100 Notable alumni of University of Rochester

David Todd Kearns was an American businessman who was chairman and CEO of Xerox Corporation and served as the first United States Deputy Secretary of Education from 1991 to 1993.

Charles Augustus Strong was an American philosopher and psychologist. He spent the earlier part of his career teaching in the United States, but after his wife died, in 1906 he settled with their daughter in Italy, near Florence. Between 1918 and 1936 he wrote most of his works there.

Linda B. Rosenthal represents District 67 as a Democrat in the New York State Assembly, which includes parts of Manhattan's Upper West Side and Clinton/Hell's Kitchen neighborhoods.

Esther Marley Conwell was a pioneering American chemist and physicist, best known for the Conwell-Weisskopf theory that describes how electrons travel through semiconductors, a breakthrough that helped revolutionize modern computing. Her work enabled the microelectronics industry, long-distance communications networks, advanced photocopying, solar cells, and light-emitting diodes.

Sean Averell Pybus is a retired United States Navy vice admiral who last served as the deputy Commander, United States Special Operations Command from 2014 to 2016. He previously served as the Commander, Naval Special Warfare Command from 2011 to 2013.

Israel W. Charny was an Israeli psychologist and genocide scholar. He was the editor of two-volume Encyclopedia of Genocide, and executive director of the Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide in Jerusalem.

James Anthony Pawelczyk is an American physiology and kinesiology researcher who flew aboard the NASA STS-90 Space Shuttle mission as a payload specialist.

Lawrence Grossberg is an American scholar of cultural studies and theories of culture. He helped introduce and define cultural studies—an interdisciplinary intellectual study of the intersections of culture and power through practices of contextuality, complexity, and contingency—into the United States. His theoretical works attempt to bring together the constructionists of Stuart Hall, Martin Heidegger, Michel Foucault, and Gilles Deleuze and...

Nasser Saidi is a Lebanese politician and economist who served as the minister of economy and industry and the vice governor for the Lebanese central banks for several terms in the last decade of the 20th century.

Lewis A. Swift was an American astronomer who discovered 13 comets and 1,248 previously uncatalogued nebulae. Only William Herschel discovered more nebulae visually.

Susan Brownell Anthony II was an American journalist and writer, activist and substance abuse counselor. She grew up in Easton, Pennsylvania, and attended the University of Rochester, graduating in 1938. During her schooling, she became an activist in progressive causes, but she also struggled with alcoholism. She supported pacifism, the anti-fascist movement, housing desegregation, and women's rights, including advocacy to...

Louis Hyman Bean was an American economic and political analyst who is best known for predicting Harry S. Truman's victory in the 1948 presidential election.

Mary Anne Krupsak was an American lawyer and politician from New York. She was the lieutenant governor of New York from 1975 to 1978. She was the first woman to hold the office.

José Alexandre Scheinkman is a Brazilian-American economist, currently the Charles and Lynn Zhang Professor of Economics at Columbia University and the Theodore A. Wells '29 Professor of Economics Emeritus at Princeton University. He spent much of his career at the University of Chicago, where he served as department chair immediately prior to his departure for Princeton. He is best known...

Stanley Phillips Frankel was an American computer scientist. He worked in the Manhattan Project and developed various computers as a consultant.

Albion Winegar Tourgée was an American soldier, lawyer, writer, politician, and diplomat. Wounded in the Civil War, he relocated to North Carolina afterward, where he became involved in Reconstruction activities. He served as a delegate to the state constitutional convention in 1868 and served six years as a judge on the Superior Court. Tourgée was also a pioneer civil rights...

Adora Cheung is an American entrepreneur, investor, and programmer. She was the co-founder and CEO of house cleaning business Homejoy. After Homejoy shut down, Cheung continued working for Y Combinator as a partner, until February 2021.

Frederick Starr was an American academic, anthropologist, and "populist educator" born in Auburn, New York. He was the fourth son of a Missouri clergyman and abolitionist Frederick Starr (Reverend).

Arif Dirlik was a Turkish-American historian who published on historiography and political ideology in modern China, as well as issues in modernity, globalization, and postcolonial criticism.

Ho-Kwang Mao (Chinese: 毛河光; pinyin: Máo Héguāng; Wade–Giles: Mao Ho-kuang; born June 18, 1941) is a Chinese-American geologist. He is the director of the Center for High Pressure Science and Technology Advanced Research in Shanghai, China. He was a staff scientist at Geophysical Laboratory of the Carnegie Institution for Science for more than 30 years. Mao is a recognized leading...

Michael O'Rielly is a former commissioner of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission, an independent agency of the United States government. He was nominated by President Barack Obama in August 2013 and was confirmed on October 29, 2013, taking office on November 4, 2013. He was nominated to complete the term of outgoing commissioner Robert M. McDowell which ended on June...

Richard M. Ryan is a professor at the Institute for Positive Psychology and Education at the Australian Catholic University and a research professor at the University of Rochester. He earned his Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University for Rochester and his B.A. from the University of Connecticut. Ryan is a clinical psychologist and co-developer with Edward L. Deci, of...

Mary Steichen Calderone was an American physician, author, public speaker, and public health advocate for reproductive rights and sex education.

Bill Kauffman is an American political writer. He was born in Batavia, New York, and currently resides in Elba, New York, with his wife and daughter.

David Franklin Noble was a historian and critic of technology, science and education, best known for his seminal work on the social history of automation. In his final years he taught in the Division of Social Science and the department of Social and Political Thought at York University in Toronto, Canada. Noble held positions at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology,...

William Scott Gould is a former United States Deputy Secretary of Veterans Affairs. Gould is also an elected fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration.

Lee Ming-liang is a Taiwanese biochemist, molecular biologist, and geneticist who led the Department of Health from 2000 to 2002. After Lee left office, Taiwan was hit by the 2003 SARS outbreak, and he was named to a committee convened to research the disease.

Heather Anne Higginbottom is currently the head of the JPMorgan Chase PolicyCenter. Prior to her current role, she served as CARE USA's Chief Operating Officer beginning in 2017. Higginbottom was the U.S. Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources from 2013 to 2017. She previously served as counselor of the United States Department of State and prior to that...

Grove Karl Gilbert, known by the abbreviated name G. K. Gilbert in academic literature, was an American geologist.

Donald Charles Winter is an American technologist and business leader who served as United States Secretary of the Navy. A former top executive of TRW, Aerospace & Defense, he was nominated in 2005 by President George W. Bush, confirmed by the United States Senate, and took the oath of office on January 3, 2006. In January 2009 Defense Secretary Robert...

Ümit Nazlı Boyner is a Turkish businesswoman who served as the 14th President of the Turkish Industry and Business Association (TÜSİAD) from 2010 to 2013.

Herbert Frank York was an American nuclear physicist of Mohawk origin. He held numerous research and administrative positions at various United States government and educational institutes.

Arthur Raphael Miller CBE, is an American legal scholar in the field of American civil procedure and a University Professor at New York University and Chairman of The NYU Sports & Society Program. He was a professor at Harvard Law School from 1971 to 2007.

Gary Keith Starkweather was an American engineer who invented the laser printer and color management.

Richard Farris Rashid is an American computer scientist and the founder of Microsoft Research, which he created in 1991. Between 1991 and 2013, as its chief research officer and director, he oversaw the worldwide operations for Microsoft Research which grew to encompass more than 850 researchers and a dozen labs around the world.

Rudolph Emile 'Rudy' Tanzi is a professor of Neurology at Harvard University, vice-chair of neurology, director of the Genetics and Aging Research Unit, and co-director of the Henry and Allison McCance Center for Brain Health at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH).

Daniel Diermeier is a German political scientist, currently serving as the 9th chancellor of Vanderbilt University since July 2020. Previously, Diermeier was the David Lee Shillinglaw Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago, where he also served as provost from 2016 to 2020.

Robert S. Wiesenthal is an American businessman.

Josh Aaron Cassada is an American physicist, test pilot, and former NASA astronaut. Prior to his selection to join NASA in 2013, Cassada served as a test pilot in the US Navy, and has over 3,500 hours in more than 40 aircraft, and 23 combat missions. In August 2018, Cassada was selected for CTS-1, the first operational mission of the...

Ira Randall Thompson was an American composer, particularly noted for his choral works, and educator.

Muhammad Ali Pate is a Nigerian physician and politician. He is certified by the American Board in Internal Medicine and Infectious Diseases. He was appointed as the Minister of Health and Social Welfare of Nigeria in 2023. Before taking office, he was a professor of public health leadership in the Department of Global Health and Population at Harvard University. He...

Robert S. Khuzami was the Deputy U.S. Attorney for the United States Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York until March 22, 2019. He previously was a United States federal prosecutor and Assistant United States Attorney for the office, and a former director of the Division of Enforcement of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. He was previously...

Elwell Stephen Otis was a United States Army general who served in the American Civil War, Indian Wars, the Philippines late in the Spanish–American War and during the Philippine–American War.

Mario Greco is an Italian businessman and the chief executive officer (CEO) of Zurich Insurance.

John M. Barry is an American author and historian who has written books on the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927, the influenza pandemic of 1918, and the development of the modern form of the ideas of separation of church and state and individual liberty. He is a professor at the Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine and...

Olivia Juliette Hooker was an American psychologist and professor. She was a survivor of the Tulsa race massacre of 1921, and the first African-American woman to enter the U.S. Coast Guard. During World War II, she became a member of the United States Coast Guard Women's Reserve, earning the rank of Yeoman Third Class during her service. She served in...

Edward George Gibson is a former NASA astronaut, pilot, engineer, and physicist.

Jason B. Diamond, M.D., F.A.C.S. is an American facial plastic surgeon(ENT) and television personality.

Pedro Guimarães is a Brazilian economist. He had served as chairman of Caixa Econômica Federal from 2019 to 2022 and former partner of the investment bank Brasil Plural.

Laura Syril Friedman is an American politician and former film producer who is the member for California's 30th congressional district. A member of the Democratic Party, she previously represented California's 44th State Assembly district from 2016 to 2024.

Susan Hockfield is an American neuroscientist who served as the 16th president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 2004 to 2012.

Jenean Michelle Hampton is an American politician who served as the 57th lieutenant governor of Kentucky from 2015 to 2019. Hampton was the running mate of gubernatorial candidate Matt Bevin in the 2015 election. A Republican, Hampton was the first African American to hold statewide office in Kentucky history and the third African-American woman to have served as lieutenant governor...

George Hoyt Whipple was an American physician, pathologist, biomedical researcher, and medical school educator and administrator. Whipple shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1934 with George Richards Minot and William Parry Murphy "for their discoveries concerning liver therapy in cases of anemia". This makes Whipple the first of several Nobel laureates affiliated with the University of Rochester.

Kenneth Barnard Keating was an American politician, diplomat, and judge who served as a United States senator representing New York from 1959 until 1965. A member of the Republican Party, he also served in the United States House of Representatives, representing New York's 40th and 38th congressional districts from 1947 until 1959. Additionally, he served as a judge of the...

John Clarke Slater was an American physicist who advanced the theory of the electronic structure of atoms, molecules and solids. He also made major contributions to microwave electronics. He received a B.S. in physics from the University of Rochester in 1920 and a Ph.D. in physics from Harvard in 1923, then did post-doctoral work at the universities of Cambridge (briefly)...

David Sloan Wilson is an American evolutionary biologist and a Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Biological Sciences and Anthropology at Binghamton University. He is a son of author Sloan Wilson, a co-founder of Evolution Institute and a co-founder of Prosocial World. He has studied social evolution in Binghamton.

Barclay Macbride Crenshaw, who is known by the stage name Claude VonStroke, is an American house producer based in Los Angeles. He owned Dirtybird Records based in San Francisco. In July 2006 he released his debut album, Beware of the Bird. He has produced a 'Fabric' mix, which was released in May 2009, and has also appeared on Pete Tong's...

Gary Lawrence Francione is an American academic in the fields of law and philosophy. He is Board of Governors Professor of Law and Katzenbach Scholar of Law and Philosophy at Rutgers University in New Jersey. He is also a visiting professor of philosophy at the University of Lincoln (UK) and honorary professor of philosophy at the University of East Anglia...

John DiBartolomeo is an Israeli–American professional basketball player and the team captain for Maccabi Tel Aviv of the Israeli Basketball Premier League and the EuroLeague. He played college basketball at the University of Rochester, where he starred in his four seasons with the Yellow Jackets, and was dubbed "one of the best players in the University of Rochester men's basketball...

Harvey James Alter is an American medical researcher, virologist, physician and Nobel Prize laureate, who is best known for his work that led to the discovery of the hepatitis C virus. Alter is the former chief of the infectious disease section and the associate director for research of the Department of Transfusion Medicine at the Warren Grant Magnuson Clinical Center...

Lev Manovich is an artist, author and theorist of digital culture. He is a Distinguished Professor at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Manovich played a key role in creating four new research fields: new media studies (1991-), software studies (2001-), cultural analytics (2007-) and AI aesthetics (2018-). Manovich's current research focuses on generative media, AI...

Eric Jeffrey Topol is an American cardiologist, scientist, and author. He is the founder and director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute, a professor of Molecular Medicine and Executive Vice-President at Scripps Research Institute, and a senior consultant at the Division of Cardiovascular Diseases at Scripps Clinic in La Jolla, California.

Charles Louis Strouse was an American composer and lyricist best known for writing the music to the Broadway musicals Bye Bye Birdie, Applause, and Annie.

Arthur Kornberg was an American biochemist who won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1959 for the discovery of "the mechanisms in the biological synthesis of ribonucleic acid and deoxyribonucleic acid" together with Spanish biochemist and physician Severo Ochoa of New York University. He was also awarded the Paul-Lewis Award in Enzyme Chemistry from the American Chemical Society...

Robert Zubrin is an American aerospace engineer, author, and advocate for human exploration of Mars. He is also an advocate for U.S. space superiority, writing that "in the 21st century, victory on land, sea or in the air will go to the power that controls space" and that "if we desire peace on Earth, we need to prepare for war...

Robert Carl Ludwig is a retired American mastering engineer. He mastered recordings on all the major recording formats for all the major record labels, and on projects by more than 1,300 artists, including Led Zeppelin, Lou Reed, Metallica, Queen, Jimi Hendrix, Bryan Ferry, Paul McCartney, Nirvana, Bruce Springsteen, Radiohead, Tool and Daft Punk, with more than 3,000 credits. He is...

Lewis Avins Kaplan is an American lawyer and jurist who serves as a senior United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. He was the presiding judge in a number of cases involving high-profile defendants, including E. Jean Carroll v. Donald J. Trump, Virginia Giuffre v. Prince Andrew, United States v....

Ryan Dahl is an American software engineer who is best known for creating the Node.js JavaScript runtime as well as the Deno JavaScript/TypeScript runtime.

Francis Julius Bellamy was an American Christian socialist Baptist minister and author. He is best known for writing the original version of the Pledge of Allegiance in 1892.

Daniel Carleton Gajdusek was an American physician and medical researcher who was the co-recipient (with Baruch S. Blumberg) of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1976 for work on the transmissibility of kuru, implying the existence of an infectious agent, which he named an 'unconventional virus'. In 1996, Gajdusek was charged with child molestation and, after being convicted,...

Joseph Carl Robnett Licklider, known simply as J. C. R. or "Lick", was an American psychologist and computer scientist who is considered to be among the most prominent figures in computer science development and general computing history.

Mark Edward Kern, also known as Grummz, is a former video game executive. He worked for Blizzard Entertainment from 1997 to 2005 and served as co-founder and CEO of Red 5 Studios during the development and promotion of the video game Firefall.

Michele Boldrin is an Italian-born academic, politician, YouTuber, and economist specializing in economic growth, business cycles, technological change, and intellectual property. He is the Joseph Gibson Hoyt Distinguished Professor in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis and the Secretary of the Italian political party Ora! (“Now!”).

James Smith Bush was an American attorney, Episcopal priest, religious writer, and the direct ancestor of the Bush political family. He was the father of business magnate Samuel P. Bush, grandfather of former U.S. Senator Prescott Bush, great-grandfather of former U.S. President George H. W. Bush and great-great-grandfather of George W. Bush and Jeb Bush.

Bruce Schneier is an American cryptographer, computer security professional, privacy specialist, and writer. Schneier is an Adjunct Lecturer in Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School and a Fellow at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society as of November, 2013. He is a board member of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Access Now, and The Tor Project; and an...

Stephen Mark Kotkin is an American historian, academic, and author. He is the Kleinheinz Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and a senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University.

Hettienne Park is an American actress and writer, having played roles in Young Adult, Bride Wars (2009), Blindspot (2018), and The Outsider (2020), with her most notable role being Beverly Katz on the psychological horror television series Hannibal (2013–2014).

Renée Richards is an American ophthalmologist and former tennis player who competed on the professional circuit in the 1970s, and became widely known following male-to-female medical affirmation, when she fought to compete as a woman in the 1976 US Open.

Lawrence Alan Kudlow is an American conservative broadcast news analyst, economist, columnist, journalist, political commentator, and radio personality. He is a financial news commentator for Fox Business and served as the director of the National Economic Council during the Trump administration from 2018 to 2021. He assumed that role after his previous employment as a CNBC television financial news host....

Steven Chu FREng ForMemRS HonFInstP is an American physicist and former government official. He is a Nobel laureate and was the 12th U.S. secretary of energy. He is currently the William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Physics and Professor of Molecular and Cellular Physiology at Stanford University. He is known for his research at the University of California, Berkeley, and...

Mariann Edgar Budde is an American Episcopal prelate who has served as Bishop of Washington since 2011. She is the first female bishop of the diocese.

Brian Michael Daboll is a Canadian born-American football coach who is the offensive coordinator for the Tennessee Titans of the National Football League (NFL). He previously served as the head coach of the New York Giants from 2022 to 2025. Daboll has also previously served as the offensive coordinator for the Cleveland Browns, Miami Dolphins, Kansas City Chiefs, Alabama Crimson...

Paul Elliott Singer is an American hedge fund manager, activist investor, and the founder, president, and co-CEO of Elliott Management. As of September 2025, Forbes estimated his net worth at US$6.7 billion. Fortune described Singer as one of the "smartest and toughest money managers" in the hedge fund industry. A number of sources have branded him a vulture capitalist, largely...

Lance Solomon Reddick was an American actor. He portrayed Cedric Daniels in The Wire (2002–2008), Phillip Broyles in Fringe (2008–2013), and Chief Irvin Irving in Bosch (2014–2020). In film, he played Charon in the John Wick franchise (2014–2025) and General Caulfield in White House Down (2013).

Joshua David Shapiro is an American politician and lawyer serving since 2023 as the 48th governor of Pennsylvania. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the attorney general of Pennsylvania from 2017 to 2023 and served on the Montgomery County Board of Commissioners from 2012 to 2017.

Debra Jo Rupp is an American actress. She is best known for her starring role as Kitty Forman in the Fox sitcom That '70s Show (1998–2006) and its Netflix sequel series That '90s Show (2023–2024). Rupp also had roles in the NBC sitcom Friends (1997–1998), the ABC animated series Teacher's Pet (2000–2002) and its 2004 sequel film, the ABC sitcom...

Nancy Katherine Hayles is an American scholar who focuses on the interconnections "between science, literature, and technology". Originally a research chemist in the 1960s, she then earned her doctorate in English literature and became a distinguished professor. In the humanities, her work, How We Became Posthuman (1999) is a seminal foundation for posthumanism. In literary criticism, she is most notable...

Anthony Vargas is an American politician and former educator who served as a member of the Nebraska Legislature from 2017 to 2025. Vargas represented the 7th district, which covers all of downtown Omaha and much of southeastern Omaha.

Richard H. Thaler is an American economist and the Charles R. Walgreen Distinguished Service Professor of Behavioral Science and Economics at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. In 2015, Thaler was president of the American Economic Association.

Christopher Kalani Cushman Lee is an American politician and a Democratic member of the Hawaii Senate. He was the youngest member and only millennial serving in the Hawaii State Legislature when elected in November, 2008. He currently serves as Majority Whip and Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. He also serves on the boards of several non-profit organizations and commissions.

George Abbott is a former politician and cabinet minister for the Canadian province of British Columbia. He was a member of the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia, representing the riding of Shuswap from 1996 to 2013. As part of the British Columbia Liberal Party caucus, he served in several cabinet posts under premiers Gordon Campbell and Christy Clark, and ran...

Donna Theo Strickland is a Canadian optical physicist and pioneer in the field of pulsed lasers. She was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2018, together with Gérard Mourou, for the practical implementation of chirped pulse amplification. She is a professor at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada.

Masatoshi Koshiba was a Japanese physicist and one of the founders of neutrino astronomy. His work with the neutrino detectors Kamiokande and Super-Kamiokande was instrumental in detecting solar neutrinos, providing experimental evidence for the solar neutrino problem.

Arun Sundararajan is the Harold Price Professor of Entrepreneurship and Professor of Technology, Operations, and Statistics at the Stern School of Business, New York University. For 2010–12, he is the Distinguished Academic Fellow at the Center for IT and the Networked Economy, Indian School of Business. Sundararajan is an expert on the economics of digital goods and network effects. He...

Ennackal Chandy George Sudarshan was an Indian American theoretical physicist and a professor at the University of Texas. Sudarshan has been credited with numerous contributions to the field of theoretical physics, including Glauber–Sudarshan P representation, V-A theory, tachyons, quantum Zeno effect, open quantum system and quantum master equations, spin–statistics theorem, non-invariance groups, positive maps of density matrices, and quantum computation.

Jennifer Donnelly is an American writer best known for the young adult historical novel A Northern Light.

Vittorio Grilli is an Italian economist and academic. He was Italy's minister of economy and finance from 2012 to 2013 as part of the Monti cabinet.

Milan Zeleny was a Czech-American economist, a professor of management systems at Fordham University, New York City. He has done research in the field of decision-making, productivity, knowledge management, and business economics. Zeleny was also a visiting professor at the Tomas Bata University in Zlín, Czech Republic, and has been academic vice dean and professor at Xidian University in Xi’an,...

Alejandro Zaffaroni was a Uruguayan serial entrepreneur who was responsible for founding several biotechnology companies in Silicon Valley. Products that he was involved in developing include the birth control pill, the nicotine patch, corticosteroids, and the DNA microarray.