100 Notable alumni of University of Helsinki

Leevi Antti Madetoja was a Finnish composer, music critic, conductor, and teacher of the late-Romantic and early-modern periods. He is widely recognized as one of the most significant Finnish contemporaries of Jean Sibelius, under whom he studied privately from 1908 to 1910.

Emma Karoliina Kari is a Finnish politician of the Green League. She was elected to the Parliament of Finland in the 2015 parliamentary election with a vote total of 4,647. Kari has served in the City Council of Helsinki since 2008.

Rolf Herman Nevanlinna was a Finnish mathematician who made significant contributions to complex analysis. He is the namesake of Nevanlinna theory for meromorphic functions.

Paavo Erkki Arhinmäki is a Finnish politician and Helsinki Deputy Mayor for Culture and Leisure since 2021. He was a member of the Finnish Parliament from 2007 til 2021 representing the Left Alliance, a party whose leader he was from 2009 until 2016.

Anja Kyllikki Snellman-Orma is a Finnish novelist, poet, journalist, television commentator, and psychotherapist.

Ragnar Arthur Granit ForMemRS was a Finnish and Swedish scientist who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1967 along with Haldan Keffer Hartline and George Wald "for their discoveries concerning the primary physiological and chemical visual processes in the eye".

Märta Eleonora Tikkanen is a Swedish-speaking Finnish writer.

Eeva Karin Kilpi is a Finnish writer and feminist. Better known abroad than in Finland, her poetry, characterized as feminist humor, was discovered in the 1980s in Europe.

Lauri "Tahko" Pihkala was the inventor of pesäpallo, the Finnish variant of baseball. He was born in the vicarage of Pihtipudas, the son of the minister Alexander Gummerus. In 1969 he became one of the first persons to receive an honorary doctorate in Sport Sciences from the University of Jyväskylä, together with president Urho Kekkonen and Professor Kaarina Kari.

Jovo Bakić is a Serbian sociologist, political activist, and an associate professor at the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade. He is primarily interested in political sociology.

Edvard Alexander Westermarck was a Finnish philosopher and sociologist. Among other subjects, he studied exogamy and the incest taboo.

Tuula Irmeli Haatainen is a Finnish politician and a member of the Finnish Parliament, with the Social Democratic Party. She was the Minister of Education 2003–2005 and the Minister of Social Affairs and Health 2005–2007.

Arvo Henrik Ylppö was a Finnish physician and professor of pediatrics who significantly decreased Finnish infant mortality during the 20th century. He is credited as the father of Finland's public maternity and child health clinic system established in 1922 (Finnish: neuvola), which focuses on monitoring the health and development of newborn and pre-school children and their families, providing parents with...

Sanni Grahn-Laasonen is a Finnish politician and a member of the National Coalition Party. She was the Minister of Education and Culture 2015-2019. She was the Minister of the Environment in Alexander Stubb's cabinet between 2014 and 2015. Before her career in politics she has worked as a journalist in the Finnish afternoon newspaper Iltalehti.

Emilia Vuorisalmi is a Finnish medical doctor, TV personality and an entrepreneur from Helsinki.

Kai Aslak Mykkänen is a Finnish politician who currently serves as Mayor of Espoo. He served as Minister of the Environment and Climate Change. He is a former Minister of the Interior and represents the National Coalition Party in the Uusimaa electoral district.

Pentti Ilkka Olavi Arajärvi is a Finnish Doctor of Law, Professor Emeritus and Docent of the University of Helsinki, a former civil service official and a Social Democratic politician from Helsinki. Arajärvi was awarded the honorary title of valiokuntaneuvos ("Committee Counselor") for his work in parliamentary committees. He is the spouse of Tarja Halonen, who was the President of Finland...

Henri Seppälä, also known as Henkka T. Blacksmith, is the former bassist of the Finnish melodic death metal band Children of Bodom from 1996 to 2019. He is also responsible for backing vocals both in studio and live. In 2020 he announced he would be joining the band Moon Shot as their bassist.

Johannes Virolainen was a Finnish politician and who served as 30th Prime Minister of Finland, helped inhabitants of Karelia, and opposed the use of alcohol.

Heidi Anneli Hautala is a Finnish politician and Member of the European Parliament (MEP) from Finland. She is a member of the Green League, part of the European Green Party.

Ilmari Kianto, also known as Ilmari Calamnius and Ilmari Iki-Kianto, was a Finnish author. He was born in Pulkkila, Northern Ostrobothnia, and is best known for his books Punainen viiva ("The Red Line", published 1909) and Ryysyrannan Jooseppi (published in 1924). In his books, he describes people and living at Suomussalmi municipality in Kainuu region. He was also a Karelian...

Karl Lennart Oesch was one of Finland's leading generals during World War II. He held a string of high staff assignments and front commands, and at the end of the Continuation War commanded three Finnish army corps on the Karelian Isthmus. He received numerous awards, including the Finnish Mannerheim Cross during his service. Following the end of the Continuation War,...

Kullervo Achilles Manner was a Finnish and Soviet politician. He was one of the leaders of the Finnish Socialist Workers' Republic.

Kirsti Marjatta Manninen is a Finnish writer and screenwriter. She has produced over one hundred works under her own name as well as under her pen name Enni Mustonen.

Leopold Henrik Stanislaus Mechelin, known as Leo Mechelin, was a Finnish politician, professor, liberal reformer and businessman. A leading defender of the autonomy of the Grand Duchy of Finland, and of the rights of women and minorities, Mechelin's 1905–1908 government ("Mechelin's Senate") made Finland the first nation in the world with the universal right to vote and to be elected....

Ahti Kalle Samuli Karjalainen was a Finnish economist and politician. He was a member of the Agrarian League (later known as Keskusta, Centre Party) and served two terms as Prime Minister of Finland. He is, however, better known for his period as Minister of Foreign Affairs of Finland. Karjalainen is considered one of the most influential figures in post-war Finnish...

Mikko Hyppönen is a Finnish computer security expert, speaker and author. He is known for the Hyppönen Law of IoT security, which states that whenever an appliance is described as being "smart", it is vulnerable. He worked for 34 years as the Chief Research Officer at WithSecure (former F-Secure for Business) and as the Principal Research Advisor at F-Secure, before...

Erkki Antero Liikanen is a Finnish social democratic politician and a former Governor of the Bank of Finland.

Jari Tervo is a Finnish author, columnist, and former TV personality. He is a major name in Finnish literature.

Kaarlo Jaakko Juhani Hintikka was a Finnish and American philosopher and logician. Hintikka is regarded as the founder of formal epistemic logic and of game semantics for logic. He was awarded the Rolf Schock Prize for philosophy in 2005, and he was chief editor of the philosophical journal Synthese 1965–2002.

Claes-Johan Rudolf Andersson was a Swedish-speaking Finnish psychiatrist, author, poet, jazz musician, politician and member of the Finnish Parliament, representing the Left Alliance and the Finnish People's Democratic League. He was a member of the Finnish Parliament from 1987 to 1999 and from 2007 to 2008, and served as the Minister of Culture in the Lipponen I Cabinet.

Judge Bone, a.k.a. Tuomari Nurmio, is the artist name of Hannu Juhani Nurmio, a Finnish rock singer and songwriter.

Lars Valerian Ahlfors was a Finnish mathematician, remembered for his work in the field of Riemann surfaces and his textbook on complex analysis. In 1936, Ahlfors was awarded the first Fields Medal, along with American mathematician Jesse Douglas.

Jussi Niinistö is a Finnish politician and a former Minister of Defence and a former member of Finnish Parliament, representing the Finns Party 2011–2017 and Blue Reform since 2017. By occupation he is a military historian, a docent of Finnish history in the University of Helsinki and a docent of military history in the Finnish National Defence University. In 2013...

Jukka Jalmari Virtanen was a Finnish entertainer and author. He worked as both a film and television director, actor and host. He was also an accomplished songwriter. Starting originally as a newspaper columnist, Virtanen began his television career in the 1950s and his film career in the 1960s.

Anni Milja Maaria Sinnemäki is a Finnish politician and a member of the Finnish Parliament between 1999 and 2015, representing the Green League.

Derrick J. Rossi, is a Canadian stem cell biologist and entrepreneur. He is a co-founder of the pharmaceutical company Moderna.

Axel Erik Heinrichs was a Finnish military general. He was Finland's Chief of the General Staff during the Interim Peace and Continuation War (1940–1941 and 1942–1944) and Chief of Defence for a short time after the war (1945).

Manu Juhani Tamminen is a Finnish retired professional ice hockey player who played in the SM-liiga and World Hockey Association. He played for TPS, HJK, HIFK, Cleveland Crusaders, and Phoenix Roadrunners. He represented Finland at the 1976 Canada Cup. He was inducted into the Finnish Hockey Hall of Fame in 1991.

Leena Katriina Lehtolainen is a Finnish crime novelist, known for her series of novels about the policewoman Maria Kallio.

Erkki Sakari Tuomioja is a Finnish politician and has previously been a member of the Finnish Parliament. From 2000 to 2007 and 2011 to 2015, he served as the minister for foreign affairs. He was president of the Nordic Council in 2008.

Anna-Maja Kristina Henriksson is a Swedish-speaking Finnish politician. She has served as Finland's Minister of Justice, in Jyrki Katainen's cabinet and Alexander Stubb's cabinet from 2011 to 2015, Antti Rinne's cabinet from June to December 2019 and in Sanna Marin's cabinet from December 2019 to June 2023. Henriksson was recorded to have been the country's longest-serving Minister of Justice.

Matti Rönkä is a Finnish TV journalist and novelist. He received the Glass Key award in 2007 for the crime novel Ystävät kaukana and the Deutscher Krimi Preis third prize in 2008 for the German translation of his novel Tappajan näköinen mies (2002) (German: Der Grenzgänger). He has been the anchor of the daily news program 20:30 National Report since...

Antti Samuli Kaikkonen is a Finnish politician who has served as chair of the Centre Party since June 2024. He has been a member of the Finnish Parliament from Uusimaa since 2003. He served as Minister of Defence from 2019 to 2023. Kaikkonen was the president of Finnish Centre Youth from 1997 to 2001. He has also been a member...

Antti Ilmari Lindtman is a Finnish politician who has served as leader of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) since September 2023. He was the chairman of the city council of Vantaa from 2009 to 2023 and has been a member of the Parliament of Finland for Uusimaa since April 2011. In April 2015, he was elected as the chairman of...

Harri Hermanni Holkeri was a Finnish statesman representing the National Coalition Party of Finland (Kokoomus / Samlingspartiet). He was the Prime Minister of Finland 1987–1991, president of the UN General Assembly 2000–2001 and headed the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo from 2003 to 2004 (leaving the position in the summer of the second year because of health issues).

Kari Hotakainen is a Finnish writer. Hotakainen started his writing career as a reporter in Pori. In 1986, he moved to Helsinki. He became a full-time writer in 1996. He has two children with his wife, sound technician Tarja Laaksonen, whom he married in 1983. He has also worked as a copywriter and as a columnist for the Helsingin Sanomat.

Väinö Alfred Tanner was a leading figure in the Social Democratic Party of Finland, and a pioneer and leader of the cooperative movement in Finland. He was Prime Minister of Finland in 1926–1927.

Georg Henrik von Wright was a Finnish philosopher. He is particularly known for his work in philosophical logic, especially deontic logic, his work on Ludwig Wittgenstein's later philosophy, and his work on moral pessimism, especially regarding the Myth of Progress.

Artturi Ilmari Virtanen was a Finnish chemist and recipient of the 1945 Nobel Prize in Chemistry "for his research and inventions in agricultural and nutrition chemistry, especially for his fodder preservation method".

Ben Berl Zyskowicz is a Finnish politician and member of parliament. Zyskowicz was chairman of the Finnish National Coalition Party's parliamentary group from 1993 to 2006, and has been a member of parliament for the National Coalition Party since 1979. He was the first Jew to be elected to the Finnish parliament. Following the parliamentary elections in April 2011, Zyskowicz...

Päivi Maria Räsänen, née Kuvaja, is a Finnish politician. The chairwoman of the Christian Democrats from 2004 to 2015, she was the Minister of the Interior of Finland between 2011 and 2015.

Juhani Aho, originally Johannes Brofeldt, was a Finnish author and journalist. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature sixteen times.

Antti Edvard Häkkänen is a Finnish politician from the National Coalition Party. He has served as Minister of Defence since June 2023 in the Orpo cabinet and as Member of Parliament since 2015. Häkkänen served as Minister of Justice in the Sipilä cabinet from 2017 to 2019.

Erkki Johan Bäckman is a Finnish and Russian political activist, propagandist, author, eurosceptic, and convicted stalker working for the Russian government. Bäckman has been a prominent Finnish propagandist in Russia who has actively participated in long-standing operations to propagate anti-Finnish and anti-Western Russian propaganda.

Bengt Robert Holmström is a Finnish economist who is currently Paul A. Samuelson Professor of Economics (Emeritus) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Together with Oliver Hart, he received the Central Bank of Sweden Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 2016.

Hella Wuolijoki, also known by the pen name Juhani Tervapää, was an Estonian-born Finnish writer known for her Niskavuori series.

Wille-Werner Rydman is a Finnish politician currently serving in the Parliament of Finland, representing the constituency of Helsinki, representing the Finns Party and formerly the National Coalition Party. Rydman was elected to the parliament in 2015, gaining 4,524 votes in the elections. He has also been a member of the City Council of Helsinki since 2012. He received a Masters...

Paavo Tapio Lipponen is a Finnish politician and former reporter. He was prime minister of Finland from 1995 to 2003, and chairman of the Social Democratic Party of Finland from 1993 to 2005. He also served as speaker of the Parliament of Finland from 2003 to 2007 and was his party's nominee in the 2012 Finnish presidential election but received...

Nils Ole Hilmer Torvalds is a Finnish politician who was a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) from 2012 to 2024. He is a member of the Swedish People's Party of Finland, part of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe.

Frans Eemil Sillanpää was a Finnish writer. In 1939, he became the first Finnish writer to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature "for his deep understanding of his country's peasantry and the exquisite art with which he has portrayed their way of life and their relationship with Nature".

Nils Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld was a Finland-Swedish aristocrat, geologist, mineralogist and Arctic explorer. He was a member of the noble Nordenskiöld family of scientists and held the title of a friherre (baron).

Anneli Tuulikki Jäätteenmäki is a Finnish politician who was the first female and 39th prime minister of Finland from 17 April 2003 to 24 June 2003. From 2004 until 2019, she served as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) from Finland.

Maija Johanna Vilkkumaa is a Finnish pop rock singer-songwriter. Beginning her musical hobbies playing piano at an age before school, Vilkkumaa studied in high school where she and her friends set up the band Tarharyhmä in 1990, which broke up in 1995. While studying Finnish language at the University of Helsinki, she started to take singing lessons and went on...

Esko Tapani Aho is a Finnish politician who was prime minister of Finland from 1991 to 1995.

Mari Johanna Kiviniemi is a Finnish politician, who served as the 41st and second female Prime Minister of Finland from 2010 to 2011.

Zacharias Topelius was a Finnish author, poet, journalist, historian, and rector of the University of Helsinki who wrote novels related to Finnish history. He wrote his works exclusively in Swedish, although they were translated early on into Finnish. In Finland Topelius emerged as one of the foremost heirs to Sir Walter Scott’s legacy of exploring the nation through the historical...

Olli Ilmari Rehn is a Finnish public official who has been serving as governor of the Bank of Finland since 2018. A member of the Centre Party, he previously served as the European Commissioner for Enlargement from 2004 to 2010, European Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Affairs and the Euro from 2010 to 2014, and Minister of Economic Affairs in...

Otto Wilhelm "Wille" Kuusinen was a Finnish-born Soviet politician, literary historian, and poet.

Pehr Evind Svinhufvud af Qvalstad was the president of Finland from 1931 to 1937. Serving as a lawyer, judge, and politician in the Grand Duchy of Finland, which was at that time an autonomous state within the Russian Empire, Svinhufvud played a major role in the movement for Finnish independence. He was the one who presented the Declaration of Independence...

Jörn Johan Donner was a Finnish writer, film director, actor, producer, politician and founder of Finnish Film Archive. He was also a publisher, editor, and a prominent literary and film critic. He produced Ingmar Bergman's film Fanny and Alexander, which won four Academy Awards in 1984. Donner also served in the Finnish parliament and the European Parliament, making significant contributions...

Kaarlo Juho Ståhlberg was a Finnish jurist and academic who was one of the most important pioneers of republicanism in the country. He was the first president of Finland (1919–1925) and a liberal nationalist.

Matti Taneli Vanhanen is a Finnish politician who served as Prime Minister of Finland from 2003 to 2010 and then as the Speaker of Parliament from 2022 to 2023. He was also Chairman of the Centre Party from 2006 until 2010 and the party's presidential candidate in 2006 and 2018. Outside of that, he has served under multiple ministerial position...

Eino Leino was a Finnish poet and journalist who is considered one of the pioneers of Finnish poetry and a national poet of Finland. His poems combine modern and Finnish folk elements. Much of his work is in the style of the Kalevala and folk songs in general. Nature, love, and despair are frequent themes in Leino's work. He is...

Camille Étienne, born 29 May 1998 in Grenoble, Auvergne-Rhone-Alpes, is a French environmental activist.

Timo Juhani Soini is a Finnish politician who is the co-founder and former leader of the Finns Party. He served as Deputy Prime Minister of Finland from 2015 to 2017 and Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2015 to 2019.

Tarja Kaarina Halonen is a Finnish politician who served as the president of Finland, and the first and to date only woman to hold the position, from 2000 to 2012. She first rose to prominence as a lawyer with the Central Organisation of Finnish Trade Unions (SAK), and as the prime minister's parliamentary secretary (1974–1975) and a member of the...

Jussi Kristian Halla-aho is a Finnish politician, currently serving as the Speaker of the Parliament of Finland since 2023. Halla-aho has served as a member of the Parliament of Finland from 2011 to 2014 and again since 2019, and as the leader of the Finns Party from 10 June 2017 to 14 August 2021. Previously, between 2014 and 2019, he...

Antti Juhani Rinne is a Finnish politician who served as speaker of the Parliament of Finland from April to June 2019 and Prime Minister of Finland from June to December 2019. He led the Social Democratic Party from 2014 until 2020. In August 2023, he was hired as the General Secretary of SAMAK for a three-year term.

Mika Toimi Waltari was a Finnish writer, best known for his best-selling novel The Egyptian (Finnish: Sinuhe egyptiläinen). He was extremely productive. Besides his novels he also wrote poetry, short stories, crime novels, plays, essays, travel stories, film scripts, and rhymed texts for comic strips by Asmo Alho.

Pekka Olavi Haavisto is a Finnish politician of the Green League who served as the Minister for Foreign Affairs from 2019 to 2023.

Aleksis Kivi was a Finnish writer who wrote the first significant novel in the Finnish language, Seitsemän veljestä (Seven Brothers), published in 1870. He is also known for his 1864 play, Nummisuutarit (Heath Cobblers). Although Kivi was among the very earliest writers of prose and lyrics in Finnish, he is still considered one of the greatest.

Linus Benedict Torvalds is a Finnish and American software engineer who is the creator and lead developer of the Linux kernel since 1991. He also created the distributed version control system Git.

Urho Kaleva Kekkonen, often referred to by his initials UKK, was a Finnish politician who served as the eighth and longest-serving president of Finland from 1956 to 1982. He also served as prime minister (1950–1953, 1954–1956), and held various other cabinet positions. He was the third and most recent president from the Agrarian League/Centre Party. Head of state for nearly...

Alberto Carlos Rivera Díaz, known as Albert Rivera, is a Spanish former politician who was the leader of Citizens from its founding in 2006 until 2019. He was a member of the Parliament of Catalonia (2006–2015) and the Congress of Deputies (2015–2019).

Sami Antero Järvi, better known by his pen name Sam Lake ('Järvi' is Finnish for lake), is a Finnish video game writer, director and auteur. He is the creative director at Remedy Entertainment, known for his writing (as well as his likeness) on the popular Max Payne video game series (in which photos of his face were used as Max...

Jorma Jaakko Ollila is a Finnish businessman who was chairman of Royal Dutch Shell from 1 June 2006 to May 2015, and at Nokia Corporation chairman from 1999 to 2012 and CEO from 1992 to 2006. He has been a director of Otava Books and Magazines Group Ltd. since 1996 and UPM-Kymmene since 1997, and an advisory partner at Perella...

Jenni Elina Haukio is a Finnish poet, political scientist and the spouse of the president of Finland from 2012 to 2024. She is the second wife of the former president of Finland, Sauli Niinistö.

Elias Lönnrot was a Finnish polymath, physician, philosopher, poet, musician, linguist, journalist, philologist and collector of traditional Finnish oral poetry. He is best known for synthesizing the Finnish national epic, Kalevala (1835, enlarged 1849) from short ballads and lyric poems he gathered from Finnish oral tradition during several field expeditions in Finland, Russian Karelia, the Kola Peninsula and Baltic countries....

Ilkka Armas Mikael Kanerva was a Finnish politician and a member of the Parliament of Finland. He was born in Lokalahti, now a part of Uusikaupunki in Southwest Finland. He was the Minister for Foreign Affairs from 2007 to 2008. Kanerva was a member of the National Coalition Party.

Sofi-Elina Oksanen is a Finnish writer and playwright. Oksanen has published six novels, of which "Purge" has gained the widest recognition. She has received several international and domestic awards for her literary work. Her work has been translated into more than 40 languages and sold more than two million copies. Oksanen has been called "Finnish-Estonian Charles Dickens" and her work...

Maria Karoliina Ohisalo is a Finnish politician and researcher who served as Minister of the Interior between 2019 and 2021. The former chairman of the Green League, she has been a Member of Parliament since 2019.

Johan Vilhelm Snellman was an influential Fennoman philosopher and Finnish statesman, ennobled in 1866. He was one of the most important 'awakeners' or promoters of Finnish nationalism, alongside Elias Lönnrot and J. L. Runeberg.

Paavo Matti Väyrynen is a Finnish politician who has served, among other things, as Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1977 to 1982, and again from 1983 to 1987 and from 1991 to 1993. He is a former member of the Finnish Parliament who has represented the Seven Star Movement, the Citizen's Party and Centre Party. He left the Centre Party...

Jan Pellervo Vapaavuori is a Finnish politician, the former Minister of Economic Affairs, and the former mayor of Helsinki. Vapaavuori was Minister of Housing and Minister of Nordic Cooperation in Matti Vanhanen's second cabinet and Mari Kiviniemi's cabinet. He was a candidate for the head of his party (the centre-right National Coalition Party) in the June 2014 election, and as...

Kaj Oskar Chydenius was a Finnish musician and composer, probably best known for his left-wing political songs interpreted by various artists.

Kirsi Marjatta Kunnas was a Finnish poet, children's literature author and translator into Finnish. Her oeuvre consists of poems, fairy tale books, drama, translations (e.g. Lewis Carroll, Federico García Lorca) and non-fiction. Her books have been translated into Swedish, English, German, French, Hungarian, Estonian and Polish. She received several awards in Finland for her literary work.

Albert Gustaf Aristides Edelfelt was a Finnish painter noted for his naturalistic style and Realist approach to art. He lived in the Grand Duchy of Finland and made Finnish culture visible abroad, before Finland gained independence. He was considered the greatest Finnish artist of the second half of 19th and the first half of the 20th centuries, and one of...

Jean Sibelius was a Finnish composer of the late Romantic and early modern periods. He is widely regarded as his country's greatest composer, and his music is often credited with having helped Finland develop a stronger national identity when the country was struggling from several attempts at Russification in the late 19th century.