Cornellians - Definition and Overview

Cornellians are persons affiliated with Cornell University, commonly including alumni, current and former faculty members, students, and others. Here follows a list of notable Cornellians.

Alumni

Nobel laureates

• George W. Beadle (Ph.D. 1930) - Nobel laureate (Physiology/Medicine 1958)
• Pearl S. Buck (M.A. 1926) - author of the Pulitzer Prize winning novel, The Good Earth, and Nobel Prize laureate (1938, literature).
• Robert F. Engle (M.S. 1966, Ph.D. 1969) - co-winner of the 2003 Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for work modeling the volatility of time-series data
• Robert Fogel (B.A. 1948) - Nobel laureate (Economics 1993).
• Sheldon Lee Glashow (A.B. 1954) - Nobel laureate (Physics 1979).
• Robert W. Holley (Ph.D. 1947) - Nobel laureate (Physiology/Medicine 1968)
• Barbara McClintock (B.S. 1923, A.M. 1925, Ph.D. 1927) - Nobel laureate (Physiology/Medicine 1983).
• Toni Morrison (A.M. 1955) - author and Nobel Prize for Literature laureate.
• Douglas D. Osheroff (M.S. 1971, Ph.D.1973) - Nobel laureate (Physics 1996).
• Isidor Isaac Rabi (B.Chem. 1919) - Nobel laureate (Physics 1944).
• Steven Weinberg (A.B. 1954) - Nobel laureate (Physics 1979).

Government / Law / Public Policy

• Rob Andrews (J.D. 1982) - U.S. Representative from New Jersey's first congressional district.
• Sandy Berger (B.A. 1967) - National Security Advisor to Bill Clinton.
• Samuel Bodman, (B.S. 1961) - Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Treasury Department and United States Secretary of Energy under George W. Bush.
• Barber B. Conable (A.B. 1942, LL.B. 1948) - president of the World Bank from 1986 to 1991, Congressional Representative (R-New York) for nine consecutive terms
• Stephen Friedman (A.B. 1959) - assistant for economic policy to President George W. Bush, and director of the National Economic Council.
• Ruth Bader Ginsburg (A.B. 1954) - U.S. Supreme Court justice.
• Leroy Grumman (M.E. 1916) - founder of Grumman Aerospace Corporation
• Stephen Hadley (B.A. 1969) - National Security Advisor to George W. Bush.
• Charles Evans Hughes (Professor) -- Governor of New York, Presidential Candidate, Secretary of State, Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court
• Jerome H. Holland (B.S. 1939, M.S. 1941) - businessman; president of Delaware State College (1953–60) and of Hampton Institute (1960–70); U.S. ambassador to Sweden (1970–73); national chairman of the American Red Cross (1979–85).
• Goodwin Knight - 31st Governor of California
• Hu Shih (B.A. 1914) - Chinese philosopher, poet, statesman; championed vernacular Chinese as a literary language.
• Lee Teng-hui (Ph.D. 1968) - President of the Republic of China (Taiwan).
• Edmund Muskie (LL.B. 1939) - Maine governor; U.S. senator, presidential candidate, Secretary of State.
• Janet Reno (B.A. 1960) - United States Attorney General under Bill Clinton.
• William P. Rogers (LL.B. 1937) - United States Attorney General and Secretary of State.
• Michael Ross (1981) - Convicted Serial killer; scheduled to be executed January 26th, 2005, by the State of Connecticut.
• Paul Wolfowitz (A.B. 1965) - United States Deputy Secretary of Defense under George W. Bush.

Business

• Dr. Ken Blanchard - management consultant, co-author "The One Minute Manager."
• Jeff Bleustein ( BS '60, BME '61) -- CEO of Harley-Davidson
• Barber B Conable (A.B. ’42, LL.B. ’48) - Congressional representative 1965–85; World Bank president 1986–91
• Adolph Coors (A.B. 1907) - co-founder of the Coors beer brewing company.
• Joseph Coors (B.S. 1939) - co-founder of the Coors beer brewing company.
• Pete Coors (B.S. 1969) - Coors brewery executive and 2004 Senatorial Candidate.
• David Duffield - co-founder of PeopleSoft software company
• David Edgerton - co-founder of Burger King restaurant chain
• Frank E. Gannett (A.B. 1898) - founder of Gannett media company
• Irwin Jacobs (B.E.E. 1956) - Founder of Qualcomm, a Fortune 500 company
• Herbert F. Johnson (A.B 1922) and Samuel C Johnson (A.B 1950) - founder/first executives of the Johnson family businesses
• Austin Kiplinger (A.B. 1939) - journalist, editor of The Kiplinger Letter, founder of Kiplinger's Personal Finance magazine, winner of the Peabody Award
• Charles Lee (B.S. 1962) -- CEO of Verizon
• Jim McLamore - co-founder of Burger King restaurant chain.
• Perry Odak - CEO of Ben and Jerry's
• Frederick Douglass Patterson (Ph.D. 1933) - educator, philanthropist, and founder of the United Negro College Fund; recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom 1987
• Tom Peters (B.C.E. 1965, M.E.C. 1966) - Business management motivational guru
• Lewis Platt (B.S.M.E. 1964) - Former CEO of Hewlett-Packard, chairman of Boeing
• Charles E. Sporck - CEO of National Semiconductor
• Sanford I. Weill (A.B. 1955)- CEO of Citigroup and co-founder of Salomon, Smith, and Barney, the second largest securities investment firm in the world
• Ratan N Tata (B.Arch. 1962) - Chairman of Tata Sons (India's wealthiest business group)

Medicine

• Urie Bronfenbrenner (A.B. 1938) - pioneering researcher in human development
• Jane Brody (B.S. 1962) - Author and journalist on health and nutrition
• Dr. Joyce Brothers (B.S. 1947) Author, psychologist, and television personality.
• Dr. Henry Heimlich (A.B. 1941, M.D. 1943) - inventor of the Heimlich maneuver.
• Helen Irlen (B.S. 1967) - developer of a color-filtered cure for a certain type of dyslexia known as Scotopic Sensitivity Syndrome or Irlen Syndrome.
• Dr. Robert Atkins (M.D. 1955) - creator of Atkins Diet and an author on health and nutrition.
• Anthony S. Fauci (M.D. 1966) - director of NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases; recipient of the 2002 Albany Medical Center Prize in Medicine and Biomedical Research.
• Philip Levine (M.D. 1923) - immuno-hematologist; discovered the Rh factor in blood in 1939.

Social Sciences

• Robert F. Engle (M.S. 1966, Ph.D. 1969) - co-winner of the 2003 Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for work modeling the volatility of time-series data
• Robert Fogel (B.A. 1948) - Nobel laureate (Economics 1993).
• Francis Fukuyama (A.B) - political economist and philosopher.
• Claudia Goldin - noted economist

Science and Technology

• Willis Haviland Carrier (M.E. 1901) - inventor of modern air conditioning technology, founder of the Carrier Corporation
• Wilson Greatbatch (B.E.E. 1950) - one of the early developers of the implantable artificial pacemaker.
• Leroy Grumman (M.E. 1916) - founder of Grumman Aerospace Corporation
• Jeff Hawkins (1979) - inventor of the PalmPilot and founder of Palm, Inc. and Handspring
• Laurens Hammond (M.E. 1914) - inventor of the Hammond organ
• Dr. Irwin Jacobs (B.E.E. 1954) - UCSD and MIT engineering professor, pioneer of CDMA wireless technology, cofounder and CEO of Qualcomm, philanthropist, husband of philanthropist Joan Jacobs (1954).
• David Starr Jordan (M.S. 1872) - Smithsonian Institution associate; president of Indiana University and founding president of Stanford University.
• Douglas McIlroy (B.E.P. 1954) - Inventor of the pipes and filters architecture of UNIX and the entire software componentry concept
• Thomas Midgley (M.E. 1911 )- inventor of Freon and tetra-ethyl lead.
• Robert Tappan Morris, Jr. - computer worm author.
• Roger Morse (B.S. 1950, M.S. 1953, Ph.D. 1955) - apiculture author, teacher, researcher
• Steven Squyres (B.S. 1978, Ph.D. 1981) - astronomer, principal science investigator for the Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity; former student of Carl Sagan

NASA Astronauts

• Ellen S. Baker (M.D. 1978) - astronaut
• Daniel T. Barry (B.S.E.E. 1975) - astronaut
• Jay C. Buckey, Jr. (B.S.E.E., 1977) - astronaut
• Martin J. Fettman (B.S. 1976, M.S. 1970, D.V.M 1970) - astronaut
• Mae Jemison (M.D. 1981) - chemical engineer, physician, teacher, and astronaut; member of National Women's Hall of Fame.
• G. David Low (B.S.M.E. 1980) - astronaut
• Edward T. Lu (B.S.E.E. 1984) - astronaut.
• Donald A. Thomas (M.S. 1980, Ph.D. 1982) - astronaut

Literature

• Diane Ackerman (M.F.A. 1973, Ph.D. 1979) - author, poet, and naturalist.
• Eric Alterman - liberal author and columnist.
• Harold Bloom - literary and cultural scholar-critic.
• Murray Burnett (A.B. 1931) -- author of the play Everybody Comes to Rick's, which was turned into the film Casablanca
• Margaret Bourke-White (A.B. 1927) - photojournalist.
• Ann Coulter (A.B. 1985) - conservative author and columnist.
• Richard Fariña - author and musician.
• Jesse Redmon Fauset (A.B 1905) - literary editor and mentor; author; active in the Harlem Renaissance.
• Alice Fulton (M.F.A. 1982) - poet, author, feminist, MacArthur Fellow.
• William Gass (Ph.D. 1954) - author, essayist
• Toni Morrison (M.A. 1955) - novelist; Nobel Prize, Pulitzer Prize for Beloved, author of Song of Solomon.
• Thomas Perry (A.B. 1969) - novelist; Edgar Award winner.
• Thomas Pynchon (A.B. 1959) - author, Gravity's Rainbow.
• Matt Ruff - author.
• Kurt Vonnegut - author of Slaughterhouse-Five and Breakfast of Champions.
• E. B. White (A.B. 1921) - American essayist, co-author of The Elements of Style, author of Charlotte's Web.
• Sheryl WuDunn (A.B. 1981) - journalist at the New York Times, co-winner in 1990 of the Pulitzer Prize for her coverage on the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, winner of the George Polk Award in 1989, and winner of the Overseas Press Club in 1990.

Entertainment / Music / Sports

• Bruce Arena (B.S 1973) - Coach of the United States men's national soccer team
• Gary Bettman (B.S. 1974) - commissioner of the NHL
• Ken Dryden (A.B. 1969) - NHL Hockey Hall of Fame goalie
• Richard Farina - author and folksinger.
• Allen Funt (A.B. 1934) - producer, created Candid Camera show (arguably the first "reality television").
• Eric Garcia (B.A. 1992) - Writer, Author of Matchstick Men
• Harold Gould (A.M. 1948, Ph.D. 1953) - stage, screen, and television actor.
• Greg Graffin (PhD Zoology 1991) - Lead singer in the band Bad Religion
• Sidney Kingsley (A.B. 1928) - playwright, screenwriter, winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1934 for the drama Men in White
• Arthur Laurents (A.B. 1937) - playwright, screenwriter, director, author.
• Huey Lewis - rock musician (Huey Lewis and the News).
• Bill Maher (A.B. 1978) - comedian and Politically Incorrect satirist.
• Robert Moog (Ph.D. 1965) - inventor of the Moog music synthesizer.
• Pedro Pablo Morales (J.D. 1994) - two-time gold medalist in swimming, 1992 Summer Olympics.
• Joe Nieuwendyk -NHL Stanley Cup Champion
• Sideshow Mel - Fictional character on The Simpsons
• Bill Nye (B.S., MEng 1977) - the Science Guy.
• Keith Olbermann (B.S. 1979) - television sports and news commentator.
• Christopher Reeve (A.B. 1974) - actor, best known for Superman.
• Richard J. Price (B.S. 1971) - novelist (The Wanderers) and Academy Award nominated screenwriter (The Color of Money)
• Steve Reich (A.B. 1957) - composer
• Jason Reich (B.A. 1998) - Emmy Award winning writer for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
• Dick Schaap (B.S. 1955) - sports newscaster on ABC and ESPN, twice winner of the Emmy Award, author and coauthor of thirty-three books
• Thelma Schoonmaker (A.B. 1961 ) - film editor, received the Academy Award for Raging Bull
• Jimmy Smits (M.F.A. 1982) - actor.
• Tim Squyres (A.B. 1981) - Academy Award nominated film editor, best known for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
• Hugh Troy (did not graduate) - Artist, Famous prankster
• Peter Yarrow (A.B. 1959) - folksinger (Peter, Paul and Mary).

Architecture

• Richard Meier (B.Arch. 1957) - architect; Pritzker Architecture Prize winner.
• Gisue Hariri (B.Arch. 1980) and Mojgan Hariri (B.Arch. 1981) - New York City–based architects.
• Ricardo Zurita (B.Arch. 1984 - architect

Faculty

• Hans Bethe, Physics - nuclear physics, notably nuclear fusion and stellar nucleosynthesis; Nobel Prize winner
• Allan Bloom, Government - author of Closing of the American Mind
• Joan Jacobs Brumberg. Human Development; Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies - scholar in adolescence, body image and eating disorders, and related fields
• John Cleese, A.D. White Professor At-Large - comedian and actor
• Eugene Borisovich Dynkin, Mathematics
• Richard Feynman, Physics - nuclear physics, especially quantum electrodynamics; Nobel Prize winner
• Allen Hatcher, Mathematics
• Charles Evans Hughes, Law, Presidential Candidate, Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court
• Roald Hoffman, Chemistry - theoretical chemistry; Nobel Prize winner
• Norman Malcolm, Philosophy - notable Ludwig Wittgenstein scholar
• Cynthia McKinney, Frank H.T. Rhodes University Professor - controversial Democrat in the U.S. House of Representatives
• Bill Nye - television personality in popular science, "The Science Guy"
• Vladimir Nabokov - Russian and English language author
• Jean W. Pape (M.D. 1975), Medicine: pioneering infectiousdisease expert
• John Pilger, Frank H.T. Rhodes University Professor - left-wing journalist
• Clinton Rossiter, Government
• Carl Sagan, Space Sciences
• Steven Squyres (B.S. 1978, Ph.D. 1981), Space Sciences - principal science investigator for the Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity; former student of Carl Sagan
• Steven H. Strogatz, Theoretical and Applied Mechanics
• William Thurston, Mathematics, Fields medal winner

University Presidents