100 Notable alumni of University of Innsbruck

Johann Chrysanth "Beda" Weber was a German Benedictine professor, author, and member of the Frankfurt Parliament.

Ferenc Cserháti was a Hungarian Roman Catholic prelate. He was auxiliary bishop of Esztergom–Budapest from 2007 to 2023.

Herbert Sausgruber was governor of the Austrian state of Vorarlberg and chairman of the Vorarlberg ÖVP.

Jakša Račić was the Mayor of Split between February 1929 and June 1933. An ethnic Croat in modern terms, he was a supporter of King Alexander I's unitarianist policies, and considered himself a Yugoslav and a Dalmatian. He was a medical doctor by profession and one of the few non-Serbian members of the Chetnik movement.

Sophia Kircher is an Austrian politician for the ÖVP party. She was elected a member of the European Parliament in July 2024.

Martin Purtscher was an Austrian politician. A member of the Austrian People's Party, he served as Governor of Vorarlberg from 1987 to 1997 and served in the Landtag of Vorarlberg from 1964 to 1997.

Iris Eliisa Rauskala is a Finnish-born Austrian civil servant and economist who served as Minister of Education, Science and Research in the Bierlein government.

Ivan Hrynokh was a Ukrainian Greek-Catholic priest and Ukrainian community activist.

Barbara Nessler is an Austrian politician of The Greens. Since 2019, she has been a member of the National Council. From 2018 to 2019, she was a member of the municipal council of Innsbruck.

Lambert Ehrlich was a Carinthian Slovene Roman Catholic priest, political figure, and ethnologist.

Ernst Hairer is a professor of mathematics at the University of Geneva known for his work in numerical analysis.

Otto Stolz was an Austrian mathematician noted for his work on mathematical analysis and infinitesimals. Born in Hall in Tirol, he studied at the University of Innsbruck from 1860 and the University of Vienna from 1863, receiving his habilitation there in 1867. Two years later he studied in Berlin under Karl Weierstrass, Ernst Kummer and Leopold Kronecker, and in 1871...

Wendelin Weingartner is an Austrian politician who served as the Governor of Tyrol from 1993 to 2002. He studied law at the University of Innsbruck, and was the Chairman of the Landes-Hypothekenbank Steiermark in 1984.

Louis-Nazaire Bégin was a Canadian cardinal of the Catholic Church. Begin held a doctorate in Sacred Theology from the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome and was later appointed Archbishop of Quebec by Pope Leo XIII (1898) and created cardinal by Pope Pius X (1914).

Ernst Lecher was an Austrian physicist who, from 1909, was head of the First Institute of Physics in Vienna. He is remembered for developing an apparatus— "Lecher lines"—to measure the wavelength and frequency of electromagnetic waves. He gave his name to the Ernst-Lecher-Institut, a radar research establishment set up in the 1940s in Reichenau, south of Vienna, which is now...

Johann Nepomuk von Tschiderer zu Gleifheim was an Austrian-Italian Roman Catholic prelate and the Bishop of Trent from 1834 until his death. He was born to Austrians but was considered to be an Austro-Italian due to having been born in the Italian town of Bolzano.

Renate Gebhard is an Italian jurist and politician of South Tyrolean People's Party (SVP). She is a current member of the Italian Chamber of Deputies.

James Edward Quigley was a Canadian-born American Catholic prelate who served as archbishop of Chicago in Illinois from 1903 to 1915. He previously served as bishop of Buffalo in New York State from 1897 to 1903.

Selma Yildirim is an Austrian politician who is a member of the National Council and deputy chairperson of the Social Democratic Party of Austria (SPÖ).

Gero Andreas Miesenböck is an Austrian scientist. He is currently Waynflete Professor of Physiology and Director of the Centre for Neural Circuits and Behaviour (CNCB) at the University of Oxford and a fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford.

Erika "Riki" Mahringer was an Austrian alpine skier.

Adrian Henry Timothy Knottesford Fortescue was an English Catholic priest and polymath. An influential liturgist, artist, calligrapher, composer, polyglot, amateur photographer, Byzantine scholar, and adventurer, he was also the founder of the Church of St Hugh of Lincoln in Letchworth.

Thomas Wieser is an American-Austrian economist working for the European Union. He was the president of Economic and Financial Committee (EFC) of the EU as well as the president of the Eurogroup Working Group (EWG), both advisory bodies of the Eurogroup, until February 2018.

Markus Gasser is an Austrian literary scholar and author.

Karl Stoss is an Austrian sports executive. Stoss was the managing director of Casinos Austria from 2007 to 2017. From 2009 till 2025 he was the president of the Austrian Olympic Committee. He is a member of the International Olympic Committee since 2016 and is appointed as chair of the future host Commission for the Winter Olympics.

Nykyta Budka was a Austro-Hungarian-born priest of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church who lived and worked in Austria-Hungary, Canada, Poland, and the Soviet Union. In Canada, he is noted as the first bishop of the Ukrainian Catholic Church in Canada, and was the first Eastern Catholic bishop with full jurisdiction ever appointed in the New World.

Franziskus von Paula Graf von Schönborn was a Czech Catholic cardinal.

Dr. Norbert Bischofberger is an Austrian scientist and one of the inventors of the antiviral drug Tamiflu generically known as oseltamivir, which is, as of 2009, the only oral medication on the market to treat influenza A and B as well as the 2009 Pandemic H1N1 (swine flu), the spread of which caused an ongoing pandemic in 2009. Bischofberger is...

Indra Collini is an Austrian business economist and politician (NEOS).

Franz Josef Hoop was a diplomat and politician who served as Prime Minister of Liechtenstein from 1928 to 1945. A member of the Progressive Citizens' Party (FBP), he later served as the President of the Landtag of Liechtenstein from 1958 until his death in 1959.

Valentino Braitenberg was an Italian neuroscientist and cyberneticist. He was a former director at the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics in Tübingen, Germany.

Edward O'Rourke, full name Eduard Alexander Ladislaus Graf O'Rourke was a Russian-born Roman Catholic priest, bishop of Riga and the first head of the bishopric of the Free City of Danzig (Gdańsk).

Gunter Mayr is an Austrian economist who served as interim minister of finance from November 2024 to March 2025.

Meinhard Michael Moser was an Austrian mycologist. His work principally concerned the taxonomy, chemistry, and toxicity of the gilled mushrooms (Agaricales), especially those of the genus Cortinarius, and the ecology of ectomycorrhizal relationships. His contributions to the Kleine Kryptogamenflora von Mitteleuropa series of mycological guidebooks were well regarded and widely used. In particular, his 1953 Blätter- und Bauchpilze (Agaricales und...

Prince Stefan of Liechtenstein is a Liechtenstein diplomat and member of the princely family. He has served as Liechtenstein's Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the Holy See since 2017. He formerly served as Liechtenstein's Ambassador to Germany from 2007 to 2017 and to Switzerland from 2001 to 2007.

Otto Ender was an Austrian political figure. He served as the chancellor of Austria between 1930 and 1931.

Edmund Aloysius Walsh SJ was an American Roman Catholic priest of the Society of Jesus and career diplomat from South Boston, Massachusetts. He was also a professor of geopolitics and founder of the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service, the first school for international affairs in the United States. He founded the school in 1919, six years before the U.S....

Norbert Totschnig is an Austrian politician serving as minister of Agriculture since May 2022. He was director of Austrian Farmers’ Association from 2017 to 2022 when he was appointed into the Karl Nehammer federal government. On 3 March 2025 Christian Stocker appointed him as Minister of Agriculture, Regions and Tourism.

Eckart Ratz is an Austrian jurist who served as a judge and the president of the Supreme Court of Justice. From 2011 to 2012 he was a vice president of the Supreme Court. On 22 May 2019, he was appointed Austrian minister of the interior, replacing Herbert Kickl who had been dismissed from office by President Alexander Van der Bellen....

Hans Köchler is a retired professor of philosophy at the University of Innsbruck, Austria, and president of the International Progress Organization, a non-governmental organization in consultative status with the United Nations. In his general philosophical outlook he is influenced by Husserl and Heidegger, his legal thinking has been shaped by the approach of Kelsen. Köchler has made contributions to phenomenology...

Claudia Lösch is a successful Austrian Paralympian and alpine monoskier. She won gold medals in the slalom and super slalom at the 2010 Winter Paralympics in Vancouver. She also won a silver medal at the Alpine skiing at the 2014 Winter Paralympics – Women's super-G.

Zygmunt Zimowski was a Polish prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. Archbishop Zimowski had served until his death in July 2016 as President of the Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Health Care Workers, having been head of that office since his appointment by Pope Benedict XVI on 18 April 2009. He previously served as bishop of Radom from...

Andreas Rett was an Austrian neurologist and author. He is famous for his research on neurodevelopmental disorders, particularly for his description of Rett syndrome, which was named after him, and for pioneering treatment based on the belief that disabled children also have a right to fulfillment of their physical, emotional, and psychological needs. He received many awards, including the Grand...

Fra' Ludwig Franz Xaver Irenäus Joseph Peter Raimund Maria Hoffmann von Rumerstein was an Austrian Grand Commander of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta. He was acting head of the order for some months in 2017.

Juliane "Julia" Unterberger is an Italian lawyer and politician from South Tyrol.

Norbert Gstrein is an Austrian writer. He was born in Mils in Tyrol, the son of the hotelier and ski school director Norbert Gstrein (1931–1988) and Maria Gstrein, née Thurner (born 1935). He grew up with his five siblings in Vent and attended the secondary school from 1971 to 1979 in Imst. From 1979 to 1984, Gstrein studied mathematics in...

Herwig van Staa was the governor of Tyrol from 2002 to 2008.

Philipp Achammer is an Italian politician active in South Tyrol, who is serving as leader of the South Tyrolean People's Party since 2014.

Wolfgang Brezinka was a German-Austrian educational scientist. He served as professor of pedagogy at the School of Education of the University of Würzburg, as well as at the Universities of Innsbruck and Konstanz.

Steven Joseph Lopes is an American Catholic prelate. He is the bishop and ordinary of the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of Saint Peter, a community for clergy and laypeople who celebrate according to the Anglican Use within the Catholic Church.

Otto Bradfisch was an economist, a jurist, an SS-Obersturmbannführer (Lieutenant colonel), leader of Einsatzkommando 8 of Einsatzgruppe B of the Security Police (Sicherheitspolizei or SiPo) and the SD, and Commander of the Security Police in Litzmannstadt (Łódź) and Potsdam.

Peter Zoller is a theoretical physicist from Austria. He was professor at the University of Innsbruck and is known for his pioneering research on quantum computing, quantum simulation and quantum communication.

Max Valier was an Austrian rocketry pioneer. He was a leading figure in the world's first large-scale rocket program, Opel-RAK, and helped found the German Verein für Raumschiffahrt (VfR – "Spaceflight Society") that would bring together many of the minds that would later make spaceflight a reality in the 20th century.

Eva Klotz is an Italian politician. She was a member of the Landtag of South Tyrol for 31 years, from 1983 until 2014. She represented several parties during that time, latterly (from 2007) the South Tyrolean Freedom.

Ingrid Felipe is an Austrian businesswoman and former politician from the Green Party. She was second deputy Governor of Tyrol from May 2013 until October 2022 and from June to October 2017, she served as federal spokeswoman of her party.

Raoul Schrott is an Austrian poet, writer, literary critic, translator and broadcast personality.

Adolf Bertram was archbishop of Breslau (now Wrocław, Poland) and a cardinal of the Catholic Church.

Josef Aschbacher is Director General of the European Space Agency, a position he has held since 1 March 2021. His international career in space combines more than 35 years' of experience at ESA, the European Commission, the Austrian Space Agency, the Asian Institute of Technology and the University of Innsbruck.

Clemens Peter Freiherr von Pirquet was an Austrian scientist and pediatrician best known for his contributions to the fields of bacteriology and immunology.

Bruno Buchberger is Professor of Computer Mathematics at Johannes Kepler University in Linz, Austria. In his 1965 Ph.D. thesis, he created the theory of Gröbner bases, and has developed this theory throughout his career. He named these objects after his advisor Wolfgang Gröbner. Since 1995, he has been active in the Theorema project at the University of Linz.

Cuno Jakob Tarfusser is an Italian former judge of the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Markus Wallner is an Austrian politician (ÖVP). Since 2011, he has been the governor of Vorarlberg.

Shtjefën Konstantin Gjeçovi-Kryeziu was an Albanian Catholic priest, nationalist, ethnologist, and folklorist from Kosovo. He is regarded as the father of Albanian folklore studies.

Josef Penninger is an Austrian biomedical researcher specialising in molecular immunology. He was the scientific director of the Institute of Molecular Biotechnology located at the Vienna Biocenter until 2018. In February 2018, he announced his decision to leave Vienna and become the head of the Life Sciences Institute of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

Giovanni Antonio Scopoli was an Italian physician and naturalist. His biographer Otto Guglia named him the "first anational European" and the "Linnaeus of the Austrian Empire".

Ewald Johann Stadler, is an Austrian right-wing conservative politician. He was a member of the Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) until 2007, and a member of the Alliance for the Future of Austria (BZÖ) from 2007 until 2013. He ran for the European Parliament in 2009 as BZÖ's leading candidate and was a member of the European Parliament from 2011...

Severin Anton Schwan is an Austrian business executive. He is the current chairman of the board and former CEO (2008–2023) of the Roche Group.

Aleksandras Stulginskis [ɐlʲɛkˈsɐ̂ˑndrɐs stʊlʲˈɡʲɪ̂nʲsʲkʲɪs] was the second President of Lithuania (1920–1926). Stulginskis was also acting President of Lithuania for a few hours later in 1926, following a military coup that was led by his predecessor, President Antanas Smetona, and which had brought down Stulginskis's successor, Kazys Grinius. The coup returned Smetona to office after Stulginskis's brief formal assumption of the...

Óscar Andrés Rodríguez Maradiaga, S.D.B. is a Honduran prelate of the Catholic Church who was Archbishop of Tegucigalpa from 1993 to 2023. He was president of Caritas Internationalis and served as president of the Latin American Episcopal Conference (CELAM) from 1995 to 1999.

Susanne Riess is a former Austrian politician of the Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ). Riess-Passer is now CEO of the Wüstenrot-Gruppe.

Augustin Bea SJ was a German Jesuit priest, cardinal, and scholar at the Pontifical Gregorian University, specialising in biblical studies and biblical archaeology. He also served as the personal confessor of Pope Pius XII.

Martin Georg Kocher is an Austrian economist, academic, and former politician who is serving as Governor of the Austrian National Bank since September 2025. He was minister in the governments of Sebastian Kurz, Karl Nehammer and Alexander Schallenberg. From January 2021 he was Minister for Labour and from May 2022 to March 2025, he held the position of Minister for...

Nikolaus Alois Maria Vinzenz Negrelli, Ritter von Moldelbe was a Tyrolean civil engineer and railroad pioneer mostly active in parts of the Austrian Empire, Switzerland, Germany and Italy.

Roman Rafreider is an Austrian television host and journalist.

Magnus Brunner is an Austrian politician of the Austrian People's Party (ÖVP) who has been serving as European Commissioner for Internal Affairs and Migration since December 2024. Previously, he served as Austria's finance minister from 2021 until 2024 in the government of Chancellor Karl Nehammer.

Sigrid Maurer is an Austrian politician, and former student representative, (GRAS). Since 7 January of 2020 she serves as the club chairwoman of the Austrian Greens and is a member of the Austrian national council since 2019 and before between 2013 and 2017.

Andreas Khol is an Austrian politician of the centre-conservative Austrian People's Party, President of the National Council from 2002 to 2006.

Friedrich August Freiherr von der Heydte was a German paratroop officer during World War II who later served in the armed forces of West Germany, achieving the rank of General. Following the war, Heydte pursued academic, political and military careers, as a Catholic-conservative professor of political science, a member of the Christian Social Union political party, and as a Bundeswehr...

Edward Joseph Flanagan was an Irish-born priest of the Catholic Church in the United States who served for decades in Nebraska. After serving as a parish priest in the Catholic Diocese of Omaha, he founded the orphanage and educational complex known as Boys Town, located west of the city in what is now Boys Town, Douglas County, Nebraska. In the...

Bruno Platter is a former Grand Master of the Teutonic Order. He was the order's 65th Grand Master. He served three terms and retired in 2018 at the age of 74.

Ulrike Lunacek is an Austrian politician who served as State Secretary for Cultural Affairs in the government of Chancellor Sebastian Kurz in 2020. She is a member of the Austrian Green party The Greens – The Green Alternative, part of the European Green Party.

Susanne Raab in Vöcklabruck is an Austrian civil servant, jurist and politician of the Austrian People's Party (ÖVP), who served as Federal Minister from 2020 to 2025. Prior to her political career, Susanne Raab held several key leadership positions in the Austrian civil service. First as Legal Advisor for Asylum and Migration Affairs in the Ministry of the Interior, then...

Arno Kompatscher is an Italian politician and governor of South Tyrol. He is the incumbent president of Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol, serving his second term non-consecutively since 13 March 2024. He previously served as the president of Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol from 15 June 2016 to 7 July 2021.

Ivo Sanader is a Croatian former politician who served as Prime Minister of Croatia from 2003 to 2009. He was president of the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) from 2000 to 2009.

Archduke Hubert Salvator of Austria, Prince of Tuscany was a member of the Tuscan line of the House of Habsburg and Archduke of Austria, Prince of Tuscany by birth.

Josyf Slipyi was a Major Archbishop of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church and a cardinal of the Catholic Church.

Alexander "Sascha" Van der Bellen, also referred to by the abbreviation VdB, is an Austrian politician serving as the president of Austria since 2017. He previously was a professor of economics at the University of Vienna, and after joining politics, the spokesman of the Austrian Green Party.

Karl Ludwig von Bertalanffy was an Austrian biologist known as one of the founders of general systems theory (GST). This is an interdisciplinary practice that describes systems with interacting components, applicable to biology, cybernetics and other fields. Bertalanffy proposed that the classical laws of thermodynamics might be applied to closed systems, but not necessarily to "open systems" such as living...

Heinz Fischer is an Austrian politician who served as the president of Austria from 2004 to 2016. Fischer previously served as minister for science from 1983 to 1987 and as president of the National Council of Austria from 1990 to 2002. A member of the Social Democratic Party of Austria (SPÖ) until 2004, he suspended his party membership as he...

Irmfried Eberl was an Austrian psychiatrist and medical director of the euthanasia institutes in Brandenburg and Bernburg, who helped set up and was the first commandant of the Treblinka extermination camp where he worked as SS-Obersturmführer from 11 July 1942 until his dismissal on 26 August 1942. He was arrested after the end of the war in January 1948. Eberl...

Horst Schumann was an SS-Sturmbannführer (major) and medical doctor who conducted sterilization and castration experiments at Auschwitz and was particularly interested in the mass sterilization of Jews by means of X-rays. Hors d'atteinte, a book by Frédéric Couderc, published in France by Les Escales and Pocket, reveals the extent of Schumann's crimes and his life as a fugitive in Africa.

Armin Wolf is an Austrian journalist and television anchor. In 2017 Politico Europe called him "one of Europe’s most skilled (and feared) political journalists". He was named "European Journalist of the Year 2019" at the Prix Europa media contest.

Alois Adolf Riehl was an Austrian neo-Kantian and anti-psychologistic philosopher. He was born in Bozen (Bolzano) in the Austrian Empire (now in Italy). He was the brother of the Austrian engineer and building contractor Josef Riehl.

Hermann Heller was a German legal scholar and philosopher of Jewish descent. He was active in the non-Marxist wing of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) during the Weimar Republic. He attempted to formulate the theoretical foundations of the social-democratic relations to the state, and nationalism. He was politically active in the relatively conservative Hofgeismarer Kreis of the SPD...

Victor Franz Hess was an Austrian–American experimental physicist who shared the 1936 Nobel Prize in Physics with Carl David Anderson for his discovery of cosmic rays.

Nina Tomaselli is an Austrian politician of The Greens. Since 2019, she has been a member of the National Council. She was a member of the Landtag of Vorarlberg from 2014 to 2019, and a deputy spokesperson of The Greens from 2019 to 2022.

Barbara Kappel is an Austrian politician. From 2010 to 2014 she was a member of the FPÖ in the Vienna State Parliament and City Council. She then moved, initially as a non-attached member, to the European Parliament, where she was a member of the Europe of Nations and Freedom group until she left in June 2019.

Andreas Maislinger is an Austrian political scientist and founder and former chairman of the Austrian Service Abroad. He also is the founder of the Austrian Holocaust Memorial Award, the Braunau Contemporary History Days and the inventor of the idea of the House of Responsibility.

Carmen Possnig is an Austrian physician and European Space Agency reserve astronaut. After graduating from the Medical University of Graz in 2014, Possnig was a general practitioner resident in Vienna for a few years before working as a research medical doctor at Concordia Station in Antarctica for more than a year starting in 2017. Since 2020, she has been a...