100 Notable alumni of Suffolk University

Alex Kwaku Danso-Boafo is a Ghanaian academic, diplomat and politician and He currently serves as Cabinet Secretary of the Republic of Ghana. He is a member of the National Democratic Congress. Between 1997 and January 2000, he served as Ghana's Ambassador to Cuba with concurrent accreditation to Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Nicaragua and Panama. He also served as the Minister...

Michael J. Sullivan is an American lawyer and politician who served as U.S. Attorney for the District of Massachusetts (2001–2009) and Acting Director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) (2006–2009). His work as U.S. Attorney largely focused on national security and health-care fraud. A native of the Holbrook–Abington region, Sullivan served earlier in his career as...

Paul Joseph Sheehy was an American politician who served in the Massachusetts House of Representatives, Massachusetts Senate and was City Manager of Lowell, Massachusetts.

John R. Granara was an American attorney who served as a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives and as Special Sheriff of Middlesex County, Massachusetts.

Ronald Conrad MacKenzie was an American attorney and Republican politician who served in the Massachusetts Senate from 1967 to 1977. He resigned following his conviction for extortion, conspiracy, and other related offenses.

Dr. Tom Sannicandro is an entrepreneur, disability advocate, author, American politician, and attorney. He is the founder of SpecialNeedsTrustsOnline.com, a non-profit website providing information and estate planning documents to families with children with special needs. He is on the Board of Directors of the Inclusive Higher Education Accreditation Council, Inc., an independent accrediting agency for college and university programs that...

Anne M. Brennan is a former acting United States General Counsel of the Navy. She served as an attorney with the U.S. Department of the Navy from 1986 to 2019. She retired in March 2019.

Patricia McGovern is an attorney and former Democratic Massachusetts State Senator from Lawrence, Massachusetts. She was formerly the General Counsel and Senior Vice President for Corporate and Community Affairs at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.

Kevin J. Murphy is an American politician who served as city manager of Lowell, Massachusetts from 2014 to 2018 and from 1997 to 2014 was a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives. Murphy is also an attorney and a member of the American Bar Association, Greater Lowell Bar Association, and the Massachusetts Bar Association.

John P. Slattery is an American former politician who represented the 12th Essex district in the Massachusetts House of Representatives from 1995 to 2003 and was a Peabody, Massachusetts City Counclior from 1993 to 1994.

Arthur Henry Tobin was an American lawyer and politician from Quincy, Massachusetts. He served on the Quincy City Council and in the Massachusetts legislature before being elected the 29th mayor of Quincy. After serving as mayor, he was appointed clerk magistrate of the Quincy District Court.

Timothy J. Toomey Jr. was the Massachusetts State Representative for the 26th Middlesex District, which comprises East Cambridge and East Somerville, and a member of the Cambridge City Council. He served as a state representative from 1993 to 2017 and has served as a city councillor since 1990. Toomey has also served as a member of the Cambridge School Committee...

Gerard Francis Doherty was an American political figure who was a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives from 1957 to 1965 and Chairman of the Massachusetts Democratic Party from 1962 to 1967.

James Arciero is an American politician. He is a state legislator serving in the Massachusetts House of Representatives and is a Democrat.

Colleen M. Garry is an American politician who represents the 36th Middlesex District in the Massachusetts House of Representatives.

Alice Hanlon Peisch is an American attorney and politician who has represented the 14th Norfolk District in the Massachusetts House of Representatives since 2003. She previously served as the Chair of the Joint Committee on Education from 2011 to 2023. She is currently serving on the House Committee on Ethics and the House Committee on Rules.

Mike Festa was state director of AARP Massachusetts, based in Boston, from January 2013 to July 2024, which serves 750,000 members age 50+ in the commonwealth.

Ann-Margaret Ferrante was an American legislator in the Massachusetts House of Representatives, representing the 5th Essex district, which consists of Gloucester, Rockport, and Essex. A member of the Democratic Party, she was first elected in 2008 after defeating incumbent representative Anthony Verga in the Democratic primary. At the time of her death, she was the Vice Chair of the House...

Edmund Dinis was a Portuguese-born American politician from Massachusetts.

Steven C. Panagiotakos is a former Democratic Massachusetts state senator, and was the chairperson of the Senate Ways and Means Committee.

Michael Joseph Dumont is an American retired flag officer, naval aviator and vice admiral in the United States Navy who last served as deputy commander of United States Northern Command and Vice Commander, U.S. Element, North American Aerospace Defense Command at Peterson Air Force Base, Colorado. Dumont served in the United States Army for five years as an aviator and...

Samuel Edward Zoll was an American lawyer, judge and politician. He began his career as a high school teacher then became a lawyer, politician, then a judge. Later in life he was named to be Chief Justice of the District Courts in Massachusetts.

Gary Christenson is the mayor of Malden, Massachusetts.

James T. Brett is an American former politician who is the current president and CEO of The New England Council. From 1981 until 1996, Brett was a Democratic Party member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives.

David J. Sargent was the President of Suffolk University in Boston, Massachusetts from 1989 to 2010. David J. Sargent (born 1931) is an American lawyer and academic administrator who served as the eighth president of Suffolk University in Boston, Massachusetts, from 1989 to 2010, overseeing significant institutional growth and expansion during his tenure. A 1954 graduate of Suffolk University Law...

Anthony D. Galluccio is a former American Massachusetts State Senator, and a Democratic politician having won the seat vacated by Jarrett T. Barrios. He is a graduate of Cambridge Rindge and Latin High School, Providence College, and Suffolk Law School.

Marsha V. Kazarosian is an American attorney in Haverhill, Massachusetts notable for handling high-profile cases in the New England area. Her handling of a gender discrimination case involving a country club brought her national recognition. She represented one of the teenaged defendants in the 1990 murder of a young husband by his wife Pamela Smart, who conspired with her teenaged...

Matthew John Amorello is a former Massachusetts state senator and former chairman of the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority who presided over the Central Artery/Third Harbor Tunnel Project (Big Dig) from 2002 to 2006. The Massachusetts Turnpike Authority is the agency that was in charge of the Big Dig project.

Christopher A. Iannella Jr. is an American attorney and politician, currently serving as a member of the Massachusetts Governor's Council.

Marian Walsh is an American author, consultant, lawyer and former politician. She is a former State Senator in the Massachusetts Senate where she served nine terms, and a former member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives where she served two terms. She was the first woman to serve in the Massachusetts State House and the State Senate from her district....

Jerald G. Fishman was an American electrical engineer and businessman. He served as Chief Executive Officer and President of Analog Devices since November 1996 until his death in March 2013. He was a 35-year veteran of Analog Devices and also served on the Board of Directors of Analog Devices, Cognex Corporation and Xilinx Inc.

Edward Allen Tamm worked for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), reaching the third-highest position as Assistant to the Director (J. Edgar Hoover) before accepting an appointment as a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia and then United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District...

Matthew H. Malone is an American educator who served as the superintendent of Fall River Public Schools from 2016 until 2021. Malone is also the former Massachusetts secretary of education.

Paul Allyn Suttell is the chief justice of the Rhode Island Supreme Court.

Joan Elizabeth Vennochi is an American newspaper columnist. She specializes in local and national politics at The Boston Globe. With Stephen A. Kurkjian, Alexander B. Hawes Jr., Nils Bruzelius, and Robert M. Porterfield she won the 1980 Pulitzer Prize for Local Investigative Specialized Reporting.

David Niose is an attorney, author, and activist who has served as president of the American Humanist Association and the Secular Coalition for America. In these positions he has pursued legal and advocacy efforts on behalf of secularism.

Michael P. Cahill is an American politician who is the 34th and current mayor of Beverly, Massachusetts. He previously represented the 6th Essex district in the Massachusetts House of Representatives from 1993 to 2003. He was a candidate for Treasurer and Receiver-General of Massachusetts in 2002, finishing fourth in the Democratic primary.

Eileen Donoghue is an American politician who is the former city manager of Lowell, Massachusetts (2018–2022), a former member of the Massachusetts Senate, where she has represented the First Middlesex District from 2011 to 2018, as well as a former city councilor (1996–2008) and mayor (1998–2002) of Lowell. She ran in the Massachusetts' 5th Congressional District special election in 2007...

Thomas Joseph Lane was a U.S. representative from Massachusetts from 1941 to 1963, notable for having been re-elected after serving time in federal prison.

Robert Laurent Caret is an American academic and university administrator. He is the former chancellor of the University System of Maryland and former president of San José State University, Towson University and the University of Massachusetts System.

Elspeth B. Cypher is a former justice of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts who served from 2017 to 2024. She is also a former justice of the Massachusetts Appeals Court, where she served from 2000 to 2017.

James Anthony Burke was a United States representative from Massachusetts from 1959 to 1979.

Michael P. Ross is an American lawyer and former politician from Boston, Massachusetts, who represented District 8 (which includes Beacon Hill, Back Bay, and the Fenway) on the Boston City Council from 2000 through 2013. He was an unsuccessful candidate for mayor of Boston in 2013. Ross is now a real estate lawyer at Prince Lobel Tye LLP, and is...

Timothy Spafard Hillman is a former United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts.

Cheryl Ann Jacques is an American politician and attorney who served six terms in the Massachusetts Senate, was the president of the Human Rights Campaign for 11 months, and served as an administrative judge in the Massachusetts Department of Industrial Accidents.

Albert Leo "Dapper" O'Neil was an American politician who served as a socially conservative member of the Boston City Council for twenty-eight years. Prior to joining the council, he served on the Boston Licensing Board and was an operative for the Mayor of Boston James Michael Curley.

Khalil Joseph Shekarchi is an American politician currently serving as speaker of the Rhode Island House of Representatives. A Democrat, he has represented District 23 in Warwick since January 1, 2013. He was chairman of the House Labor Committee until his Democratic colleagues elected him as the House majority leader in November 2016. After four years as majority leader, his...

John Christopher Velis is an American state legislator and Democratic member of the Massachusetts Senate since 2020. He previously represented the 2nd Hampden and Hampshire district, which includes his hometown of Westfield, and currently represents the Hampden and Hampshire district after the 2020 census. Prior his election to the state senate, Velis was a member of the Massachusetts House of...

William Richard Keating is an American lawyer and politician serving as the U.S. representative for Massachusetts's 9th congressional district since 2013. A member of the Democratic Party, he first entered Congress in 2011, representing Massachusetts's 10th congressional district until redistricting. Keating's district includes Cape Cod and most of the South Coast. He raised his profile advocating for criminal justice issues...

Linda Dorcena Forry is a former Democratic member of the Massachusetts Senate, who represented the 1st Suffolk district from June 2013 - January 2018. She previously represented the 12th Suffolk District in the Massachusetts House of Representatives after winning a special election in April 2005. Haitian-American, Dorcena Forry, is the former House Chair of the Joint Committee on Community Development...

William Lewis "Bud" Uanna was an American security expert, who gained prominence as a security officer with the Manhattan Project, which built the first atomic bomb during World War II.

Roland Merullo is an American author who writes novels, essays and memoir. His best-known works are the novels Breakfast with Buddha, In Revere, In Those Days, A Little Love Story, Revere Beach Boulevard and the memoir Revere Beach Elegy. His books have been translated into Spanish, Portuguese, Korean, German, Chinese, Turkish, Bulgarian, Croatian, Slovenian, Czech and Italian.

Ryan C. Fattman is an American politician who currently serves in the Massachusetts State Senate. Previously, Fattman represented the 18th Worcester district in the Massachusetts House of Representatives as a Republican.

Jo Ann Rooney is an American educator with a background in higher education, law, business, health care, and public service. On May 23, 2016, she was named the 24th president of Loyola University Chicago, a Jesuit, Catholic university in Chicago, Illinois. Rooney is the first lay, non-Jesuit president of the university in its history and began her term as president...

Gabriela Rodríguez is a Venezuelan film producer based in London. She received an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture for her work on Roma, and was the first Latin American woman to earn a nomination in that category. She also won two BAFTAs and a British Independent Film Award, as well as other nominations for her production work on the...

Andrea J. Cabral is an American lawyer and former Massachusetts Secretary of Public Safety and Sheriff of Suffolk County, Massachusetts.

Anthony Zinno is a professional poker player from Cranston, Rhode Island. He has won three World Poker Tour (WPT) titles and four World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelets.

Brian Augustine Joyce was an American politician who was a Massachusetts State Senator for the Democratic Party. He served for nine terms, representing the Norfolk, Bristol and Plymouth district, which includes Avon, Braintree Precincts 1A, 1B, 2A & 2B, Canton, East Bridgewater Precinct 4, Easton Precincts 3-6, Milton, Randolph, Sharon Precincts 2 & 3, Stoughton, and West Bridgewater.

John Bernard Hynes, was an American politician from Boston, Massachusetts who served three terms as the mayor of Boston from 1950 to 1960, after having served as acting mayor in 1947. As mayor, Hynes focused on shifting Boston away from the high tax and spending policies of his predecessor, James Michael Curley, and began Boston's urban renewal, eventually leading to...

Ronald Keith Machtley is an American politician and former president of Bryant University. Machtley served three terms as a Republican member of the United States House of Representatives from Rhode Island from 1989 to 1995. From 1996 to 2020, Machtley served as president of Bryant University in Smithfield, Rhode Island, and was awarded faculty membership in Omicron Delta Kappa there...

Alexandra Bech Gjørv is a Norwegian lawyer and businesswoman. She has been chief executive of SINTEF since 2016.

Robert Alfred DeLeo is an American former politician from the state of Massachusetts. He served as Speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives from 2009 to 2020, having succeeded Salvatore DiMasi, who resigned due to allegations of an ethics violation.

Bruce E. Tarr is an American politician who serves as a Republican member and Minority Leader of the Massachusetts Senate. Since 1995 he has represented the 1st Essex and Middlesex District. He is a member of the United States Republican Party and a former member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives.

Joseph M. Tierney was an American politician who served as a member of the Boston City Council from 1972 to 1987. He was the President of the City Council in 1977, 1979, and from 1983 to 1985. He was a candidate for Mayor of Boston in 1987, losing to incumbent Raymond Flynn, 67% to 33%. He was the father of...

Leopoldo Alejandro Betancourt López is a Venezuelan businessman who is Chairman and CEO of Derwick Associates, an engineering, procurement and construction company. He is the leader of the international investment group O'Hara Administration, and a director of Pacific Exploration & Production Corporation, a publicly held Canadian company and a leading explorer and producer of natural gas and crude oil which...

Gustavo Antonio Gelpí Jr. is an American lawyer who serves as a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. He is a former chief United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Puerto Rico.

Setti David Warren was an American politician. He served as mayor of Newton, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston, and was a Democratic candidate for United States Senate in 2012.

John Joseph Moakley was an American politician who served as the United States representative for Massachusetts's 9th congressional district from 1973 until his death in 2001. Moakley won the seat from incumbent Louise Day Hicks in a 1972 rematch; the seat had been held two years earlier by the retiring Speaker of the House John William McCormack. Moakley was the...

John Frederick Collins was an American lawyer who served as the mayor of Boston from 1960 to 1968. Collins was a lawyer who served in the Massachusetts Legislature from 1947 to 1955. He and his children caught polio during a 1955 outbreak. He was reliant on a wheelchair and crutches the rest of his life. After partially recovering, he ran...

Martin Thomas Meehan is an American academic administrator, politician, and attorney. Since July 2015, Meehan has served as the President of the University of Massachusetts after serving as Chancellor of the University of Massachusetts Lowell since September 2007.

Stephen A. Kurkjian is an American journalist and author. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Local Investigative Specialized Reporting in 1972 and 1980. Additionally, he contributed to The Boston Globe Spotlight Team's coverage of the clergy abuse scandal within the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston that was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service in 2003. He also received the...

William Francis Galvin is an American politician who has served as the 27th Massachusetts secretary of the commonwealth since 1995. A member of the Democratic Party, he previously served in the Massachusetts House of Representatives from 1975 to 1991.

James Bamford is an American author, journalist and documentary producer noted for his writing about United States intelligence agencies, especially the National Security Agency (NSA). The New York Times has called him "the nation's premier journalist on the subject of the National Security Agency" and The New Yorker named him "the NSA's chief chronicler."

Nicholas Anthony Buoniconti was an American professional football player who was a middle linebacker in the American Football League (AFL) and National Football League (NFL). He played college football for the Notre Dame Fighting Irish. Buoniconti played professionally for the Boston Patriots and Miami Dolphins, winning two Super Bowls with the Dolphins. He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall...

Frank T. Caprio is an American banker, lawyer, and politician from Rhode Island. His twenty-year political career has included being elected as the 29th General Treasurer of Rhode Island from 2007 to 2011. He was the first political candidate in the United States to use on-demand television to reach voters and one of the first candidates to launch an internet...

Dan Harrington is a professional poker player, best known for winning the Main Event at the 1995 World Series of Poker. He has earned one World Poker Tour title, two WSOP bracelets, and over six million dollars in tournament cashes in his poker career. He is also a member of the Poker Hall of Fame.

Jenna Nicole Mourey, better known as Jenna Marbles, is an American former YouTuber. Over the span of ten years, her YouTube channel has accumulated approximately 1.8 billion video views and, at its peak, over 20 million subscribers. After apologizing for a series of accusations involving content in her older videos, Marbles announced her indefinite hiatus from the platform in 2020.

Paul Bernard Benedict was an American actor who made numerous appearances in television and films, beginning in 1965. He was known for his roles as The Number Painter on the PBS children's show Sesame Street and as the English neighbor Harry Bentley on the CBS sitcom The Jeffersons.

Reed V. Hillman is an American law enforcement officer and politician who was the Republican nominee for Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts for the 2006 gubernatorial election in Massachusetts, as well as a former Massachusetts State Representative. He currently lives in Sturbridge, Massachusetts with his wife and two children.

Richard J. Leon is an American jurist who serves as a senior United States district judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. He was appointed in 2002 by President George W. Bush and assumed senior status in 2016.

James H. "Jim" Fagan is an American attorney and politician who represented the 3rd Bristol District in the Massachusetts House of Representatives from 1993 to 2011.

Althea Garrison is an American politician from Boston, Massachusetts who served a single term in the Massachusetts House of Representatives (1993–1995) and a partial term as an at-large councilor on the Boston City Council (2019–2020). She is considered the earliest transgender person known to have been elected to a state legislature in the United States. She was outed against her...

Eliza Patricia Dushku is an American and Albanian retired actress. Dushku starred as Faith in the supernatural drama series Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1998–2003) and its spin-off series Angel (2000–2003). She also had lead roles in the Fox supernatural drama series Tru Calling (2003–2005) and the Fox science fiction series Dollhouse (2009–2010), for which she was a producer.

John F. Tierney is an American politician who served as a U.S. Representative from Massachusetts from 1997 to 2015. He is a Democrat who represented the state's 6th district, which includes the state's North Shore and Cape Ann.

Thomas J. "T. J." Donovan Jr. is an American lawyer and politician who served as Vermont Attorney General from 2017 to 2022. He was first elected in 2016 with over 66 percent of the vote. He previously served for ten years as State's Attorney of Chittenden County, the most populous county in Vermont.

William C. Galvin is an American insurance broker and politician who represents the 6th Norfolk District in the Massachusetts House of Representatives. A member of the Democratic Party, he was first elected to the legislature in 1990.

John James "Jack" McGlynn was an American politician who served as mayor of Medford, Massachusetts, and as a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives.

William B. Evans is currently serving as the executive director of public safety and chief of police of Boston College. Previously, Evans was the commissioner of the Boston Police Department from January 2014 until August 2018. Evans served as interim commissioner from November 2013 until he was permanently appointed by newly elected mayor Marty Walsh. He announced his retirement from...

Heather King is a Los Angeles-based writer, blogger and speaker. Raised on the coast of New Hampshire, she struggled with alcoholism—a period during which she made the ill-advised decision to attend law school—sobered up in 1987, quit her job as an attorney, and converted to Catholicism in 1996.

Paul W. Mark is an American politician serving as a Democratic member of the Massachusetts Senate. He represents the Berkshire, Hampden, Franklin and Hampshire District, which includes 57 cities and towns throughout Berkshire, Franklin, Hampden, and Hampshire counties. Paul Mark previously served in the Massachusetts House of Representatives.

Marc R. Pacheco is an American state legislator who served as a member of the Massachusetts Senate from the 1st Plymouth and Bristol district from 1993 to 2025. A member of the Democratic Party, he previously represented the 3rd Bristol district in the Massachusetts House of Representatives from 1989 to 1993.

Sean Curran is an American politician who represented the 9th Hampden District in the Massachusetts House of Representatives from 2005 to 2015. After six terms he declined to seek re-election; his ended on January 7, 2015.

Howard G. Sloane (born December, 1950) is an American lawyer, executive, and philanthropist currently serving as chairman and CEO of The Heckscher Foundation for Children.

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

Mary Susan McElroy is a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Rhode Island.

Frank Caprio was an American judge and politician who served as the chief judge of the municipal court of Providence, Rhode Island, and chairman of the Rhode Island Board of Governors for Higher Education. His judicial work was televised on the program Caught in Providence. He also made appearances in the series Parking Wars, adjudicating several cases of traffic violations....

George Anthony Sifakis is a former United States federal government official and government relations professional. Since November 2017, he is the CEO of Ideagen Global. He previously served in the transition team for Donald Trump's first presidency at the Department of Commerce, before serving as Deputy Director and later Director of the Office of Public Liaison in the Trump administration...

Allan Wai-Ket Fung is an American attorney and politician who served as the mayor of Cranston, Rhode Island, from 2009 to 2021. Fung, who is of Chinese descent, was the first Chinese American mayor in Rhode Island. He was the Republican nominee for Governor of Rhode Island in the 2014 and 2018 elections as well as the Republican nominee for...

Paul L. Reiber is the chief justice of the Vermont Supreme Court. Reiber graduated from Hampden-Sydney College in 1970 and from Suffolk University Law School in Boston, Massachusetts in 1974. Reiber was in private practice in Rutland until becoming a partner in Kenlan, Schwiebert & Facey in 1986. He also served for six years on Vermont's Judicial Nominating Board. He...