalt was an American politician from Pennsylvania who served as a Democratic member of the U.S. House of Representatives for Pennsylvania's 13th congressional district from 1915 to 1921.

Michael Gazella was an American Major League Baseball player who played for the New York Yankees on several championship teams in the 1920s.

William Livingston Alden was an American journalist, fiction writer, humorist and canoe enthusiast. He was a US diplomat in Rome from 1885 to 1890 and thereafter lived in Europe until shortly before his death.

Robert William Smith was an American football, basketball, and baseball coach. He served as the head football coach (1946–1947) and head men's basketball coach (1935–1942) at Furman University.

Joseph Berg Esenwein was an American editor, lecturer and writer. He was noted for contributions to the Library of the World's Best Literature.

Arch Alfred Moore Jr. was an American lawyer and Republican politician who served as the 28th and 30th governor of West Virginia. He held office from 1969 to 1977 and again from 1985 to 1989, making him the longest-serving governor in the state's history with 12 years in office. Moore began his political career as a state legislator in 1952...

Jay Parini is an American writer and academic. He is known for novels, poetry, biography, and criticism. He has published novels about Leo Tolstoy, Walter Benjamin, Paul the Apostle, Herman Melville, and a novelized memoir about his road trip with Jorge Luis Borges.

M. K. Asante is an American author, filmmaker, songwriter, recording artist, and professor. He is the author of the 2013 best-selling memoir Buck: A Memoir and the 2024 memoir Nephew: A Memoir in Four-Part Harmony.