100 Notable alumni of University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee

Jerry Michael Straka is an American atmospheric scientist with expertise microphysics of clouds, cloud modeling, and dynamics of severe convection in conjunction with weather radar. He was in leadership roles in both the VORTEX projects and subsequent field research focusing on tornadogenesis.

Margaret Ann "Peggy" Krusick is a retired American Democratic politician from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She was a member of the Wisconsin State Assembly for nearly thirty years (1983–2013), representing southwest wards of the city of Milwaukee and neighboring areas. She lost her seat to a primary challenge from Daniel Riemer in the 2012 assembly elections due to her stances on certain...

Chad Dombrowski is an American retired soccer player who spent six seasons in the USL First Division.

Gregory John Mahlberg is an American former professional baseball catcher, manager and coach. He threw and batted right-handed, stood 5 feet 10 inches (1.78 m) tall and weighed 185 pounds (84 kg).

Jan Serr is an American multidisciplinary artist, writer, and art collector based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Over the course of her career, she has produced oil paintings, drawings, photographs, and prints, including monotypes, lithographs, and etchings.

Kyle Zenoni is a former American soccer player and current soccer coach who last played for Bolivian side La Paz F.C., after a switch from USL First Division club Minnesota Thunder. He is the head men's soccer coach of the UMass Lowell River Hawks.

Bryan W. Simon is a stage, film director and writer from Waukegan, Illinois. He directed his first professional stage play at 17, the regional tour of a children's show entitled Jack and The Wishing Beans, for the Roundtree Players.

Anthony J. Staskunas is an American Democratic politician and lawyer.

Antouman Jallow is a Swedish soccer player of Gambian heritage.

Raquel Rutledge is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American investigative journalist working at The Examination, an independent nonprofit newsroom that investigates preventable health threats across the globe. Rutledge has edited projects that revealed risks from lead battery plants in Africa, unscrupulous 'influencer' dieticians, oil companies belching hydrogen sulfide gas into Texas communities (recognized by Investigative Reporters and Editors) and the tobacco industry's...

Michael Anthony Brown is an American television producer, documentary filmmaker, and progressive political activist. He is the director of Haunted State a documentary series on Amazon Amazon Prime Video and the documentary films Roller Life (2016), Haunted State: Whispers From History Past (2014) and Haunted State: Theatre of Shadows (2017).

Don Gramenz is an American former professional soccer player who played as a defender for Minnesota Thunder for eleven seasons, being named to the club's Hall of Fame. Gramenz played collegiately at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, where he was a team captain. In 2008, he served as the interim manager of the Minnesota Thunder, succeeding Amos Magee. Gramenz move into...

Margaret A. Rykowski is a rear admiral in the United States Navy Reserve and serves as Deputy Fleet Surgeon, United States Fleet Forces Command and Deputy Director, United States Navy Nurse Corps, Reserve Component.

Eloise Anderson is an American politician and social worker who served as the Wisconsin Secretary of Children and Families from 2011 until 2019. Anderson has been an influential voice opposed to conventional welfare programs in the United States. Radio host Charlie Sykes has referred to Anderson as a "Conservative Warrior in Fight Against Poverty."

George Spencer Coggs is an American public administrator and Democratic politician from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He is the current Milwaukee city treasurer, since April 2012, and previously served 10 years in the Wisconsin Senate and 20 years in the Wisconsin State Assembly, representing Milwaukee's west side. His uncle, Isaac N. Coggs, and cousin, Elizabeth M. Coggs, also served in the Assembly.

Frank Alonzo Dudley was an American lawyer, politician, hotelier and business owner associated with Niagara Falls, New York. Dudley established the United Hotels Company of America and the "Lewiston Heights" neighborhood in Lewiston, New York.

Thomas Vonier is an architect with a private practice based in Paris and Washington D.C. He is a senior partner in Chesapeake Strategies Ltd, advising organizations on innovations in the building, design, security, and urban sectors.

Jesse Glass is an American expatriate poet, artist and folklorist.

Scott Yanoff is an IT manager and web developer who was a key person in the early days of the internet, most notably for creating and maintaining the Yanoff List, an alphabetical list of internet sites.

Rene Steinke is an American novelist. She is the author of three novels: The Fires, Holy Skirts (2005), and Friendswood (2014). Holy Skirts, a novel based on the life of the Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven, was a finalist for the 2005 National Book Award. Her essays and articles have appeared in The New York Times, Vogue, O: the Oprah Magazine,...

Dawn Marie Sass is an American public administrator and Democratic politician from Green County, Wisconsin. She served as the 33rd State Treasurer of Wisconsin from 2007 to 2011. She currently serves as a member of the Green County board of supervisors, and as town clerk of Exeter, Wisconsin.

Bill Milkowski is an American jazz critic, journalist, and biographer. Since the 1970s, he has written thousands of articles for magazines and album liner notes. He has written for DownBeat, JazzTimes, Jazziz, The Absolute Sound, Paste, Jazzthing (in Germany), and Guitar Club (in Italy). He is the author of a biography of bassist Jaco Pastorius, a biography of The Rolling...

Anita "Angna" Enters was an American dancer, mime, painter, writer, novelist and playwright. She studied at the Art Students League of New York and was a 1934 Guggenheim fellow. She wrote a novel and three autobiographies as well as the films Lost Angel (1943) and Tenth Avenue Angel (1948).

George H. Sutton known as the "handless billiard player", was a carom billiards professional in the United States and Europe in the early 1900s. He was called a "billiard expert" and he competed with other notable billiard professionals such as Willie Hoppe. Sutton had no arms below the elbows, which made his ability to master the game even more remarkable.

Larry Neil Vanderhoef was an American biochemist and academic. He was the 5th chancellor of University of California, Davis.

Andrés Mignucci Giannoni FAIA was a Puerto Rican architect and urbanist of Corsican ancestry. His work received recognition for its integration of the disciplines of architecture, urban design and landscape architecture in the creation of public spaces with a sense of place, human scale, and environmental responsibility. In 2005 Andrés Mignucci was elected to the College of Fellows of the...

Lynne Rae Perkins is an American writer and illustrator of children's books.

Hakob Karapents, also known as Jack Karapetian, was a prolific Iranian-Armenian author born in 1925 in Tabriz, Iran.

Clara Stanton Jones was the first African-American president of the American Library Association, serving as its acting president from April 11 to July 22, 1976, and then its president from July 22, 1976, to 1977. Also, in 1970 she became the first African American and the first woman to serve as director of a major library system in America, as...

Jeremy Novy is an American street artist and stencil artist. He is best known for his stencils of koi fish and efforts in support of gay activism. His work has been featured in numerous publications, including SF Weekly, the Wisconsin Gazette and Missionlocal.org. In 2008, Novy was the recipient of the prestigious National Endowment for the Arts grant. Novy is...

Mary Lazich is an American Republican politician. She served five years in the Wisconsin State Assembly and 19 years in the State Senate, and was President of the Senate for her final session (2015–2016).

Waswo X. Waswo, is a photographer and artist formerly most commonly associated with his chemical process sepia-toned photographs of India, but more recently with hand-colored portraits made at his studio in Udaipur, Rajasthan. Waswo’s first major book, India Poems: The Photographs, was in part a challenge to politically correct notions of the western artist's role in responding to Asia, and...

L. Franklin Gilliam is an American filmmaker and media artist who deals with issues of race, gender, and sexual orientation in their work. Gilliam was the director of projects and community catalyst at gamelab's Institute of Play and a visiting faculty member at the Vermont College of Fine Arts. They are currently vice president of strategy and innovation at Girls...

Jeanne Wenzel Ross is an American organizational theorist and principal research scientist at MIT Sloan School of Management and the MIT Center for Information Systems Research (CISR), specializes in Enterprise Architecture, ICT and Management. She is known for her work on IT governance, and Enterprise architecture.

Keith Nosbusch was the chairman and CEO of Rockwell Automation Inc., one of the world largest industrial automation companies. He was appointed the company's CEO in 2004 and chairman in 2005. Before that, he worked as senior vice president and president of Rockwell Automation Control Systems.

Goran Kralj is the lead singer and songwriter for The Gufs, a Milwaukee pop-rock band active from 1988 to 1999. The group released their follow-up in 2006 after a seven-year hiatus. Goran and his brother Dejan are graduates of Munster High School in Munster, Indiana. Goran lives in Chicago area and works in the restorative/aesthetic dental industry.

Lee Holloway was an American social worker and politician who served two terms as chairman of the Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors. From December 28, 2010 to February 4, 2011, Lee Holloway served as Acting County Executive of Milwaukee County, Wisconsin.

Tom Shannon is an American artist and inventor.

James R. Otteson is an American philosopher and political economist. He is the John T. Ryan Jr. Professor of Business Ethics at the University of Notre Dame. Formerly, he was the Thomas W. Smith Presidential Chair in Business Ethics, Professor of Economics, and executive director of the Eudaimonia Institute at Wake Forest University. He is also a Senior Scholar at...

Peter William Barca is an American Democratic politician from Kenosha, Wisconsin. He was the 14th secretary of the Wisconsin Department of Revenue (2019–2024) in the administration of Governor Tony Evers. He was a candidate for U.S. House of Representatives in Wisconsin's 1st congressional district in 2024 losing to incumbent Bryan Steil; he previously represented the district during the 103rd Congress...

Rudolph Thomas Randa was an American lawyer who served as a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin from 1992 to 2016. He was chief judge of the Eastern District of Wisconsin from 2002 until October 2009. Prior to his appointment to the federal court, he was a judge of the...

Karen Hideko Sasahara is an American diplomat who had served as United States ambassador to Kuwait. She previously served as consul general in Jerusalem until the US embassy in Israel moved to Jerusalem, and the US consulate closed down.

Denis Kitchen is an American underground cartoonist, publisher, author, agent, and the founder of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund.

JoCasta Zamarripa is an American politician and former member of the Wisconsin State Assembly. A Democrat, she represented the 8th assembly district for 10 years. She is now a member of the Milwaukee Common Council. Prior to winning elective office, Zamarripa worked as an outreach coordinator for Planned Parenthood.

Miriam Ben-Shalom is an Israeli-American educator, activist and former Staff Sergeant in the United States Army. After being discharged from the military for homosexuality in 1976, she successfully challenged her discharge in court and returned to military service in 1987—the first openly gay person to be reinstated after being discharged under the military's policy excluding homosexuals from military service. She...

Major General Brian Edward Winski is a decorated commander in the U.S. Army. He was appointed commander of the 101st Airborne Division in 2019 and succeeded by Major General Joseph P. McGee in 2021.

Alberta Darling is a retired American educator and Republican politician from Milwaukee County, Wisconsin. She served nearly 30 years as a member of the Wisconsin Senate, representing Wisconsin's 8th Senate district from 1993 through 2022. During her long career in the Senate, she served 11 years as Senate co-chair of the Wisconsin Legislature's powerful budget-writing Joint Finance Committee (2003–2004; 2011–2012;...

Gerald Daniel Kleczka was an American politician and Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives from 1984 to 2005, representing Wisconsin's 4th congressional district. The district included the city of Milwaukee.

Michael Ray Reinfeldt is an American former professional football player and executive in the National Football League (NFL). He attended the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee and was the captain of the Panthers in their last season of varsity football in 1974. Reinfeldt played as a safety for eight seasons in the NFL with the Oakland Raiders in 1976 and with the...

Timothy W. Carpenter is an American Democratic politician from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He has been a member of the Wisconsin Senate for more than 20 years, representing the Wisconsin's 3rd Senate district since 2003. His district comprises much of the south side of the city of Milwaukee. He previously served 18 years in the Wisconsin State Assembly (1985–2003).

Naima Adedapo is an American singer and dancer from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Adedapo placed in the top 11 on the tenth season of American Idol.

Henry Walter Maier was an American politician and the longest-serving mayor of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, holding office from 1960 to 1988. A Democrat, Maier was a powerful and controversial figure, presiding over an era of economic and political turbulence for the city of Milwaukee.

Luis Edmundo Arreaga-Rodas is a Guatemalan American diplomat and government official who served as the United States Ambassador to Guatemala from 2017 to 2020. He previously served as United States Ambassador to Iceland from 2010 to 2013. In January 2016, he was appointed Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs. In...

Eric Genrich is an American politician who has served as the mayor of Green Bay, Wisconsin, since 2019. Genrich previously represented Green Bay in the Wisconsin State Assembly from 2013 until 2019.

David C. Crowley is an American Democratic politician and the current county executive of Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, since May 2020. He is the first African American to serve as Milwaukee County's top official, and also the youngest (having taken office at age 33). He previously served three years in the Wisconsin State Assembly, representing the west side of the city...

William F. Carollo is a former American football official who officiated National Football League (NFL) games from 1989 through 2008. He wore uniform number 63. Carollo officiated in two Super Bowls and eight conference championship games. After the 2008 season, he became the Coordinator of Football Officials for the Big Ten Conference and is currently Coordinator of Officials for the...

Robert Joseph Modrzejewski is a retired United States Marine Corps officer who is a recipient of the United States' highest military decoration, the Medal of Honor, for conspicuous gallantry in the Vietnam War.

Jose Y. Dalisay Jr. is a Filipino writer. He has won numerous awards and prizes for fiction, poetry, drama, non-fiction, and screenwriting, including 16 Palanca Awards.

Lena C. Taylor is an American lawyer, judge, and former politician serving as a Wisconsin circuit court judge in Milwaukee County, since January 2024. She previously served 19 years as a Democratic member of the Wisconsin Senate, representing the 4th Senate district from 2005 to 2024, and was a member of the Wisconsin State Assembly for one term before that.

Christine Boskoff was an American mountaineer.

Christopher J. Larson is an American Democratic politician and a member of the Wisconsin Senate, representing southeast Milwaukee County since 2011. He was Senate minority leader from 2013 through 2014, and currently serves as Senate Democratic caucus chair.

Will Allen is an American urban farmer based in Milwaukee and a retired professional basketball player.

Abner Joseph Mikva was an American politician, federal judge, and legal scholar. He was a member of the Democratic Party. After serving in the Illinois House of Representatives, Mikva ran for the U.S. Congress in 1966 but lost the primary to incumbent congressman Barrett O'Hara. In 1968, Mikva defeated O'Hara. Mikva served in the United States House of Representatives representing...

Paa Kwesi Nduom or Papa Kwesi Nduom, is a Ghanaian business consultant, politician, and founder of Ghana's Progressive People's Party. A three-time candidate for president, he was the member of parliament for the Komenda-Edina-Eguafo-Abirem constituency and served as minister of state in the Kufuor government.

Jeff Halper is an American-born Israeli anthropologist, author, lecturer, and political activist who has lived in Israel since 1973. He is the Director of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD) and a co-founder of The One Democratic State Campaign (ODSC).

Brad David Schimel is an American attorney, former judge, and Republican politician, serving since November 2025 as the interim United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Wisconsin. He previously served as the 44th attorney general of Wisconsin (2015–2019) and was an unsuccessful candidate for Wisconsin Supreme Court in the 2025 election—the most expensive judicial race in history. He also...

Dorothy Fuldheim was an American journalist and news anchor who spent the majority of her career at The Cleveland Press and WEWS-TV, both based in Cleveland, Ohio.

Victor DeLorenzo is an American musician, actor and filmmaker who was the founding drummer for the folk-punk band Violent Femmes.

Demetrius Harris is an American former professional football player who was a tight end in the National Football League (NFL). He played college basketball at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, which has no college football program. He was signed by the Kansas City Chiefs as an undrafted free agent in 2013.

Eugenie Carol Scott is an American physical anthropologist who has been active in opposing the teaching of young Earth creationism and intelligent design in schools. She coined the term "Gish gallop" to describe a fallacious rhetorical technique of overwhelming an interlocutor with as many individually weak arguments as possible, in order to prevent rebuttal of the whole argument.

Pamela Britton was an American actress, best known for appearing as Lorelei Brown in the television series My Favorite Martian (1963–1966) and for her female lead in the film noir classic D.O.A. (1950). Throughout her acting career, Britton appeared often on Broadway and in several Hollywood and television films.

Mildred Elizabeth Harnack was an American communist, literary historian, translator, and member of the German resistance against the Nazi regime. After marrying Arvid Harnack, she moved to Germany in 1929, where she began her career as an academic. Mildred Harnack spent a year at the University of Jena and the University of Giessen working on her doctoral thesis. At Giessen,...

Chris Smith is an American filmmaker. He directed American Movie, which was awarded the Grand Jury Prize for Documentary at the 1999 Sundance Film Festival.

Daulton John Varsho is an American professional baseball outfielder and catcher for the Toronto Blue Jays of Major League Baseball (MLB). He made his MLB debut in 2020 with the Arizona Diamondbacks.

Alan Dennis Kulwicki, nicknamed "Special K" and "the Polish Prince", was an American auto racing driver and team owner with Polish origin. He started racing at local short tracks in Wisconsin before moving up to regional stock car touring series. Kulwicki arrived at NASCAR, the highest and most expensive level of stock car racing in the United States, with no...

Bruce Brett Weber is an American former men's basketball coach who was most recently the head coach at Kansas State University. Prior to his tenure at Kansas State, Weber was the head coach at Southern Illinois University and the University of Illinois.

Ruth Aiko Asawa was an American modernist artist known primarily for her abstract looped-wire sculptures inspired by natural and organic forms. In addition to her three-dimensional work, Asawa created an extensive body of works on paper, including abstract and figurative drawings and prints influenced by nature, particularly flowers and plants, and her immediate surroundings.

Frank Caliendo Jr. is an American comedian, actor, and impressionist best known for his impersonations on the Fox Network television series MADtv as well as being the in-house prognosticator for Fox NFL Sunday. In 2007 and 2008, he performed impersonations on his own show, Frank TV, which aired on TBS.

Charles Jay Sykes is an American political commentator who was editor-in-chief of the website The Bulwark. From 1993 to 2016, Sykes hosted a conservative talk show on WTMJ in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He was also the editor of Right Wisconsin which was co-owned with WTMJ's then-parent company E. W. Scripps. Sykes is a frequent commentator on MSNBC.

Andrew John Hurley is an American musician who is the drummer for the rock band Fall Out Boy. Prior to Fall Out Boy, Hurley played in several hardcore punk bands. He joined Fall Out Boy as the full-time drummer in 2003 and was in the band's lineup until its hiatus in 2009. Following that, he formed the heavy metal supergroup...

Jack St. Clair Kilby was an American electronics engineer who took part, along with Robert Noyce of Fairchild Semiconductor, in the realization of the first integrated circuit while working at Texas Instruments in 1958. For this invention, Kilby shared the 2000 Nobel Prize in Physics.

Virginia Satir was an American author, clinical social worker and psychotherapist, recognized for her approach to family therapy. Her pioneering work in the field of family reconstruction therapy honored her with the title "Mother of Family Therapy". Her best known books are Conjoint Family Therapy, 1964, Peoplemaking, 1972, and The New Peoplemaking, 1988.

Stephen F. Sisolak is an American businessman and politician who served as the 30th governor of Nevada from 2019 to 2023. A member of the Democratic Party, he served on the Clark County Commission from 2009 to 2019 and on the Nevada Board of Regents from 1999 to 2008. As of 2026, Sisolak is the last Democrat to serve as...

James Elroy Risch is an American lawyer and politician who has served as the junior United States senator from Idaho since 2009. A member of the Republican Party, he served as lieutenant governor of Idaho under governors Dirk Kempthorne and Butch Otter, and briefly as governor between their terms.

William James "Willem" Dafoe is an American actor. Known for his prolific career portraying diverse roles in both mainstream and arthouse films, he is the recipient of various accolades including a Volpi Cup Award for Best Actor, with nominations for four Academy Awards, a British Academy Film Award, and four Golden Globe Awards. He received an Honorary Golden Bear in...

Golda Meir was the prime minister of Israel from 1969 to 1974. She was Israel's first and, to date, only female head of government.

Brian Michael Firkus, better known by the stage name Trixie Mattel, is an American drag queen, television personality, singer-songwriter, DJ, and entrepreneur originally from Marinette County, Wisconsin. She is known for her exaggerated, 1960s-influenced style, distinctive eye makeup, and musical repertoire that blends comedy with acoustic pop and folk-country music, with skills in guitar and the autoharp. In 2015, she...

Mohamed Zuhdi Jasser is an American religious and political commentator and physician specializing in internal medicine and nuclear cardiology in Phoenix, Arizona. Jasser is a former Lieutenant Commander in the United States Navy, where he served as staff internist in the Office of the Attending Physician of the United States Congress. In 2003, with a group of American Muslims, Jasser...

Martin James Schreiber is an American politician, publisher, author, and lobbyist who served as the 38th lieutenant governor of Wisconsin from 1971 to 1977, and (following the resignation of Patrick Lucey) as the 39th governor of Wisconsin from 1977 to 1979. Schreiber has become an advocate on issues related to Alzheimer's disease and dementia.

Carlos Castillo-Chavez is a Mexican-American mathematician. He held positions as a Regents Professor and the Joaquín Bustoz Jr. Professor of Mathematical Biology at Arizona State University. Castillo-Chavez founded the Mathematical and Theoretical Biology Institute (MTBI) at Cornell University in 1996. His research and publications focus on mathematics, social structures, and epidemiology.

Allison Pottinger /ˈpɒtəndʒər/ is an American curler from Eden Prairie, Minnesota. She is best known as having played for Debbie McCormick in multiple Olympics and World Championships. McCormick left the team in 2010. She competed in the 2010 Winter Olympic Games, in Vancouver, Canada. She was named USA female curling athlete of the year in 2008.

Justin Wayne Jacobs is an American statistician, currently serving as the Spatial Statistics Group Lead at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Jacobs is a former applied research mathematician at the National Security Agency, a Senior Basketball Researcher with the Orlando Magic, a Spatiotemporal Analytics Researcher with the Houston Rockets, and an independent sports analytics researcher. Noted for his research into geolocation,...

Steven A. Burd is an American businessman. He served as chairman, president and CEO of Safeway Inc. from October 26, 1992, to May 14, 2013. He is a member of the Republican Party.

Russell Edward Jacobus was the seventh Bishop of the Diocese of Fond du Lac in The Episcopal Church. Jacobus was consecrated as bishop on 24 May 1994. Prior to becoming bishop, he served as Rector of St. Matthias Episcopal Church in Waukesha, Wisconsin. At the close of Diocesan convention on October 20, 2012, he announced his intention to retire one...

Edwin Max "Ed" Leidel Jr. OJN was a bishop of the Episcopal Church who served as Bishop of Eastern Michigan from 1996 to 2006 and as the Provisional Bishop of Eau Claire from 2010 to 2013.

Prakash Panangaden is an American/Canadian computer scientist noted for his research in programming language theory, concurrency theory, Markov processes and duality theory. Earlier he worked on quantum field theory in curved space-time and radiation from black holes. He is the founding Chair of the ACM Special Interest Group on Logic and Computation.

Mary Flanagan is an American artist, author, educator, and designer in the field of game studies. She is the founding director of the research laboratory and design studio Tiltfactor Lab at Dartmouth College. She is the author of scholarly books from MIT Press, including Playing Oppression: The Legacy of Conquest and Empire in Board Games, Values at Play in Digital...

Laura Mersini-Houghton is an Albanian-American cosmologist and theoretical physicist, and professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is a proponent of the multiverse hypothesis and the author of a theory for the origin of the universe that holds that our universe is one of many selected by quantum gravitational dynamics of matter and energy. Mersini-Houghton has...

Alberto Kenya Fujimori Inomoto was a Peruvian politician, professor, and engineer who served as the 54th president of Peru from 1990 to 2000. Born in Lima, Fujimori was the country's first president of Japanese descent, and was an agronomist and university rector prior to entering politics. Fujimori emerged as a politician during the midst of the internal conflict in Peru,...