List of Haverford College people

Alumni

Business and industry

• Iwao Ayusawa, Japanese labour relations author
• Seth Bernstein '84, president and chief executive officer of AllianceBernstein
• Emily Best '02, founder of crowdfunding platform Seed&Spark
• Josh Byrnes '92, senior vice president of baseball operations, Los Angeles Dodgers
• William S. Halstead '26, inventor in national and international communication; held more than 80 patents in radio and television development
• Alex Karp '89, billionaire co-founder and CEO of Palantir Technologies
• Michael Kim '85, billionaire co-founder and partner of MBK partners
• James Kuo '86, bio-medical entrepreneur; CEO of BioMicro Systems
• Andrew L. Lewis, Jr. '53, former chairman and CEO of Union Pacific Corporation
• Gerald M. Levin '60, former Time Warner Inc. Chief Executive Officer
• Eugene Ludwig '68, chairman and CEO of Promontory Financial Group; former U.S. Comptroller of the Currency
• Howard Lutnick '83, billionaire chairman and CEO of the Cantor Fitzgerald Company
• Robert MacCrate '43, Sullivan & Cromwell Vice Chairman; legal education reformer
• J. Howard Marshall '26, Texan billionaire oil tycoon who married Anna Nicole Smith in his late 80s
• Tony Petitti '83, CEO of MLB Network
• Jane Silber '85, CEO of Canonical, maintainers of the Ubuntu operating system
• Ken Stern '85, CEO of NPR
• Arn Tellem '76, principal, Management Wasserman Media Group
• John C. Whitehead '43, former co-chairman of Goldman Sachs, deputy U.S. Secretary of State under Reagan and later chairman of Lower Manhattan Development Corporation; namesake of Whitehead Campus Center
• Barry Zubrow '75, former chief risk officer at JP Morgan Chase; former chief administrative officer at Goldman Sachs

  Higher education and academia

• Carl B. Allendoerfer '34, mathematician and former chair of University of Washington mathematics department
• Anthony Amsterdam '57, MacArthur Fellow, university professor of law, NYU
• Robert Bates '64, Eaton Professor of Science of Government, Harvard University
• Terry Belanger '63, 2005 MacArthur Fellow, university professor and director of Rare Book School, University of Virginia
• Douglas C. Bennett '68, former provost of Reed College, and former president of Earlham College
• Tristram Potter Coffin '43, former professor of English and founder of the Folklore department at the University of Pennsylvania
• Steven Drizin, lawyer and law professor at the Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law
• Stephen G. Emerson '74, director of the Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center and Clyde ’56 & Helen Wu Professor in Immunology, Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and former president, Haverford College
• Joan Gabel ‘88, provost of University of South Carolina
• Peter Bacon Hales '72, professor of art history and director of the American Studies Institute at the University of Illinois at Chicago
• Akira Iriye '57, professor of history at Harvard University, president of American Historical Society
• Fredric Jameson '54, Marxist cultural and literary critic, William A. Lane Professor of Comparative Literature and Romance Studies at Duke University
• Walter Kaegi '59, scholar of Byzantine history and professor of history at the University of Chicago
• Lauren Kassell, professor of history of science and medicine at the University of Cambridge
• Christoph M. Kimmich '61, former president of Brooklyn College
• Charles R. Lawrence, III '65, LL.D. 2000, professor of law at the William S. Richardson School of Law, University of Hawaii, formerly of Univ. of San Francisco, Georgetown and Stanford
• Bruce Lincoln '70, author of Holy Terrors; professor at the University of Chicago Divinity School
• Stephen J. Lippard '62, Arthur Amos Noyes Professor of Chemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• George Marsden '59, Francis A. McAnaney Professor of History at the University of Notre Dame, winner of the Bancroft Prize and Merle Curti Award for Jonathan Edwards: A Life
• Marc Melitz '89, professor of economics, Harvard College
• George Mosse '41, University of Wisconsin - Madison John C. Bascom Professor of European History and Weinstein-Bascom Professor of Jewish Studies, concurrently holding the Koebner Professorship of History at Hebrew University; first research historian in residence at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
• Ken Nakayama '62, Edgar Pierce Professor of Psychology, Harvard University
• Adam Zachary Newton '80, professor of English, Yeshiva University
• Frank J. Popper '65, Professor at the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy of Rutgers University and the Princeton Environmental Institute at Princeton University; known for proposing the Buffalo Commons and coining the term "locally unwanted land use"
• Hunter R. Rawlings III '66 Classics, 10th president of Cornell University 1995–2003, former president of University of Iowa
• Fred Rodell '26, LL.D. '73; professor, 1933–1973, at Yale Law School; proponent of legal realism
• Edward A. Shanken '86, University of Amsterdam, author of Art and Electronic Media
• Ed Sikov '78, film scholar and author of Mr. Strangelove: A Biography of Peter Sellers and On Sunset Boulevard: The Life and Times of Billy Wilder
• Jonathan Z. Smith '60, historian of religion, University of Chicago''
• Eric Tagliacozzo '89, professor of Southeast Asian history, Cornell University
• Joseph H. Taylor '63, former dean of faculty, of physics Princeton University, Nobel Laureate ‘93 in Physics
• David Thornburgh '81, executive director, Fels Institute of Government at the University of Pennsylvania
• '86, Dean of the Graduate School and Vice Provost, Professor of English and American studies, Stony Brook University--SUNY
• Louis Round Wilson attended 1895-98, academic librarian at the University of North Carolina; founder of the University of North Carolina Press; founder of the library science school at the University of Chicago; president of the American Library Association

  Entertainment, fine and performing arts

• David Scull Bispham 1876, baritone; Metropolitan Opera and Covent Garden soloist; author of A Quaker Singer's Recollection, 1920
• John G. Bullock 1874, photographer; founding member of the Photo-Secession with Alfred Steiglitz
• William Carragan 1958, musicologist noted for his work on Anton Bruckner, and for contributions to physics
• Chevy Chase, ex-'66, attended for one semester, comedian and actor
• Vincent Desiderio, artist
• Andy Gavin, video game programmer, entrepreneur
• Robert E. Hecht 1941, collector, dealer and expert in antiquities
• Mark Hudis 1990, former co-executive producer of True Blood, former writer and co-executive producer of Nurse Jackie, former executive producer of That '70s Show
• Harlan Jacobson 1971, film critic, lecturer and author
• Julius Katchen 1947, concert pianist, recognized by Eugene Ormandy at his debut concert playing Mozart's Piano Concerto in D-Minor
• Daniel Dae Kim 1990, film and stage actor; Hawaii Five-0, Lost, The Andromeda Strain; holds an MFA from the Graduate Acting Program at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts; winner of Screen Actors Guild Awards for Lost and Crash; named one of the "Sexiest Men Alive" in 2005 by People magazine
• Ken Ludwig 1972, Tony Award-winning playwright of Lend Me a Tenor and Crazy for You and a lawyer for Steptoe & Johnson LLP
• Judd Nelson ex-'82, actor, did not graduate
• Craig Owens 1971, art critic and theorist
• Maxfield Parrish, painter, illustrator
• Rand Ravich 1984, writer, director, and producer
• Henry Richardson 1983, artist, designed Connecticut 9/11 memorial
• George Segal ex-'55, actor, attended
• Sigmund Spaeth 1905, musicologist, composer, radio personality, known as The Tune Detective
• Gregory Whitehead 1978, audio artist, media philosopher, award-winning radio playwright and documentary producer

  Government, diplomacy, and law

• Richard G. Andrews '77, judge, U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware
• Thomas Barlow '62, former Democratic member of Congress from Kentucky
• Gary Born '78, international arbitrator and partner, Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP
• Robert Braucher '36, former Associate Justice, Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
• Charles Canady '76, former Republican member of Congress; Florida Supreme Court Justice; coined the term "partial-birth abortion"
• Ron Christie '91, former special assistant to President George W. Bush and deputy assistant to Vice President Dick Cheney
• Richard M. Cooper '64, Rhodes Scholar, former chief counsel for Food and Drug Administration, partner at Williams & Connolly LLP
• Henry S. Drinker, Jr. 1900, 1949 Litt.D., managing partner and namesake of Drinker Biddle & Reath law firm; counsel to University of Pennsylvania; musicologist and chamber music enthusiast; ethics scholar
• Harold Evans 1907, 1968 LL.D., Philadelphia lawyer, active in AFSC, U.N.-appointed first mayor of Jerusalem, argued before Supreme Court in Hirabayashi v. United States
• Mark Geragos '79, defense attorney for Winona Ryder and Michael Jackson
• Peter J. Goldmark '67, Washington State Commissioner of Public Lands
• Oscar Goodman '61, former Mayor of Las Vegas, former criminal defense attorney
• David F. Hamilton ’79, Judge, U.S. Court Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
• Mark D. Levine '91, New York City Councilmember
• Andrew Lewis '53, former CEO Union Pacific, Secretary of Transportation under Ronald Reagan
• Kermit Lipez ‘63, Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit
• Eugene Ludwig '68, former US Comptroller of the Currency, partner of Covington & Burling LLP
• Robert MacCrate '43, Sullivan & Cromwell Vice Chairman and legal education reformer
• Charles Mathias '44, former Republican Congressman and Senator from Maryland
• Koichiro Matsuura '61 Economics, former Japanese Ambassador to France, 1999-now, director-general of UNESCO
• Jim Moody '67, former Democratic member of Congress from Wisconsin
• Philip Noel-Baker, Baron Noel-Baker 1908, Nobel Laureate ; member of the Parliament of the United Kingdom; chairman of the British Labour Party; architect of the League of Nations; Olympian and captain of Great Britain's Chariots of Fire Olympic track team
• Jeffrey B. Pine '76, Attorney General of Rhode Island 1993–1999
• Stephen H. Sachs '54, lawyer; former Attorney General of Maryland; US Attorney for the District of Maryland, where he prosecuted the Catonsville Nine
• Rob Simmons '65, former Republican Congressman of Connecticut
• Russell Stetler '66, National Mitigation Coordinator for capital cases, Federal Public Defender network, based in San Francisco
• Christopher Van Hollen '47, former United States Ambassador to Sri Lanka and the Maldives from 1972 to 1976
• Bruce H. Andrews '90, former Deputy Secretary of Commerce under Obama

  Journalism

• Matthew Bernstein 1983, Letters Editor for The Boston Globe
• John Carroll 1963, former executive vice president and editor of The Los Angeles Times; first Knight Visiting Lecturer at Harvard's Shorenstein Center
• David Espo 1971, AP special correspondent; former chief AP Congressional correspondent
• Dirck Halstead 1958, photojournalist
• Adi Ignatius 1981, editor-in-chief of Harvard Business Review
• Alex Isenstadt 2007, reporter at Politico
• Harlan Jacobson 1971, film critic and former editor-in-chief of Film Comment Magazine
• Annie Karni 2004, White House reporter for Politico
• Joshua Kurlantzick 1998, journalist and author, special correspondent for The New Republic
• Stanley Kurtz 1975, conservative commentator
• Allen Lewis 1940, Philadelphia Inquirer baseball writer, inductee into writers' wing of National Baseball Hall of Fame
• Josh Mankiewicz 1977, correspondent for Dateline NBC
• Felix Morley 1915, journalist and author; editor 1933–1940 of Washington Post; winner of 1936 Pulitzer Prize for "distinguished editorial writing during the year"
• Robert Neuwirth 1981, philosophy, author of Shadow Cities: A Billion Squatters, A New Urban World
• Michael Paulson 1986, theater reporter, religion reporter for New York Times; city editor for Boston Globe, co-winner 2003 Pulitzer Prize for public service, for coverage of sexual abuse scandal in Catholic archdiocese; four-time winner, Wilbur Award for religion writing
• Norman Pearlstine 1964, former editor-in-chief of Time; senior advisor at the Carlyle Group
• Dan Primack, '99, business editor of Axios
• David Wessel 1975, Wall Street Journal, National Public Radio economics correspondent
• Juan Williams 1976 philosophy, Fox News Channel senior correspondent

  Literature and writing

• Lloyd Alexander, Newbery Medal-winning author
• Nicholson Baker 1979, novelist, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award
• Dave Barry '69 English, Pulitzer Prize–winning humor columnist
• John Dickson Carr '29, author of detective stories; also published under the pen names Carter Dickson, Carr Dickson and Roger Fairbairn
• Charles D. Cohen '83, author of several books about Dr. Seuss
• Frank Conroy '58, author, late director of the Iowa Writers Workshop
• Robert Flynn, 1990, editor in chief of Getty Publications
• Roy Gutman '66, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, author
• Colin Harrison, 1982 author, editor to numerous prominent authors, and editor-in-chief for Scribners.
• Evan Jones '49, poet, playwright, and screenwriter
• Richard Lederer '59, author known for books on wordplay and the English language
• Stephen W. Meader 1913, author of over forty novels for young readers
• Christopher Morley 1910, novelist, poet, essayist, Rhodes scholar
• Norman Pearlstine '64, former editor-in-chief of Time magazine; chief content officer at Bloomberg L.P.
• Logan Pearsall Smith attended 1881–1884, man of letters, author of Trivia

  Medicine

• Robert C. Bollinger '79, professor of infectious diseases at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, and director of the Center for Clinical Global Health Education
• David R. Gastfriend '76, psychiatrist, addiction treatment researcher, and former CEO of the Treatment Research Institute
• Alan Gerry, chair of orthopedic surgery, Harvard Medical School
• William H. Harris '49, orthopedic surgery pioneer; namesake of the Harris Hip Score
• Jon Kabat-Zinn '64, mindfulness meditation
• Raymond Rocco Monto '82, orthopedic surgeon, researcher, writer; winner of the 2012 Jacques Duparc EFORT research award, president of Nantucket Cottage Hospital
• Kari Nadeau '88, allergy expert; director of the Nadeau Laboratory at Stanford University School of Medicine
• Joel Selanikio ’86 Sociology, pediatrician, epidemiologist, social entrepreneur, technologist; winner of the 2005 Haverford College award, and 2009 Lemelson-MIT award for sustainability in 2009, for his work in creating technology for global health; named by Forbes magazine in 2009 as one of nine most powerful innovators; former adviser to Tommy Thompson' former Secretary of Health and Human Services
• James Tyson 1860, dean of University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine

  Science

• Roger Bacon '51 Physics, inventor of carbon fiber in 1958
• James Dahlberg '62, professor emeritus of biomolecular chemistry, University of Wisconsin–Madison
• Stephen J. Lippard '62, Arthur Amos Noyes Professor of Chemistry, MIT
• George Smith '63, winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2018, Curators’ Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Biological Sciences at the University of Missouri
• Theodore William Richards class of 1885, Nobel laureate, first American to win a Nobel in Chemistry
• Joseph Hooton Taylor, Jr. '63 Physics, Nobel laureate, Dean of Faculty at Princeton University
• Philip M. Whitman class of 1937, mathematician, solved the word problem for free lattices

  Social action, philanthropy, and community service

• Henry J. Cadbury 1903, 1933 Litt.D. Nobel Peace Prize winner and founder of American Friends Service Committee
• Norman Hill 1956, civil rights activist, Black labor leader
• Rufus Jones 1885, 1922 LL.D., author, philosopher and founder of the American Friends Service Committee
• Tom Kessinger 1963, 1965, President of Haverford, general manager of the Aga Khan Foundation
• Ghebre Selassie Mehreteab 1972, co-founder and CEO of NHP Foundation, a leading creator of affordable housing for low-income families. Senior advisor on real estate financing, economic development, and philanthropy
• Howard Thurman c. 1930, African-American theologian and preacher, pacifist and social activist, co-founder of Fellowship of Reconciliation and of the Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples

  Sports and athletics

• Josh Byrnes '92, senior vice president of baseball operations, San Diego Padres; former general manager of the Arizona Diamondbacks
• Thomas Glasser 1982, gold medalist in the 4x400 meter relay at the 1981 Maccabiah Games; died in the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001
• Thad Levine '94, general manager of the Minnesota Twins
• Philip Noel-Baker, Baron Noel-Baker 1908, ran for Great Britain in the Olympic games in 1912, 1920, and 1924; team captain at the Paris games, and the team's exploits were made famous as the Chariots of Fire Olympic track team
• Karl Paranya '97, first NCAA Division III runner to run a sub-four minute mile and world record holder in the indoor 4x800 relay race
• Tony Petitti '83, chief operating officer, Major League Baseball and former president and chief executive officer, MLB Network
• Ronald M. Shapiro '64, attorney and sports agent, Shapiro Sher Guinot & Sandler;past clients include Hall of Famers Cal Ripken, Jr., Jim Palmer, Brooks Robinson, Kirby Puckett, and Eddie Murray
• Arn Tellem '76, attorney and sports agent; clients have included Tracy McGrady, Jason Giambi, and Pau Gasol

  Fictional alumni

• Dale Cooper, FBI detective in David Lynch's Twin Peaks
• Astrid Farnsworth, FBI agent in Fringe
• Vicki "Felony" Mayfield, attended, stripper girlfriend of traitor Seb Angevine in Jason Matthews' Palace of Treason

  Presidents of Haverford College

Notable current and former faculty

• Richard J. Bernstein, professor of philosophy ; author of John Dewey ; Dean of Graduate Studies, New School of Social Research
• Curt Cacioppo, professor of music; contemporary composer
• Roberto Castillo-Sandoval, associate professor of Spanish; Chilean author
• John Royston Coleman, President 1967-77; labor economist; author of Blue-Collar Journal; host of CBS program "Money Talks", later president of the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation
• Edward Drinker Cope, A.M. 1864, professor of zoology, 1864-67; renowned paleontologist, herpetologist and ichthyologist; long associated with Philadelphia's Academy of Natural Sciences
• William C. Davidon, professor of physics and mathematics ; peace and justice activist
• Elihu Grant, writer, professor of Biblical literature
• Elaine Tuttle Hansen, provost of Haverford College 1995–2002; president of Bates College in Lewiston, Maine
• Louise Holland, academic, philologist and archaeologist
• Anita Isaacs, Benjamin Collins Professor of Social Sciences; professor of political science
• Rufus Jones, professor of philosophy ; Quaker mystic; co-founder of American Friends Service Committee
• Roger Lane, Benjamin R. Collins Research Professor in history; winner of the Bancroft Award from Columbia University and the Best Book Award from the Urban History Association
• Ira De Augustine Reid, professor and chair of sociology and anthropology and first tenured black faculty member, scholar of black urban and immigrant life in the United States
• Michael Sells, guest professor of comparative religions at Haverford ; author of Approaching the Qur'an: The Early Revelations; Barrows Professor of Islamic History and Literature at the Divinity School of the University of Chicago
• Ed Sikov '78, film scholar and author of Mr. Strangelove: A Biography of Peter Sellers and On Sunset Boulevard: The Life and Times of Billy Wilder. For a decade during the 1990s and 2000s he taught "Sex and Gender on Film: Screwballs, Devil Dames, and Closet Cases", then one of the most popular courses on campus.
• Ronald F. Thiemann, chairman of Religion, dean of Harvard Divinity School
• Josiah Thompson, professor of philosophy ; biographer and scholar of Søren Kierkegaard; expert on assassination of John F. Kennedy ; left academia to become a private investigator in San Francisco; author of memoir Gumshoe
• Cornel West, assistant professor of Philosophy, currently professor of religion at Princeton University
• Elisabeth Young-Bruehl, author and psychoanalyst, former student and biographer of Hannah Arendt

  Honorary degree recipients

• 2011: Dikembe Mutombo, Congolese American former NBA basketball player and humanitarian
• 2010: Bob Herbert, columnist for The New York Times
• 2008: Anna Deavere Smith, Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize-nominated actress, playwright, and professor
• 2007: Ghebre Selassie Mehreteab, '72, CEO of The NHP Foundation, builder of affordable housing
• 2006: Koichiro Matsuura '61, director-general of UNESCO
• 2005: Molly Ivins
• 2004: Jane Goodall, English primatologist, ethologist, and anthropologist
• 2002: Bill Cosby, actor, comedian, television producer, and activist
• 2001: Chinua Achebe, Nigerian novelist and poet; author of Things Fall Apart
• 2000: Madeleine L'Engle, writer best known for her children's books, particularly the Newbery Medal-winning A Wrinkle in Time
• 1999:Daniel Schorr, broadcast journalist
• 1998: Wynton Marsalis, jazz musician
• 1993: Arthur Ashe, tennis player and humanitarian; winner of three Grand Slam titles
• 1992: Thomas L. Friedman, journalist, author, three-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize
• 1991: Dave Barry '69, humorist
• 1989: Audre Lorde, writer, poet, and activist
• 1985: Elie Wiesel, Romania-born novelist, political activist, and Holocaust survivor; author of Night
• 1983: Paul Simon, United States Senator from Illinois
• 1982: Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, former South African politician who has held several government positions and headed the African National Congress' Women's League
• 1981: Rosa Parks, civil rights activist
• 1980: John Royston Coleman, labor economist; author of Blue-Collar Journal; former president
• 1979: Tony Taylor, second baseman and coach