Famous Yale University Alumni a to z

The first U.S. commissioner of education, Henry Barnard founded the Connecticut Common School journal and the Rhode Island Institute of Instruction.

Philip Barry is an American playwright best known for writing comedies of life. His most famous play is The Philadelphia Story.

Angela Bassett is an Academy Award- and Emmy Award-nominated actress known for roles in What's Love Got to Do With It, Waiting to Exhale, Malcolm X and The Rosa Parks Story.

Prolific author Pearl S. Buck earned a Pulitzer Prize for her novel The Good Earth. She was also the first female to win a Nobel Prize for Literature.

The 41st president of the United States, George H.W. Bush served as vice president under Ronald Reagan. He is the father of George W. Bush, the 43rd president.

George W. Bush was the 43rd president of the United States. He led his country's response to the 9/11 attacks in 2001 and initiated the Iraq War in 2003.

Ben Carson overcame his troubled youth in inner-city Detroit to become a gifted neurosurgeon famous for his work separating conjoined twins.

Jennifer Connelly is an American actress who started as a child star but gained fame from her role in the film Requiem for a Dream.

Anderson Cooper was a news correspondent on ABC and CNN before hosting his own show, Anderson Cooper 360. 

James Fenimore Cooper was a 19th-century American novelist, best known for his Leatherstocking Tales, which included The Last of the Mohicans.

Film and television actress Claire Danes began her critically acclaimed career as a 15-year-old star in the ABC series, My So Called Life.

American politician Howard Dean is best known for running for the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination.

Jodie Foster is an award-winning American actress best known for her roles in the films Taxi Driver, The Accused and The Silence of the Lambs.

Thomas Gallaudet was an education pioneer and established the American School for the Deaf in 1817.

Paul Giamatti is an actor known for roles in such diverse films as Private Parts, Sideways and Rock of Ages.

Sara Gilbert is an actress best known for her role as Darlene Conner-Healy from in the sitcom Roseanne and the creator of the series The Talk.

Roberto Críspulo Goizueta served as chairman and CEO of the Coca-Cola Company. Over 16-years, he increased Coca-Cola's market value from $4 to $150 billion.

Nathan Hale graduated from Yale University in 1773, joined the American Revolution and was hanged by the British for espionage in 1776.

Samuel P. Huntington was a political scientist who wrote the influential book The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order.

Jerome Kagan is a professor of psychology at Harvard University and is regarded as key pioneer in the field of developmental psychology.

Senator John Kerry has supported free trade, expansive foreign and military policy and education spending. In 2004, he was a democratic presidential nominee.

Environmentalist Aldo Leopold served as director of the Audubon Society in the mid-1930s. He also founded the Wilderness Society.

Sinclair Lewis was a journalist and Nobel Prize winning novelist known for 20th century works like Main Street, Elmer Gantry and Babbitt.

John Lindsay was a U.S. congressman and was the mayor of New York City during the 1960s. He is known for his "ghetto walks" and clashes with labor groups.

Henry R. Luce was a journalist and publishing mogul who started the magazines Time, Life, Fortune and Sports Illustrated.

Alley Mills is a television actress who starred in the hit series The Wonder Years, as well as Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman.

Actor George Murphy starred in more than 45 films, including Little Miss Broadway opposite Shirley Temple. In 1964, he was elected to represent California in the U.S. Senate.

Civil rights activist and ACLU alum Eleanor Holmes Norton serves as a non-voting delegate to Congress from the District of Columbia.

Landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted helped design many U.S. public parks. His first project was Central Park in New York City.

Stone Phillips is a television personality and reporter, best known as the host of Dateline NBC and guest host for other NBC shows.

American actor Vincent Price starred as the villain in the 1953 film House of Wax, which revitalized the horror genre, and was one of the first films shot in 3D.

Victoria, Crown Princess of Sweden is the eldest child born to King Carl XVI Gustaf and Queen Silvia and is heir to the Swedish throne.

Russian-born painter Mark Rothko was a pioneer of the Abstract Expressionist movement during the mid-20th century.

Roger Sherman was an American government leader best known as a founding father that signed and drafted the Declaration of Independence and signed the U.S. Constitution.

Film critic Gene Siskel reviewed movies with co-host Roger Ebert on the nationally syndicated program Siskel & Ebert & the Movies.

Arlen Specter was Philadelphia District Attorney and was elected to the senate five times. He helped initiate the reauthorization of the Patriot Act.

Oscar-winning screenwriter and director Oliver Stone is responsible for the hit films Platoon, Scarface, Born on the Fourth of July and Natural Born Killers.

Brandon Tartikoff was the president of NBC Television during its rise to the top from 1980 till 1991.

Clarence Thomas is the second African-American justice to serve on the Supreme Court of the United States. He was appointed in 1991 and leans conservative.

Rudy Vallée was an American singer and entertainer best known as the host of the variety hour The Rudy Vallee Show (1929-43).

Sam Waterston is an acclaimed actor known for his film, TV and stage work, including roles in Law & Order and Gore Vidal's Lincoln.

Eli Whitney was an American inventor who created the cotton gin and pushed the “interchangeable parts” mode of production.

Thornton Wilder is a multiple Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist and playwright known for works like The Bridge of San Luis Rey, The Ides of March and Our Town.

Tom Wolfe is a journalist and best-selling author well known as a proponent of the New Journalism, using fiction-writing techniques in journalism.

Bob Woodward is an American journalist and author who reported on the Watergate scandal for The Washington Post. His coverage greatly contributed to the Post's 1973 Pulitzer Prize.