Famous Columbia University Alumni a to z

Bella Abzug was a leading liberal activist and politician in the 1960s and 1970s, especially known for her work for women’s rights.

Madeleine Albright became the first woman to represent the U.S. in regards to foreign affairs as the secretary of state.

American economist Kenneth Arrow is known for his contributions to welfare economics and to general economic equilibrium theory. He won a Nobel Prize in 1972.

Scholar Isaac Asimov was one of the 20th century's most prolific writers, writing in many genres. He was known for sci-fi works like Foundation and I, Robot.

William Waldorf Astor was a wealthy descendant of John Jacob Astor who became a New York State senator and a member of the New York State Assembly.

American neuroscientist Richard Axel is best known for his work on the olfactory system, exploring how the brain interprets smell.

Imamu Amiri Baraka is an African-American poet and scholar. He has served as professor emeritus of Africana Studies at the State Unversity of New York at Stony Brook.

Patricia Bath is the first African American to complete a residency in ophthalmology. She invented the Laserphaco Probe for cataract treatment in 1986.

Army nurse Florence Blanchfield is best known for her struggle to attain full military rank, and for equal rights in the military.

Isabella Blow was a British fashion director and style icon known for wearing flamboyant hats, many by designer Philip Treacy.

Dr. Joyce Brothers was a famous psychologist and multimedia personality known for dispensing frank advice on relationships, intimacy, sexuality and self-worth.

Since the end of the 1960s, Actor Roscoe Lee Browne made steady television appearances, including on Barney Miller, The Cosby Show, ER and Will & Grace.

Known as the "Oracle of Omaha," Warren Buffett is an investment guru and one of the richest and most respected businessmen in the world.

Joseph Campbell was a professor and author who focused on comparative folklore with books like The Power of Myth and The Hero With a Thousand Faces.

Shirley Chisholm was the first black congresswoman, and the first African-American woman to make a bid for the U.S. Presidency.

Psychologist and educator Kenneth Bancroft Clark was the first black president of the American Psychological Association.

Septima Poinsette Clark was a pioneering educator and activist who championed teacher’s rights with organizations like the NAACP.

Chelsea Clinton is a media correspondent and activist who is the daughter of Hillary Rodham Clinton and Bill Clinton.

Brian De Palma is a writer-director whose career has been marked by both hits and misses, with such films as Carrie and Bonfire of the Vanities.

Astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson hosted NOVA ScienceNow and appeared on such shows as The Daily Show and Real Time with Bill Maher.

Howard Dietz was a songwriter and the creator of the famous MGM lion mascot.

Charles Drew was an African-American surgeon who pioneered methods of storing blood plasma for transfusion and organized the first large-scale blood bank in the U.S.

Hall of Fame first baseman Lou Gehrig played for the New York Yankees in the 1920s and 1930s, setting the mark for consecutive games played. He died of ALS in 1941.

Allen Ginsberg is one of the 20th century's most influential poets, regarded as a founding father of the Beat Movement and known for works like "Howl."

Louise Glück is a poet whose work has been described as technically precise, sensitive, insightful and gripping.

Stephen Jay Gould was an American paleontologist and evolutionary biologist, and the best-selling writer of popular science books.

Mike Gravel is a former U.S. senator from Alaska, known for his efforts to end the draft during the Vietnam War and for releasing the Pentagon Papers.

Alexander Hamilton, a delegate to the Constitutional Convention and major author of the Federalist papers, was the United States' first secretary of the treasury.

Lyricist and librettist Oscar Hammerstein II collaborated with Richard Rodgers on the Pulitzer Prize–winning musicals Oklahoma! and South Pacific.

Lorenz Hart was an American lyricist best known for his collaborations with Richard Rodgers, including "My Funny Valentine" and "Blue Moon."

Based on his experience, novelist Joseph Heller wrote the satirical novel Catch-22, considered one of the most significant works of postwar protest literature.

Lillian Hellman was a playwright and screenwriter whose dramas attacked injustice, exploitation and selfishness.

When singer, songwriter and actress Lauryn Hill released her solo debut album, she became the first woman or hip-hop artist to win five Grammy Awards.

Langston Hughes was an American poet, novelist, and playwright whose African-American themes made him a primary contributor to the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s.

Author and activist Jane Jacobs wrote about preserving urban neighborhoods, in books like The Death and Life of Great American Cities and Dark Age Ahead.

James Weldon Johnson was an African-American writer, politician, educator and lawyer. He was also an early civil rights activist and leader of the NAACP.

Jack Kerouac was an American writer best known for the novel On the Road, which became an American classic, pioneering the Beat Generation in the 1950s.

Alicia Keys is a multiple Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter whose debut album, Songs in A Minor, went platinum five times over.

Dorothea Lange was a photographer whose portraits of displaced farmers during the Great Depression greatly influenced later documentary photography.

Audre Lorde wrote the poetry collections From a Land Where Other People Live (1973) and The Black Unicorn (1978), as well as memoirs like A Burst of Light (1988).

Director Sidney Lumet was best known for his films Twelve Angry Men and Serpico. He made more than 40 films during his career.

Yo-Yo Ma is an acclaimed cellist and songwriter who has produced dozens of albums and won more than 15 Grammy Awards.

Bernard Malamud was an American writer known for his novels and short stories of the Jewish-American life in the first half of the 20th century.

American producer, director and screenwriter Joseph L. Mankiewicz was known for creating memorable characters. He worked with many major Hollywood stars.

U.S. Psychologist Abraham Maslow was a practitioner of humanistic psychology. He is known for his theory of “self-actualization.”

Best-selling African-American novelist Terry McMillan wrote Waiting to Exhale and How Stella Got her Groove Back. Both became films starring Angela Bassett.

Margaret Mead is best known for her studies and publications on cultural anthropology.

James Meredith is a civil rights activist who became the first African American to attend the University of Mississippi in 1962.

Thomas Merton was a Trappist monk who was a revered pacifist and author, with works like Seven Storey Mountain and Thoughts in Solitude.

In 1897, Virginia O'Hanlon wrote a letter to a newspaper about the existence of Santa Claus and got the famous response, "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus."

Barack Obama is the 44th and current president of the United States, and the first African American to serve as U.S. president. First elected to the presidency in 2008, he won a second term in 2012.

Anthony Perkins is an Oscar-nominated stage and film actor who is best known for his role as Norman Bates in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho.

Frances Perkins was the first female to serve in the U.S. presidential cabinet. As secretary of labor, she helped with the New Deal and Social Security.

Adam Clayton Powell Jr. was a 20th century clergyman and U.S. representative who was a major force in establishing civil rights for African Americans.

Mario Puzo became famous when he adapted his novel The Godfather into a screenplay for director Francis Ford Coppola in the 1960s.

Tony Randall was an actor who played popular television character Felix Unger on the hit series The Odd Couple.

Sally Jesse Raphael is an American talk show host best known for TV’s Sally Jesse Raphael and her trademark red glasses.

From The Sound of Music to Oklahoma! to South Pacific, Richard Rodgers helped change the face of Broadway musicals, giving them stories and making them both memorable and "hum-able."

With his landmark novel Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger was an influential 20th-century American writer.

Telly Savalas was an American actor best known for his role as a tough, New York City detective in the 1970’s television series Kojak.

Born in 1957, Mona Simpson spent her early years in Green Bay, Wisconsin. She moved with her mother to Los Angeles as a teenager. While earning her M.F.A. degree at Columbia, Simpson became an editor at the Paris Review. She won accolades for her first novel Anywhere But Here (1986). After that initial success, Simpson has continued to produce well-regarded literary works, including My Hollywood (2010).

Actor and lawyer Ben Stein was a speech writer for Richard Nixon, but is best known as the economics teacher in Ferris Bueller's Day Off.

Actress Julia Stiles is best known for her roles in films like Save the Last Dance, 10 Things I Hate About You and The Bourne Ultimatum.

Educational psychologist E.L. Thorndike pioneered the fields of animal learning and behavioral psychology with his theory of connectionism.

Anne Tyler is an American novelist best known for writing The Accidental Tourist (1985) which was made into a movie in 1988 starring William Hurt and Geena Davis.

LeRoy Walker was the first black coach of an American Olympic team and the first black president of the U.S. Olympic Committee.