List of Oberlin College and Conservatory people

Notable alumni

Award winners

[|Nobel laureates]

• Stanley Cohen, Nobel, for "discoveries of growth factors"
• Robert Millikan, Nobel laureate "for his work on the elementary charge of electricity and on the photoelectric effect"
• Roger Wolcott Sperry, neurobiologist who studied split-brain research, Nobel laureate, "for his discoveries concerning the functional specialization of the cerebral hemispheres"

  Pulitzer Prize

• Carl Dennis, Pulitzer prize-winning poet of Practical Gods; Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize
• Michael Dirda, Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post reviewer, author
• Du Yun, composer, winner of the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Music for opera "Angel's Bone".
• Emily Nussbaum, winner of the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Criticism
• Christopher Rouse, winner of the 1993 Pulitzer Prize for Music for Trombone Concerto
• Vijay Seshadri, winner of the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for 3 Sections
• George Walker, composer, first African American to be awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Music
• Thornton Wilder, playwright and novelist; three Pulitzer Prizes—for the novel The Bridge of San Luis Rey and for two plays Our Town and The Skin of Our Teeth; U.S. National Book Award for the novel The Eighth Day
• Franz Wright, recipient of the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for Walking to Martha's Vineyard

  Academy, Grammy, Tony, Emmy, and Golden Globe awards

• Mark Boal, screenwriter, recipient of two Academy Awards
• James Burrows, producer and creator of Cheers and Emmy award-winning director of Will & Grace, Wings, News Radio
• Francois S. Clemmons, sang the role of Sportin' Life in Gershwin's Porgy & Bess, recipient of a company Grammy Award Best Opera Recording
• Marc Cohn, singer-songwriter, recipient of a Grammy Award
• Lena Dunham, recipient of the 2013 Golden Globe Awards for Best TV Series - Music or Comedy, and Best Actress in a TV Series, the HBO series Girls
• Chris Eldridge, guitarist in Punch Brothers, formerly in the Infamous Stringdusters
• Alex Klein, oboist, recipient of a Grammy Award
• Rhiannon Giddens, member of the Carolina Chocolate Drops; Grammy winner
• William Goldman, novelist and recipient of Academy Awards for the screenplays of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and All the President's Men
• Charles Harbutt, classical recording engineer, Grammy recipient
• Bill Irwin, actor and clown, 1984 MacArthur Fellow, recipient of a Tony Award for Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
• Natasha Katz, lighting designer, recipient of four Tony Awards for The Glass Menagerie, Once, The Coast of Utopia, and Aida
• John McClure, record producer, received four Grammy Awards for Stravinsky Conducts, Bernstein, Symphony No 3 , Mahler, Symphony of a Thousand, and Bernstein's West Side Story with Carreras, Te Kanawa, Troyanos, Ollmann
• Michael Maguire, recipient of Tony Awards for Les Misérables, A Little Night Music, Kismet, Annie Get Your Gun, currently prominent Beverly Hills divorce attorney; voted Super Lawyer/Rising Star
• Gregory Mosher, director, recipient of Tony Award for revivals of Anything Goes and Our Town
• Christopher Rouse, Grammy Award for Best Classical Contemporary Composition for Concert de Gaudí
• Jeannette Sorrell, founder and Artistic Director of the Apollo’s Fire Baroque Orchestra; Grammy winner
• Julie Taymor, director, filmmaker, screenwriter, recipient of Emmy and Tony awards

  MacArthur Fellows

• Jad Abumrad, radio producer, known for the NPR-distributed Radiolab
• Alison Bechdel, pioneering LGBT cartoonist, author of Dykes to Watch Out For and Fun Home
• Claire Chase, flautist and arts entrepreneur
• Jeremy Denk, pianist and writer
• Rhiannon Giddens, musician, MacArthur Fellowship awarded 2017
• Ralf Hotchkiss, engineer and businessman
• Bill Irwin, actor
• Richard Lenski, biologist
• Diane E. Meier, doctor, MacArthur Fellowship awarded 2008
• Thylias Moss, poet and playwright
• Julie Taymor, director, MacArthur Fellowship awarded 1991
• Paul Wennberg, chemist

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• Courtney Bryan
• Ashley Fure
• Stephen Hartke
• Jesse Jones

  Academia

• Carol Blanche Cotton, African-American psychologist who worked on spastic paralysis in children
• Louisa Lydia Alexander, schoolteacher
• Joshua Angrist, labour market economist
• Lauren Berlant, feminist, queer cultural studies scholar
• Helen E. Blackwell, organic chemist and chemical biologist, Professor of Chemistry at the University of Wisconsin–Madison
• Christopher Browning, historian of the Holocaust
• Samuel Charache, hematologist, discoverer of the first effective treatment for sickle cell disease
• Dr. Francois S. Clemmons, Alexander Twilight Artist in Residence, now Emeritus Professor at Middlebury College
• Johnnetta B. Cole, first female African-American president of Spelman College, president of Bennett College 2002–07
• John R. Commons, institutional economist and labor historian
• Ethel McGhee Davis, educator, social worker, and college administrator
• John Millott Ellis, acting President of Oberlin College and abolitionist
• George Fairchild, third President of Kansas State University
• Peter Tyrrell Flawn, geologist and former President of the University of Texas at Austin
• Jeffrey I. Gordon, biologist and Professor
• Daniel McBride Graham, inventor, Free Will Baptist pastor, first president of Hillsdale College
• Joseph L. Graves, Jr., Associate Dean for Research and Professor of Biological Studies
• James Monroe Gregory, Dean of Collegiate Department at Howard University
• Erwin Griswold, lawyer, Solicitor General of the United States and dean of Harvard Law School
• Walter Heller, economist and educator
• Robert Hutchins, educational philosopher, president and chancellor of the University of Chicago
• Lawrence R. Jacobs, American political scientist and founder and director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the University of Minnesota
• Charlene Drew Jarvis, president of Southeastern University
• Robert Jervis, International Relations professor
• Barbara Johnson, literary critic, professor
• Anne Osborn Krueger, economist, World Bank Chief Economist
• Edward O. Laumann, George Herbert Mead Distinguished Service Professor of Sociology and the College; editor of the American Journal of Sociology ; Chair of the Department of Sociology at the University of Chicago; Dean of the Division of Social Sciences at the University of Chicago; Provost of the University of Chicago; director of the Ogburn Stouffer Center for Population and Social Organization at the University of Chicago
• Sarah Cowles Little, educator
• Susie Linfield, critic, editor, journalist, author and NYU professor
• Maud Mandel, historian, Dean of the College of Brown University; 18th president, Williams College
• John Jay McKelvey, Sr., Attorney, Founder of Harvard Law Review
• Alan Wilfrid Cranbrook Menzies FRSE, Scottish-born professor, chemist who taught at Princeton University.
• Steven Mintz – Professor of History, University of Texas at Austin
• Peter Molnar, Professor of Geophysics at University of Colorado Boulder
• Roger Montgomery, Dean of Architecture, City Planning, and Landscape Architecture, University of California, Berkeley
• Edward F. Mooney, Professor of Religion at Syracuse University
• Anne Eugenia Felicia Morgan, professor, philosopher, writer, and game inventor
• L. L. Nunn, founder of Telluride Association and Deep Springs College
• Tom Novak, Denit Trust Distinguished Scholar and Professor of Marketing, The George Washington University
• David Novak, Professor of Ethnomusicology, University of California, Santa Barbara
• Daniel Orr, professor, writer and chair of economics at University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign
• Mary Jane Patterson, educator and first African-American woman to receive a B.A degree
• Hugh V. Perkins, author and former professor of Education, Institute for Child Study, Department of Human Development, University of Maryland, College Park
• Laurence Perrine, author and professor
• Paul Pierson, professor of political science
• Willard V. O. Quine, philosopher and logician
• Albert Rees, former University of Chicago and Princeton economics professor, former Provost at Princeton, advisor to President Gerald Ford
• Charles A. Reich, legal and social scholar
• Thomas L. Riis, musicologist, specialist in American music
• William Sanders Scarborough, classical scholar
• John E. Schwarz, political scientist and author
• Robert E. Scott,, law professor
• Donald S. Strong, political scientist.
• Kenneth Waltz,, political science professor
• Barbara Wertheimer,, historian and labor organizer
• C. Martin Wilbur, historian, Sinologist
• Garnet C. Wilkinson, educator and administrator
• Warren Wilson, namesake of Warren Wilson College in North Carolina
• Sheldon S. Wolin, political theorist

  Business

• Joani Blank, founder of Good Vibrations
• Marc Canter, co-founder of MacroMind
• Jerry Greenfield, co-founder of Ben & Jerry's ice cream
• John Gutfreund, executive, former CEO of Salomon Brothers Inc.; Business Week named him "King of Wall Street" in the 1980s
• Charles Martin Hall, co-discoverer of the electrolytic process for producing aluminium; founder of Alcoa, Inc.
• Ralf Hotchkiss, co-founder of Whirlwind Wheelchair International; 1989 MacArthur Foundation Fellow
• Kamal Quadir, founder and CEO of bKash, which provides financial services to over 40 million customers
• David Shapira, Executive Chairman Giant Eagle
• Nova Spivack, entrepreneur

  Politics, government

Premiers

• H. H. Kung, banker and Premier of the Republic of China

  Legislators

• Blanche Bruce, second African-American Senator from Mississippi, serving 1874–1881
• Yvette Clarke, Democratic representative for New York's 11th congressional district, 2007–present
• Jacob Dolson Cox, politician and author, governor of Ohio, US Secretary of the Interior
• Paul Drennan Cravath, lawyer, partner of Cravath, Swaine & Moore; creator of the "Cravath System"; founding Vice President of the Council on Foreign Relations
• Heather Deal City Councillor 2005–present, Vancouver City Council
• Ruth Hardy member, Vermont Senate
• John Langalibalele Dube, first President of the African National Congress
• Myron T. Herrick, 42nd Governor of Ohio
• Richard Hodges, member of the Ohio House of Representatives, 1993–1999
• Hsiao Bi-khim, member of the Legislative Yuan of Taiwan, representing the Democratic Progressive Party and the 1st Electoral District of Taipei City; Vice President of Liberal International
• Alfred A. Laun Jr., Wisconsin State Senator
• Eduardo Mondlane, Mozambican political leader
• Edward Schwartz, at-large City Councilman 1984–87, Philadelphia City Council; first Councilman with a Pd.D ; first Philadelphia Councilman to computerize his constituent services
• Harrison A. Williams, U.S. senator and congressman from New Jersey

  Mayors

• Stephanie Rawlings Blake, former Mayor of Baltimore
• Adrian Fenty, former Mayor of Washington, D.C.

  Executive council

• Bruce Cole, chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities under George W. Bush
• Erwin Griswold, solicitor general under presidents Johnson and Nixon
• Richard N. Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations and former Director of Policy Planning for the U.S. Department of State
• Cynthia Hogan, Counsel to the Vice President of the United States, Joe Biden, under President Obama
• Martha N. Johnson, former official in the Clinton administration; Administrator of the United States General Services Administration
• Anne O. Krueger, award-winning economist; Deputy Director of the International Monetary Fund; Oberlin trustee
• Robert Kuttner, co-founder and co-editor of The American Prospect; one of five co-founders of the Economic Policy Institute
• Charles Sawyer, Secretary of Commerce to Harry S. Truman

  Diplomats

• John Mercer Langston, U.S. Congressman representing Virginia's 4th Congressional District; US minister to Haiti under president Rutherford B. Hayes
• Edwin O. Reischauer, U.S. Ambassador to Japan, 1961–1966
• Marcie Berman Ries, U.S. ambassador to Bulgaria
• Carl Rowan, U.S. ambassador to Finland ; deputy assistant Secretary of State under President Kennedy; director of U.S. Information Agency under President Johnson
• John S. Service, foreign service officer, China Hand
• Durham Stevens, assassinated diplomat to Japan
• Tsiang Tingfu, ambassador from Republic of China to Russia, United Nations, and USA

  Other

• Tom Balmer, Chief Justice of the Oregon Supreme Court
• Lee Fisher, former Lieutenant Governor and former Attorney General of Ohio
• Erwin Griswold, lawyer, Solicitor General of the United States and dean of Harvard Law School
• Kan En Vong, Chinese educator
• Ruth A. Parmelee, Christian missionary
• Todd Portune, former member of Cincinnati City Council ; current Hamilton County Commissioner
• Albert Rees, advisor to President Gerald Ford, former University of Chicago and Princeton economics professor, former Provost at Princeton
• Moses Fleetwood Walker, first African American major league baseball player
• Sylvia Williams, former museum director for National Museum of African Art at Smithsonian Institution; pioneer in African art history

  Activists

• Nan Aron, founder and president of Alliance for Justice
• Kathleen Neal Cleaver, Senior Research Associate at Yale Law School known for her involvement in the Black Panther Party
• Henry Roe Cloud, Native American political leader
• Rennie Davis, anti-Vietnam war activist and one of the Chicago Seven
• Matilda Evans, first African American woman to practice medicine in South Carolina; community health advocate
• Ida Gibbs, educator, civil rights and women’s suffrage advocate
• John Mercer Langston, early civil rights activist
• James Lawson, theoretician and tactician of nonviolence in US civil rights movement
• Caroline F. Putnam, abolitionist and educator
• Jerry Rubin, anti-Vietnam war activist and one of the Chicago Seven
• William F. Schulz, former Executive Director of Amnesty International USA
• Barbara Seaman, principal member of the women’s health feminism movement
• Peter Staley, AIDS activist, founding director of the Treatment Action Group
• Lucy Stone, feminist and abolitionist
• Anna Louise Strong, activist and author
• Mary Church Terrell, author, activist
• John Todd, abolitionist, conspirator with John Brown, founder of Tabor College
• Wayne Bidwell Wheeler, attorney, prohibitionist
• Mary Evans Wilson, civil rights activist

  Journalism

Broadcast media

• Jad Abumrad, radio journalist, host and producer of Radiolab
• Alex Blumberg, producer, This American Life
• Chris Broussard, Fox Sports sports analyst
• Ben Calhoun, radio journalist, producer for This American Life
• Jon Hamilton, NPR science correspondent
• Aleks Krotoski, television and radio presenter
• Robert Krulwich, television and radio journalist
• Roman Mars, radio producer and host, 99% Invisible on 91.7 KALW in San Francisco
• Seth Rudetsky, radio host, Broadway actor, pianist, writer
• Alix Spiegel, co-host of NPR's Invisibilia; producer for This American Life

  Print and online

• Peter Baker, New York Times senior White House correspondent and author
• Wendell Dabney
• Michael Duffy, writer, Washington Bureau Chief and editor of Time magazine
• Kim France, founding editor of Lucky magazine
• Lisa Jervis, creator and editor of Bitch magazine
• Fred Kaplan, journalist and Slate columnist
• James Kim, senior CNET editor and technology analyst
• Michelle Malkin, writer, author, political commentator
• James McBride, journalist, author, musician
• Adam Moss, editor of New York magazine
• Emily Nussbaum, television critic for The New Yorker magazine
• Jane Pratt, creator of Sassy and Jane magazines
• Tim Riley, NPR critic; author ; Emerson College journalism professor
• Carl T. Rowan, journalist
• David Schlesinger Editor-in-Chief, Reuters news, Thomson Reuters
• Steve Silberman, science writer for Wired
• Sonia Shah, investigative journalist
• Sophia Yan, reporter for Bloomberg News

  Literature

• Paolo Bacigalupi, author of The Windup Girl
• Ishmael Beah, author of
• Alison Bechdel, cartoonist and graphic novelist
• Bill Beverly, novelist, author of Dodgers
• Geoffrey Blodgett, historian and author of Cass Gilbert: The Early Years
• Wendy Brenner, author of Phone Calls From the Dead
• Alice Rowe Burks, author of Who Invented the Computer?: The Legal Battle that Changed Computing History
• Michael Byers, novelist and author of The Coast of Good Intentions, Long for This World, and Percival's Planet
• Gail Carriger, fantasy novelist of Soulless
• Tracy Chevalier, novelist and author of Girl with a Pearl Earring, Falling Angels, and The Lady and the Unicorn
• Anna J. Cooper, author and teacher, fourth African-American woman to receive a PhD
• Alev Lytle Croutier, Turkish-American author
• Charles D'Ambrosio, essayist, short story writer
• Josh Emmons, novelist
• Jim Fixx, columnist and editor, author
• Darcy Frey, non-fiction writer
• Alan Furst, novelist, author of Blood of Victory
• Rosetta Luce Gilchrist, physician, writer
• Myla Goldberg, novelist
• Harriett Ellen Grannis Arey, educator, author, editor, and publisher
• Melissa Fay Greene, author
• Linda Gregerson, award-winning poet
• David Halperin, author
• Bill Henderson author of Stark Raving Elvis, I Killed Hemingway, I, Elvis: Confessions of a Counterfeit King
• Joe Hickerson, American folklorist
• Donovan Hohn, author of Moby-Duck
• Jonathan Holden, poet
• Michael Hollinger, playwright
• Cathy Park Hong, poet
• Tim Hurson, speaker, writer, creativity theorist, author of Think Better: An Innovator's Guide to Productive Thinking
• Kiese Laymon, professor and author of Long Division, How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America, and Heavy, the 2019 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction
• Jason Little, cartoonist and author of Shutterbug Follies and Motel Art Improvement Service
• David Maine, novelist
• Megan McDonald, writer of children's literature
• J. Hillis Miller, literary critic
• Naeem Mohaiemen, writer and artist whose projects research histories of the 1970s international left
• Martha Moody, author of Best Friends, Office of Desire, and Sometimes Mine
• Thylias Moss, poet, playwright, and 1996 MacArthur Fellow
• Josh Neufeld, cartoonist
• Thisbe Nissen, novelist
• Peggy Orenstein, author
• Rich Orloff, playwright
• Dzvinia Orlowsky, poet
• Jena Osman, poet
• Suzanne Paola, memoirist and poet
• Lia Purpura, poet, essayist
• David Rees, cartoonist
• S. J. Rozan, novelist, Edgar Allan Poe Mystery Award Winner, 2003
• John C. Russell, playwright
• Kathy Lou Schultz, poet
• Elizabeth Searle, novelist
• Stephen W. Sears, author
• Vijay Seshadri, poet
• Matthew Sharpe, novelist
• Gary Shteyngart, novelist
• Donald J. Sobol, author of the Encyclopedia Brown series
• Matthew Stadler, novelist
• Jon Swan, playwright, poet, librettist, and journalist
• Marcia Talley, novelist, Agatha and Anthony Award Winner, 2002, 2003, 2005
• Michael Teig, poet
• Joseph Jeffrey Walters, author of Guanya Pau, the earliest surviving novel written in English by an African
• Geoffrey Ward, author
• Bruce Weigl, poet
• William Drake Westervelt, Hawaiian historical writer
• Christopher Robin "Kit" Woolsey, writer, bridge internationalist and backgammon expert
• John Wray, novelist
• Franz Wright, poet, Pulitzer Prize winner

  Religion

• William Ament, controversial missionary to China
• Juanita Breckenridge Bates, Congregationalist minister, her application being the test case to determine the policy of the denomination; also first woman to be awarded a Bachelor of Divinity degree from Oberlin
• Hobart Baumann Amstutz, bishop in The Methodist Church
• Thanissaro Bhikkhu, abbot of a Buddhist monastery in California
• Antoinette Brown, first ordained female minister in the U.S.
• John M. Brown Bishop of the AME Church
• Lewis Sperry Chafer, theologian; one of the prominent proponents of Christian Dispensationalism; founder and first president of Dallas Theological Seminary
• Fanny Jackson Coppin, influential educator and missionary
• Marcus Dale, Early African-American preacher in New Orleans
• Vernon Johns, African-American preacher, widely hailed as the father of the civil rights movement
• William Weston Patton, African-American pastor, president of Howard University
• Martha Root, Hand of the Cause in the Bahá'í Faith
• Lorenzo Snow, fifth president and a prophet of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
• Henry Benjamin Whipple, Episcopal Bishop and advocate for the Native Americans, First Bishop of the Diocese of Minnesota

  Science

• Arthur L. Benton, neuropsychologist
• Helen E. Blackwell, organic chemist and chemical biologist, explorer of chemical signaling in bacteria
• Mary Ann Bickerdyke, Civil War nurse and hospital administrator, post-war veteran advocate
• Thaddeus Cahill, physicist; inventor of the teleharmonium, the first electromechanical musical instrument
• Patricia Charache, Microbiologist and infectious disease specialist
• Kenneth Stewart Cole, biophysicist, best known for creating the concept of the voltage clamp
• Joan Feynman, solar astrophysicist at JPL in Pasadena, California Sister of Richard Feynman
• Thomas Ebbesen, physical chemist, pioneer in the field of nanoscience for which he received the Kavli Prize
• Jim Fixx, author of The Complete Book of Running
• Thomas Frieden, Director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
• Robert Galambos, researcher on bat echolocation
• John Gofman, scientist in the Manhattan Project; activist on issues with nuclear power and radiation danger
• Elisha Gray, inventor of the telephone beaten to the patent office by Alexander Graham Bell; credited with invention of the electromechanical oscillator
• Philip Hanawalt, scientist, co-discoverer of DNA excision repair
• Robert Aimer Harper, botanist, president of the Botanical Society of America
• Edward Haskell, scientist and educator
• Ellen Hayes astronomer and mathematician
• Donald Henderson, epidemiologist
• Ralph F. Hirschmann, biochemist who led synthesis of the first enzyme.
• Ernest Ingersoll, naturalist
• Richard Lenski, biologist and 1996 MacArthur Fellow
• John E. Mack, psychologist, author
• Rollo May, psychologist, author
• Catherine McBride-Chang, psychologist, researcher in cross-cultural development of early literacy skills
• George Herbert Mead, philosopher, leading figure of American pragmatism
• Ira Mellman, cell biologist, discoverer of endosomes
• John Wesley Powell, geologist and explorer
• Anita Roberts, molecular biologist who made pioneering observations of TGF beta
• Larry Squire, Distinguished Professor of Neuroscience and Psychology at University of California, San Diego
• Lynne Talley, Professor of Physical Oceanography, Scripps Institution of Oceanography
• Lauren V. Wood, allergist, immunologist, and Captain in the US Public Health Service
• Paul Wennberg, chemist and 2002 MacArthur Fellow
• Felisa Wolfe-Simon, geomicrobiologist at the U.S. Geological Survey; Fellow of the NASA Astrobiology Institute

  Visual and performing arts

Film and television

• Kelly AuCoin actor
• Eric Bogosian, novelist, playwright, and actor
• Avery Brooks, actor in Uncle Tom's Cabin, American History X, ', best known as Benjamin Sisko in '
• Peter Buchman, screenwriter for Jurassic Park III and Che
• John Cazale, actor in The Godfather and The Deer Hunter
• Dr. Francois S. Clemmons actor/singer best known as Officer Clemmons on Mister Rogers' Neighborhood
• Lena Dunham, actor, director, writer, best known for Tiny Furniture and the HBO series Girls
• Su Friedrich, experimental filmmaker
• Nancy Giles, actress in China Beach, commentator on CBS News Sunday Morning.
• Ed Helms, actor, comedian, correspondent on The Daily Show
• Edward Everett Horton, actor, voice actor
• Maggie Keenan-Bolger, actress and writer, wrote From the Inside, Out; co-founder of 4th Meal Productions; The Will Rogers Follies and The Music Man national tours
• Judy Kuhn, singer, Broadway performer, and singing voice of Disney's Pocahontas
• Rex Lee, actor, best known for his role on Entourage
• Daniel London, actor
• Chris Morocco, professional chef and YouTube personality
• Jim Newman, founder of Dilexi Gallery and Other Minds New Music Festival, San Francisco
• Daniel Radosh, journalist, blogger, writing staff of The Daily Show
• Oren Rudavsky, filmmaker
• Lynn Shelton, filmmaker
• Corey Stoll, stage and screen actor
• Nick Wauters, television writer, creator of the NBC series The Event
• Alexander Whybrow, professional wrestler under the name Larry Sweeney

  Stage theater

• Megan Marie Hart, operatic soprano
• John Kander, of the musical theater team Kander and Ebb
• Romulus Linney, playwright
• Albert Marre, Tony Award-winning director and producer
• Julie Atlas Muz, burlesque dancer, actress, stage director
• Richard Tatum, stage and voice actor; Associate Artistic Director of the ARK Theatre Company, Los Angeles
• Mitch Weiss, Broadway manager;

  Music

• Benjamin Bagby, vocalist, harpist, scholar, and founder of early music ensemble Sequentia
• MaVynee Betsch, piano and voice
• Rafiq Bhatia, guitarist for Son Lux.
• Chris Brokaw, rock drummer for Codeine; guitarist for Come, Consonant
• Alyson Cambridge, operatic soprano and classical music, jazz, and American popular song singer
• Brian Chase, drummer for the Yeah Yeah Yeahs
• Claire Chase, flautist
• Will Chase, Broadway actor
• James David Christie, organist and pedagogue
• John Austin Clark, music director and harpsichordist
• Dr. Francois S. Clemmons, conductor, arranger, and founder/director of The Harlem Spiritual Ensemble
• Stanley Cowell, jazz pianist
• David Daniels, conductor and author
• Corey Dargel, composer and electronic musician
• Dorothy DeLay, violinist
• Jeremy Denk, pianist
• R. Nathaniel Dett, conductor, pianist, composer, arranger
• Du Yun, Pulitzer Prize-winning composer, performance artist
• Eighth Blackbird, contemporary music sextet
• Peter Evans, trumpeter
• James Feddeck, Assistant Conductor of the Cleveland Orchestra; Music Director of the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra
• John Ferguson, organist and composer
• Sullivan Fortner, jazz pianist
• Rhiannon Giddens, founding member of the Carolina Chocolate Drops
• Judith Gordon, pianist
• Jason Myles Goss, singer/songwriter
• Denyce Graves, opera singer
• Al Haig, jazz pianist
• Dick Hensold, folk musician, piper
• Natalie Hinderas, professor, pianist and composer
• Moses Hogan, conductor, composer, and arranger
• Paul Horn, jazz flautist
• Matt Hubbard, Willie Nelson's producer; member of 7 Walkers
• International Contemporary Ensemble, contemporary music ensemble
• Amy Ippoliti, yoga teacher, chant and mantra recordings
• Steven Isserlis, British cellist, director of the International Musicians' Seminar
• John Kander, composer of the musicals Chicago, Cabaret, and Curtains
• John Kennedy, composer and conductor
• Carla Kihlstedt, violinist, singer
• Alex Klein, oboist
• Jennifer Koh, violinist, 1994 International Tchaikovsky Competition winner
• Judy Kuhn, actress, singer
• Scott Lawton, conductor
• Sylvia Olden Lee, vocal coach and accompanist
• Michael Maguire, actor/singer, best known for playing Enjolras in the original Broadway production of Les Misérables
• David Maslanka, composer
• James McBride, saxophonist, composer, author of New York Times best-seller The Color of Water
• John McEntire, drummer
• John T. "Jack" Melick, Jr., bandleader, pianist, and arranger
• David Miller, tenor, member of the multi-platinum operatic pop quartet Il Divo
• Jason Molina, singer-songwriter and guitarist
• Amy X. Neuburg, classical and pop singer
• Farnell Newton, composer and jazz trumpeter
• Karen O, singer, Yeah Yeah Yeahs
• Milt Okun, arranger, producer and musical director for popular 1960s singers such as Peter Paul and Mary, the Chad Mitchell Trio, and John Denver
• Bob Ostertag, composer, performer, instrument builder, journalist, activist, historian
• Doe Paoro, singer-songwriter
• James Paul, conductor
• Alexander Perls, songwriter, music producer
• Liz Phair, singer/songwriter
• William Porter, organist and pedagogue
• Nancy Priddy, singer-songwriter, back-up singer on Leonard Cohen's debut album
• Derek Lee Ragin, countertenor
• Josh Ritter, singer/songwriter
• Lucy Wainwright Roche, musician, half-sister of Rufus Wainwright
• Thomas Rosenkranz, pianist
• Ned Rothenberg, woodwind multi-instrumentalist, composer
• Christopher Rouse, Pulitzer Prize–winning composer
• Michael Rudman, award-winning theater director
• Jonathan Sacks, orchestrator for films including Toy Story and Monsters, Inc.
• Greg Saunier, drummer for Deerhoof
• Alex Scally Indie-Pop band Beach House
• Jenny Scheinman, jazz violinist
• Andrew Shapiro, composer
• Arlene Sierra, composer
• Robert Sims
• Robert Spano, music director of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra
• William Grant Still, composer
• Dick Sudhalter, jazz musician and critic
• Jon Theodore, drummer, The Mars Volta
• Pyeng Threadgill, blues, soul blues and jazz singer
• Jen Trynin, rock singer/songwriter
• David Zinman, conductor

  Visual arts

• Cory Arcangel
• Flora Crockett
• Julia Vogl

  Notable faculty

Humanities

French

• John Kneller, English-American professor and fifth President of Brooklyn College

  History

• Geoffrey Blodgett
• Jeffrey F. Hamburger, art historian
• James Hepokoski, music historian
• William Andrew Moffett
• Seymour Slive
• Robert Soucy
• Laurence Thomas
• Amasa Walker
• Aaron Wildavsky

  English and American Literature

• Pamela Alexander
• Kazim Ali
• Dan Chaon
• Martha Collins
• Angie Estes
• bell hooks
• Toni Morrison
• Heinz Politzer
• Eugene B. Redmond

  Philosophy

• Frank Ebersole
• John Millott Ellis
• Wilson Carey McWilliams
• Mike Michalson
• Ronald Grigor Suny

  Visual art and performance

• Roger Copeland, Professor of Theater and Dance
• Pipo Nguyen-duy, Professor of Studio Art, Photography
• Sylvia Williams, Museum director, scholar of African art

  Social science

Anthropology

• Ana Cara, scholar of Latin America
• Calvin C. Hernton
• Susan Kane, archaeologist and Professor of Art History
• Albert Howe Lybyer, scholar of the Middle East
• Gisela Richter, archaeologist
• W. I. Thomas
• John Milton Yinger

  Economics

• Thomas Nixon Carver, professor 1894-1902
• James Monroe, congressman from Ohio, professor 1883-1896

  Sociology

• W. I. Thomas
• John Milton Yinger

  Natural science

Physics

• Mildred Allen
• Thaddeus Cahill, composer, physicist and inventor of the Telharmonium
• Elisha Gray, inventor of the electromechanical oscillator

  Geology

• George Nelson Allen, first geologist to survey Yellowstone National Park
• Bruce Simonson, leading expert on banded iron formations

  Environmental science

• David W. Orr

  Zoology

• Hope Hibbard

  Music

Composition

• John Luther Adams
• George Nelson Allen
• Daniel Asia
• Conrad Cummings
• Đặng Thái Sơn
• Herbert Elwell
• Stephen Hartke
• Jonathan Kramer
• David Lang, composer and founder of Bang on a Can
• Tom Lopez
• David Maslanka
• Gary Lee Nelson
• Lewis Nielson
• Elizabeth Ogonek
• Curtis Roads
• Anna Rubin
• Igor Stravinsky, visiting composition professor, 1962-1963
• Gwyneth Van Anden Walker
• Olly Wilson
• John Williams, visiting composer, 1999-2000
• Joseph R. Wood

  Performance

• Ryan Anthony, trumpeter with Canadian Brass
• David Boe, organ
• Stephen Clapp, violin
• Robin Eubanks, trombone
• Diana Gannett
• Stanislav Ioudenitch, piano
• Rex Martin, tuba
• Hugh Ragin, trumpet
• Peter Slowik, viola
• John Solum
• Robert Spano
• Alexa Still, flute
• Roland and Almita Vamos, viola
• James Desano, trombone
• Raymond Premru, trombone

  Music theory

• Allen Cadwallader, theorist of Schenkerian analysis
• Jeffrey Mumford
• Willard Warch
• Andrew Pau, 6-time Jeopardy! champion

  Voice

• Salvatore Champagne
• Marilyn Horne
• Richard Miller

  Theology

• James Fairchild
• Charles Grandison Finney
• Asa Mahan

  Administration

• William Dawes, trustee and fundraiser
• Mildred H. McAfee, Dean of Women
• Elizabeth Watson Russell Lord, Assistant Principal, Women's Department ; Assistant Dean, Women's Department

  Presidents

• Asa Mahan, 1835–50
• Charles Grandison Finney, leader in the Second Great Awakening, president 1851–66
• James Fairchild, 1866–89
• William Gay Ballantine, 1891–96
• John Henry Barrows, 1899–1902
• Henry Churchill King, 1902–27
• Ernest H. Wilkins, 1927–46
• William Stevenson, 1946–60
• Robert K. Carr, 1960–69
• Robert W. Fuller, 1970–74
• Emil Danenberg, 1975–82
• S. Frederick Starr, 1983–94
• Nancy Dye, 1994–2007
• Marvin Krislov, 2007–2017
• Carmen Twillie Ambar, 2017–present

  Athletics

• C. K. Fauver
• Edgar Fauver
• Edward Fauver
• Moses Fleetwood Walker, first African-American major league baseball player
• John Heisman, football coach in 1892 and 1894
• T. Nelson Metcalf