List of Haverford College people

This List of Haverford College people includes alumni and faculty of Haverford College. As of 2010, Haverford alumni include 5 Nobel Prize laureates, 4 MacArthur Fellows, 20 Rhodes Scholarship recipients, 10 Marshall Scholarship recipients, 9 Henry Luce Fellows, 56 Watson Fellows, 2 George Mitchell Scholarship, 2 Churchill Scholars, 1 Gates Cambridge Scholar, 13 All Americans, and 23 NCAA post-graduate winners.

Business and industry

 * Iwao Ayusawa 1917, Japanese labour relations author
 * Emily Best 2002, founder of crowdfunding platform Seed&Spark
 * Josh Byrnes 1992, senior vice president of baseball operations, Los Angeles Dodgers
 * William S. Halstead 1926, inventor in national and international communication; held more than 80 patents in radio and television development
 * Alex Karp 1989, billionaire co-founder and CEO of Palantir Technologies
 * Michael Kim 1985, billionaire co-founder and partner of MBK Partners
 * James Kuo 1986, bio-medical entrepreneur; CEO of BioMicro Systems
 * Andrew L. Lewis, Jr. 1953, former chairman and CEO of Union Pacific Corporation
 * Gerald M. Levin 1960, former Time Warner Inc. Chief Executive Officer
 * Eugene Ludwig 1968, chairman and CEO of Promontory Financial Group; former U.S. Comptroller of the Currency
 * Howard Lutnick 1983, billionaire chairman and CEO of the Cantor Fitzgerald Company
 * Robert MacCrate 1943, Sullivan & Cromwell Vice Chairman; legal education reformer
 * J. Howard Marshall 1926, Texan billionaire oil tycoon who married Anna Nicole Smith in his late 80s
 * Tony Petitti 1983, CEO of MLB Network
 * Jane Silber 1985, CEO of Canonical, maintainers of the Ubuntu operating system
 * Ken Stern 1985, former CEO of NPR
 * Arn Tellem 1976, principal, Management Wasserman Media Group
 * John C. Whitehead 1943, former co-chairman of Goldman Sachs, deputy U.S. Secretary of State in the Reagan administration and later chairman of Lower Manhattan Development Corporation; namesake of Whitehead Campus Center
 * Barry Zubrow 1975, former chief risk officer at JP Morgan Chase; former chief administrative officer at Goldman Sachs

Higher education and academia

 * Carl B. Allendoerfer 1934, mathematician and former chair of University of Washington mathematics department
 * Anthony Amsterdam 1957, MacArthur Fellow, university professor of law, NYU
 * Robert Bates 1964, Eaton Professor of Science of Government, Harvard University
 * Terry Belanger 1963, 2005 MacArthur Fellow, university professor and director of Rare Book School, University of Virginia
 * Douglas C. Bennett 1968, former provost of Reed College, and former president of Earlham College
 * Thomas J. Christensen 1984, interim dean of School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University
 * Tristram Potter Coffin 1943, 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 1974, 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 (2007–2011)
 * David W. Fraser 1968, former president of Swarthmore College, epidemiologist who led team that identified Legionnarires' Disease
 * Joan Gabel 1988, chancellor of University of Pittsburgh
 * Henry H. Goddard 1887, 1889 (M.A.), eugenicist, director of research at Vineland Training School, first in the U.S. to study intellectual disabilities
 * Peter Bacon Hales 1972, professor of art history and director of the American Studies Institute at the University of Illinois at Chicago
 * Theophilus Herter 1945 (B.A.), 1947 (M.A.), Anglican bishop and professor at Reformed Episcopal Seminary
 * Akira Iriye 1957, professor of history at Harvard University, president of American Historical Society
 * Fredric Jameson 1954, Marxist cultural and literary critic, William A. Lane Professor of Comparative Literature and Romance Studies at Duke University
 * Garry W. Jenkins 1992, president of Bates College
 * Walter Kaegi 1959, 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 1961, former president of Brooklyn College
 * Mark A.R. Kleiman 1972, 1951-2019, professor of public policy at NYU, previously of UCLA, Harvard, criminal justice and drug policy expert, blogger
 * Douglas Koshland 1976, professor of molecular and cellular biology at University of California, Berkeley
 * Bruce Lincoln 1970, author of Holy Terrors; professor at the University of Chicago Divinity School
 * Stephen J. Lippard 1962, Arthur Amos Noyes Professor of Chemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
 * George Marsden 1959, Francis A. McAnaney Professor of History at the University of Notre Dame (1992–2008), winner of the Bancroft Prize and Merle Curti Award for Jonathan Edwards: A Life
 * Marc Melitz 1989, professor of economics, Harvard College
 * Paul B. Moses 1951, 1929-1966, professor of Art and the Humanities, University of Chicago
 * George Mosse 1941, 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 1962, Edgar Pierce Professor of Psychology, Harvard University
 * Adam Zachary Newton 1980, professor of English, Yeshiva University
 * Frank J. Popper 1965, 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" (LULU)
 * Jack Rakove 1968, William Robertson Coe Professor of History and American Studies at Stanford, winner of the 1997 Pulitzer Prize for History
 * Hunter R. Rawlings III 1966 Classics, 10th president of Cornell University 1995–2003 (made interim president again in 2005), former president of University of Iowa
 * Fred Rodell 1926, LL.D. 1973; professor, 1933–1973, at Yale Law School; proponent of legal realism
 * Charles Coleman Sellers 1925, librarian at Dickinson College and Bancroft Prize-winning biographer and historian
 * Edward A. Shanken 1986, University of Amsterdam, author of Art and Electronic Media
 * Ed Sikov 1978, 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 1960, historian of religion, University of Chicago
 * Eric Tagliacozzo 1989, professor of Southeast Asian history, Cornell University
 * Joseph H. Taylor 1963, former dean of faculty, of physics Princeton University, Nobel Laureate ‘93 in Physics
 * David Thornburgh 1981, executive director, Fels Institute of Government at the University of Pennsylvania (2008–present)
 * Sarah Willie-LeBreton 1986, president of Smith College, and former provost of Swarthmore College
 * 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
 * William Carragan 1958, musicologist noted for his work on Anton Bruckner, and for contributions to physics
 * Chevy Chase, ex-1966, 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 1970s 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 (age 10)
 * 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 (of counsel) for Steptoe & Johnson LLP
 * Judd Nelson ex-1982, actor, did not graduate
 * Craig Owens 1971, art critic and theorist
 * Maxfield Parrish (attended 1888–1891), painter, illustrator
 * Rand Ravich 1984, writer, director, and producer
 * Henry Richardson 1983, artist, designed Connecticut 9/11 memorial
 * Mark Schatz 1978, musician, dancer, and music producer
 * George Segal ex-1955, actor, attended
 * Alena Smith 2002, screenwriter and producer
 * Sigmund Spaeth 1905 (D.H.L. (Hon.) 1965), musicologist, composer, radio personality, known as The Tune Detective
 * Gregory Whitehead 1978, audio artist, media philosopher, award-winning radio playwright and documentary producer
 * David Whiting 1968, journalist and manager of actress Sarah Miles
 * Alfred Grossman 1948, writer and novelist.
 * Tobias Iaconis 1993, screenwriter
 * Sunny Singh (filmographer) 2008

Government, diplomacy, and law

 * Richard G. Andrews 1977, judge, U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware
 * Thomas Barlow 1962, former Democratic member of Congress from Kentucky
 * Gary Born 1978, international arbitrator and partner, Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP
 * Robert Braucher 1936, former Associate Justice, Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
 * Charles Canady 1976, former Republican member of Congress; Florida Supreme Court Justice; coined the term "partial-birth abortion"
 * Ron Christie 1991, former special assistant to President George W. Bush and deputy assistant to Vice President Dick Cheney
 * Richard M. Cooper 1964, Rhodes Scholar, former chief counsel for Food and Drug Administration, partner at Williams & Connolly LLP
 * Henry S. Drinker, Jr. 1900, 1949 Litt.D. (Hon.), managing partner and namesake of Drinker Biddle & Reath law firm (now Faegre Drinker); counsel to University of Pennsylvania; musicologist and chamber music enthusiast; ethics scholar
 * Harold Evans 1907, 1968 LL.D. (Hon.), Philadelphia lawyer, active in AFSC, U.N.-appointed first mayor of Jerusalem (1948), argued before Supreme Court in Hirabayashi v. United States (1943)
 * Mark Geragos 1979, defense attorney for Winona Ryder and Michael Jackson
 * Peter J. Goldmark 1967, Washington State Commissioner of Public Lands
 * Oscar Goodman 1961, former Mayor of Las Vegas, former criminal defense attorney
 * David F. Hamilton ’79, Judge, U.S. Court Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
 * Lawson Harvey 1877, Justice of the Indiana Supreme Court
 * Fritz Kaegi, 1993, Democrat, current Cook County Assessor, IL
 * Indya Kincannon 1993, Mayor of Knoxville, TN
 * Mark D. Levine 1991, New York City Councilmember
 * Andrew Lewis 1953, former CEO Union Pacific, Secretary of Transportation under President Ronald Reagan
 * Kermit Lipez ‘63, Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit
 * Eugene Ludwig 1968, former US Comptroller of the Currency, partner of Covington & Burling LLP
 * Robert MacCrate 1943, Sullivan & Cromwell Vice Chairman and legal education reformer
 * Charles Mathias 1944, former Republican Congressman and Senator from Maryland
 * Koichiro Matsuura 1961 Economics, former Japanese Ambassador to France, 1999-now, director-general of UNESCO
 * Jim Moody 1967, former Democratic member of Congress from Wisconsin
 * Philip Noel-Baker, Baron Noel-Baker 1908, Nobel Laureate (1959); 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 1976, Attorney General of Rhode Island 1993–1999
 * Stephen H. Sachs 1954, lawyer; former Attorney General of Maryland; US Attorney for the District of Maryland, where he prosecuted the Catonsville Nine
 * Rob Simmons 1965, former Republican Congressman of Connecticut
 * Christopher Van Hollen 1947, former United States Ambassador to Sri Lanka and the Maldives from 1972 to 1976
 * Bruce H. Andrews 1990, former Deputy Secretary of Commerce in the Obama administration

Journalism

 * John Carroll 1963, former executive vice president and editor of The Los Angeles Times; first Knight Visiting Lecturer at Harvard's Shorenstein Center
 * Dirck Halstead 1958, photojournalist
 * Adi Ignatius 1981, editor-in-chief of Harvard Business Review
 * 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 Inc.; chief content officer of 'Bloomberg L.P., senior advisor at the Carlyle Group; former managing editor of The Wall Street Journal; former executive editor of Los Angeles Times
 * David Wessel 1975, Wall Street Journal, National Public Radio economics correspondent
 * Juan Williams 1976 philosophy, Fox News Channel senior correspondent
 * Martin Evans 1979 Fine Arts, co-winner 1997 Pulitzer Prize for spot news Newsday; Pacific Rim correspondent The Orange County Register; The Baltimore Sun; The Baltimore Afro-American.

Literature and writing

 * Lloyd Alexander (attended ca. 1940, did not graduate), Newbery Medal-winning author
 * Nicholson Baker 1979, novelist, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award
 * Dave Barry 1969 English, Pulitzer Prize–winning humor columnist
 * John Dickson Carr 1929, author of detective stories; also published under the pen names Carter Dickson, Carr Dickson and Roger Fairbairn
 * Frank Conroy 1958, author, late director of the Iowa Writers Workshop
 * Robert Flynn, 1990, editor in chief of Getty Publications
 * Roy Gutman 1966, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, author
 * Colin Harrison, 1982 author, editor to numerous prominent authors, and editor-in-chief for Scribners.
 * Evan Jones 1949, poet, playwright, and screenwriter
 * Richard Lederer 1959, 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 1964, 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

 * Andrew E. Budson 1988, neurologist, researcher, Associate Director of the Boston University Alzheimer's Disease Research Center
 * Adam S. Cifu 1989 internist, professor of medicine, The University of Chicago
 * Tom Farley 1977, M.D., M.P.H., formerly Commissioner of Health, Cities of New York and Philadelphia
 * David R. Gastfriend 1976, psychiatrist, addiction treatment researcher, and former CEO of the Treatment Research Institute
 * Alan Gerry, chair of orthopedic surgery, Harvard Medical School
 * William H. Harris 1949, orthopedic surgery pioneer; namesake of the Harris Hip Score
 * Jon Kabat-Zinn 1964, mindfulness meditation
 * Raymond Rocco Monto 1982, orthopedic surgeon, researcher, writer; winner of the 2012 Jacques Duparc EFORT research award, president of Nantucket Cottage Hospital
 * Kari Nadeau 1988, 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
 * Jesse Ehrenfeld 2000, president of the American Medical Association

Science

 * Roger Bacon 1951 Physics, inventor of carbon fiber in 1958
 * James Dahlberg 1962, professor emeritus of biomolecular chemistry, University of Wisconsin–Madison
 * Stephen J. Lippard 1962, Arthur Amos Noyes Professor of Chemistry, MIT
 * Frank Eugene Lutz 1900, leading entomologist in the first half of the 20th century and curator at American Museum of Natural History 1909-1943. Developed first nature trail in the United States, the Educational trail.
 * Theodore William Richards class of 1885, Nobel laureate (Chemistry, 1914), first American to win a Nobel in Chemistry
 * George Smith 1963, winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2018, Curators' Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Biological Sciences at the University of Missouri
 * Joseph Hooton Taylor, Jr. 1963 Physics, Nobel laureate (Physics, 1993), Dean of Faculty at Princeton University
 * Michael J. Weber 1963, Director of the University of Virginia Cancer Center and co-discoverer of MAP Kinase
 * Philip M. Whitman 1937, mathematician, solved the word problem for free lattices

Social action, philanthropy, and community service

 * Henry J. Cadbury 1903, 1933 Litt.D. (Hon.) Nobel Peace Prize winner and founder of American Friends Service Committee (AFSC)
 * Norman Hill 1956, civil rights activist, Black labor leader
 * Rufus Jones 1885, 1922 LL.D. (Hon.), author, philosopher and founder of the American Friends Service Committee
 * Howard Thurman c. 1930 (special student), 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 1992, senior vice president of baseball operations, San Diego Padres; former general manager of the Arizona Diamondbacks
 * Thad Levine 1994, general manager of the Minnesota Twins
 * Philip Noel-Baker, Baron Noel-Baker 1908, ran for Great Britain in the Olympic games in 1912, 1920 (silver medalist at 1500 meters), 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 1997, first NCAA Division III runner to run a sub-four minute mile and world record holder in the indoor 4x800 relay race
 * Tony Petitti 1983, chief operating officer, Major League Baseball and former president and chief executive officer, MLB Network
 * Stephen Ridings 2017, professional baseball pitcher for the New York Yankees
 * Ronald M. Shapiro 1964, 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 1976, 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

Notable current and former faculty

 * Richard J. Bernstein, professor of philosophy (1966–1989); author of John Dewey (1966); Dean of Graduate Studies, New School of Social Research
 * Lynne Butler, professor of mathematics and statistics
 * 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. (Hon.) 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 (1961–1991); peace and justice activist
 * Elihu Grant, writer, professor of Biblical literature (1917–1938)
 * Elaine Tuttle Hansen, provost of Haverford College 1995–2002; president of Bates College in Lewiston, Maine
 * Louise Holland (1893–1990), academic, philologist and archaeologist
 * Anita Isaacs, Benjamin Collins Professor of Social Sciences; professor of political science
 * Rufus Jones, professor of philosophy (1893–1934); 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 (1948–1966), scholar of black urban and immigrant life in the United States
 * Michael Sells, guest professor of comparative religions at Haverford (1984–2005); 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 1978, 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
 * Douglas V. Steere, professor of philosophy (1928 to 1964); organized Quaker post-war relief work in Finland, Norway and Poland; invited to participate as an ecumenical observer in the Second Vatican Council
 * Ronald F. Thiemann, chairman of Religion (1975–1985), dean of Harvard Divinity School (1986–1998)
 * Josiah ("Tink") Thompson, professor of philosophy (1965–1976); biographer and scholar of Søren Kierkegaard; expert on assassination of John F. Kennedy (author of Six Seconds in Dallas (1967) and Last Second in Dallas (2021); left academia to become a private investigator in San Francisco; author of memoir Gumshoe
 * Cornel West, assistant professor of Philosophy (1987–88), currently professor of religion at Princeton University
 * Elisabeth Young-Bruehl, author and psychoanalyst, former student and biographer of Hannah Arendt
 * Sorelle Friedler, Assistant Director for Data and Democracy in the Whitehouse Office of Science and Technology Policy