List of people from Palo Alto

This is a list of notable people from Palo Alto, California. It includes people who were born/raised in, lived in, or spent portions of their lives in Palo Alto, or for whom Palo Alto is a significant part of their identity.

Actors
• Zach Appelman, actor known for the television series Sleepy Hollow, was born and raised in Palo Alto and is a Palo Alto High alumnus.

• Aarón Díaz, Mexican American actor, singer, and model; born in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, raised in Palo Alto.

• Polly Draper, actress, screenplay writer, producer, and director; was in the television program Thirtysomething; raised in Palo Alto.

• Dave Franco, actor, was born in Palo Alto.

• James Franco, actor, director, screenwriter, producer, artist, and author, was born in Palo Alto.

• Neva Gerber, silent screen actress, moved to Palo Alto after she married San Francisco oil geologist, Edward F. Nolan.

• Charles Haid, actor and director known for Hill Street Blues, graduated from Palo Alto High in 1961.

• Teri Hatcher, actress known for Desperate Housewives and Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, was born in Palo Alto.

• Amy Irving, actress known for Crossing Delancey and Yentl, was born in Palo Alto.

• Željko Ivanek, actor known for 24, Damages, and Madam Secretary, is an Ellwood P. Cubberley High School alumnus.

• Ellen K, radio personality and television host, was born in Palo Alto.

• Brandis Kemp, actress known for television series Fridays.

• Kaja Martin, actress and film producer, involved in Riley Rewind, was born and raised in Palo Alto.

• Shemar Moore, actor and model, is a Gunn High School alumnus.

• Rick Rossovich, actor known for Top Gun, Roxanne, and The Terminator.

• Alessandra Torresani, actress known for Caprica, was born and raised in Palo Alto.

• Bree Turner, actress known for the television series Grimm, was born in Palo Alto.

• Sheila Vand, actress known for her role in Argo, was raised in Palo Alto.

Fine artists
• Jeremy Anderson (artist), wood sculptor and professor, graduated from Palo Alto High School

• Greg Brown (painter), trompe-l'oeil muralist, grew up in Palo Alto and graduated from Palo Alto High School in 1969.

• Margo Davis, photographer, lived in Palo Alto for over 30 years.

• Terry Acebo Davis, fine artist and Chairperson of the Palo Alto Public Art Commission.

• Pedro Joseph de Lemos, painter, printmaker, architect, illustrator, writer, lecturer, and museum director, lived and died in Palo Alto.

• Edward McNeil Farmer, watercolorist, oil painter, and professor at Stanford University, lived in Palo Alto and was active in the Pacific Art League (previously known as Palo Alto Art Club).

• Donald Farnsworth, fine art master printmaker, was born in Palo Alto.

• Helen Katharine Forbes, muralist and painter, grew up in Palo Alto.

• Tom Franco, artist and actor, grew up in Palo Alto and attended Palo Alto High School, graduating in 1998.

• James Gurney, illustrator, artist, and creator of the Dinotopia world, grew up in Palo Alto.

• Ollie Johnston, Academy Award–winning Disney animator, known for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Fantasia.

• Nina Katchadourian, artist, attended Gunn High School.

• Paula Kirkeby (1934–2016), art collector, art donor, and the director and founder of the commercial art gallery, Smith Andersen Gallery, and printshops, Smith Andersen Editions and 3EP Ltd. Press.

• Bertha Elizabeth Stringer Lee (1869–1937), California Impressionist painter, died in Palo Alto.

• Elizabeth Norton (1887–1985), bronze sculptor, printmaker, painter, and one of the founders of the Palo Alto Art Club (now known as the Pacific Art League).

• Nathan Oliveira, painter and educator within the Bay Area Figurative Movement, maintained his art studio in Palo Alto.

• Yvonne Rainer, modern dancer and filmmaker.

• John Aloysius Stanton (1857–1929), painter, academic administrator, and professor.

• Cloyd Jonathan Sweigert, political cartoonist for the San Francisco Chronicle, California Impressionist painter, and member of the Pacific Art League (previously known as Palo Alto Art Club).

• Jimmy Swinnerton, cartoonist and fine art painter, maintained a house in Palo Alto for many years.

• Jacqueline Thurston, visual artist and writer, has lived in Palo Alto for many years.

• Shirley Williamson (1875–1944), California Impressionist painter, monotype printer, and member of the Pacific Art League (previously known as Palo Alto Art Club), lived in Palo Alto for many years.

Designers
• Arthur Bridgman Clark (1866–1949), architect, professor, first mayor of Mayfield, and first head of the Art Department at Stanford University.

• Birge Clark (1893–1989), architect that worked largely in the Spanish Colonial Revival style around Palo Alto.

• Lisa Hanawalt (born 1983), illustrator, cartoonist, production designer and producer; executive produced the Netflix animated series, Tuca & Bertie; born and raised in Palo Alto.

• Michael Manwaring (born 1942) designer, artist, and one of the founders of the San Francisco Bay Area postmodern movement in graphic design; born and raised in Palo Alto.

• Michael H. Riley, Emmy Award-nominated motion graphics designer and art director, grew up in Palo Alto

• Sigrid Lorenzen Rupp, architect and artist, specialized in designing facilities for tech companies in Silicon Valley.

Business leaders and entrepreneurs
• Sergey Brin (born 1973), co-founder of Google.

• Thomas Foon Chew, founder of Bayside Canning Company in 1918.

• Tim Cook (born 1960), CEO of Apple Inc. since 2011.

• Debbi Fields (born 1956), founder of Mrs. Fields Bakeries.

• David Filo (born 1966), co-founder of Yahoo! Inc.

• Jack Herrick, founder of wikiHow.

• William Hewlett (1913–2001), co-founder of technology company Hewlett-Packard; buried at Alta Mesa Cemetery in Palo Alto.

• Mark Hurd (1957–2019), former joint CEO of Oracle Corporation; past chairman, chief executive officer, and President of Hewlett-Packard.

• Steve Jobs (1955–2011), co-founder of Apple Inc., lived in Palo Alto (1980–2011); buried at Alta Mesa Cemetery in Palo Alto.

• Jawed Karim, co-founder of YouTube.

• Darren Kimura, founder of Sopogy and Inventor of MicroCSP solar technology.

• William R. Larson, founder of Round Table Pizza.

• Marissa Mayer, CEO and president of Yahoo!; former vice president of search products and user experience at Google.

• Chip Morningstar, software developer; project leader for Lucasfilm's Habitat, the first large-scale virtual multiuser environment; current resident.

• Stephen Neal, chairman of Cooley LLP; current resident.

• Reid Hoffman, co-founder and executive chairman of LinkedIn.

• David Packard (1912–1996), co-founder of technology company Hewlett-Packard; buried at Alta Mesa Cemetery in Palo Alto.

• Larry Page, co-founder and CEO of Google; current resident.

• Vishal Sikka, ex-CEO of Infosys, ex-CTO of SAP AG.

• Owen Van Natta, COO of Facebook, CEO of Myspace, COO of Zynga.

• Romesh Wadhwani, founder and chairman of Symphony Technology Group.

• Anne Wojcicki, co-founder and CEO of 23andMe.

• Jerry Yang, co-founder and former CEO of Yahoo! Inc.

• Mark Zuckerberg, co-founder and CEO of Facebook.

Musicians

 * William Ackerman, acoustic guitarist, founded influential New Age record label Windham Hill Records.
 * Joan Baez, folk singer, went to school in Palo Alto and now resides in Woodside, California.
 * Lindsey Buckingham, musician, singer, songwriter, and producer, best known as lead guitarist and one of the vocalists of the musical group Fleetwood Mac, was born and raised in Palo Alto.
 * Doug Clifford, drummer of Creedence Clearwater Revival and Palo Alto native.
 * The Grateful Dead, rock "jam" band; early incarnations of the band were based in Palo Alto.
 * Ron "Pigpen" McKernan (1945–1973), founding member of the Grateful Dead; moved to Palo Alto as a teenager; buried at Alta Mesa Memorial Park.
 * Jerry Garcia (1942–1995), founding member of the Grateful Dead; moved to Palo Alto in the 1960s.
 * Bill Kreutzmann (born 1946), founding member and drummer of the Grateful Dead; born and raised in Palo Alto.
 * The Donnas, rock group, met while growing up in Palo Alto; graduated from Palo Alto High in 1997.
 * Stephan Jenkins, rock musician with Third Eye Blind and Gunn High School alumnus (1983).
 * Ugly Kid Joe, rock band; members Whitfield Crane and Klaus Eichstadt grew up in Palo Alto, as did producer Eric Valentine.
 * The Kingston Trio, folk group, formed in Palo Alto while its members were enrolled at Stanford University and nearby Menlo College.
 * Rick Nowels, pop music record producer and songwriter.
 * Virginia Seay, composer and musicologist, was born in Palo Alto in 1922.
 * Grace Slick, singer with the rock group Jefferson Airplane, later known as Jefferson Starship.
 * Matt Simons, singer-songwriter, was born and raised in Palo Alto; graduated from Gunn High School in 2005.
 * Molly Tuttle, singer-songwriter, banjo player, guitarist, recording artist, and teacher in the bluegrass tradition, was raised in Palo Alto and attended Palo Alto High School.

Politicians, political figures and civil servants

 * Robert Bell, Virginia State Delegate, was born in Palo Alto.
 * Ron Christie, former advisor to Vice President Dick Cheney and political pundit.
 * Jerry Daniels, CIA officer in Laos during the Vietnam War.
 * Herbert Hoover, the 31st President of the United States; starting in 1916, he maintained a home in Palo Alto.
 * Jon Huntsman, Jr., former governor of Utah and U.S Ambassador to China.
 * Merrill Newman (born 1928), Palo Alto Channing House resident, former United States Army officer, and Korean War veteran, noted for his 2013 arrest in North Korea.
 * Condoleezza Rice, former U.S. Secretary of State.
 * Thomas T. Riley, former U.S. Ambassador to Morocco.
 * Manabendra Nath Roy, Indian nationalist and revolutionary.
 * Byron Sher (born 1928), served in the California State Senate from 1996 to 2004, the California State Assembly from 1980 and 1996, and was a professor emeritus at Stanford Law School.
 * Sarah Wallis (1825–1905), the first President of the California Woman Suffrage Educational Association.
 * Ron Wyden, United States Senator.

Religion

 * Indradyumna Swami (formerly Brian Tibbitts), ISKCON Guru and a sannyasi for the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, was born and raised in Palo Alto.
 * John Duryea, former Palo Alto Catholic priest excommunicated by the church in the 1970s and author of his autobiography.
 * Gerrit W. Gong, member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), was raised in Palo Alto.

Scientists

 * Richard R. Ernst, Nobel laureate in chemistry, worked at Varian Associates in Palo Alto.
 * Gene F. Franklin, control engineer and NASA scientist.
 * Michio Kaku, theoretical physicist, author, and college professor; attended Cubberly High School and built an atom smasher in his parents' garage.
 * Brian Kobilka, Nobel laureate in chemistry, lives in Palo Alto.
 * Arthur Kornberg (1918–2007), Nobel prizewinning biochemist.
 * Pamela Melroy, astronaut and second woman to command a space shuttle mission.
 * Maryam Mirzakhani (1977–2017), Iranian mathematician and professor of mathematics at Stanford University.
 * James G. Moore (born 1930), American geologist, was born in Palo Alto.
 * Ida Shepard Oldroyd, conchologist and curator (1856–1940).
 * Perley Ason Ross, physicist who worked on essential problems in the behaviour of X-rays.
 * Robert Spinrad (1932–2009), computer pioneer as director of the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center.
 * William Shockley, Nobel laureate in physics and eugenicist.
 * Sidney Dean Townley, astronomer, geodeticist, and Stanford University professor emeritus.

Writers
• David M. Alexander, attorney and science-fiction and crime novelist.

• Jordan Allen-Dutton, screenplay writer and producer of theatre, was raised in Palo Alto.

• Renée Ashley, poet, novelist, essayist, and educator, was born in Palo Alto.

• Raymond Carver, short story writer and poet.

• Erle Stanley Gardner, crime novelist and creator of Perry Mason.

• Ariel Gore (born 1970), journalist, memoirist, and novelist author, was raised in Palo Alto.

• Ken Kesey (1935–2001), novelist, short story writer, playwright, and author of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, which he finished writing while living in a cottage in Palo Alto.

• Marty Klein (born 1950), American sex therapist, author, educator, and public policy analyst.

• Michael Lederer, author.

• John Markoff, Pulitzer prize winner and former New York Times technology journalist; grew up in Palo Alto and has lived there for many years.

• Chanel Miller (born 1992), victim of sexual assault and author of best-selling memoir Know My Name.

• Azadeh Moaveni (born 1976), Iranian-American journalist and author, was born in Palo Alto; author of Lipstick Jihad: A Memoir of Growing up Iranian in America and American in Iran.

• Julia Flynn Siler, journalist and nonfiction author.

• Keith Raffel, crime novelist, tech entrepreneur, and university lecturer.

• Andrea U'Ren, children's book author and illustrator.

• Tad Williams, New York Times best-selling author.

• Yvor Winters, poet, known as the "Sage of Palo Alto."

• Ron Unz (born 1961), far-right writer.

• Al Young (1939–2021), poet, educator, novelist, and essayist, lived in Palo Alto for almost three decades.

• Jessica Yu (born 1966), screenplay writer and film director, attended Gunn High School.

Athletes



 * Davante Adams, NFL wide receiver for the Las Vegas Raiders, is an East Palo Alto resident and Palo Alto High School graduate.
 * Harris Barton (born 1964), All Pro NFL offensive lineman.
 * Matt Biondi (born 1965), swimmer and winner of 11 Olympic medals (8 gold), was born in Palo Alto.
 * Hunter Bishop (born 1998), baseball player.
 * Nick Bravin (born 1971), Olympic fencer.
 * Jim Harbaugh, former football player and current head coach of the Los Angeles Chargers, graduated from Palo Alto High School in 1982.
 * Tony Hargain, NFL player.
 * Phil Hellmuth, professional poker player who holds a record 16 WSOP bracelets with total earnings of more than $25 million to date.
 * Katie Hoff, Olympic swimmer, is a Palo Alto native.
 * Adam Juratovac, professional football player and Arena Bowl XXIII champion is an alumnus of Gunn High School.
 * Dana Kirk, Olympic swimmer, coaches for Palo Alto Stanford Aquatics.
 * Tara Kirk, Olympic swimmer, swam with Palo Alto Stanford Aquatics; American record holder in 100 and 200 yd breaststroke.
 * Hilary Knight, PHWL ice hockey player, 1-time Olympic gold medal winner, 9-time Women's World Championships winner.
 * Trajan Langdon, basketball executive and former player.
 * Francie Larrieu-Smith, long-distance runner and first female athlete to make five Olympic teams, was born in Palo Alto.
 * Jeremy Lin (born 1988), basketball player, formerly for the NBA's Toronto Raptors, is an alumnus of Palo Alto High School.
 * Jim Loscutoff, basketball player who won seven NBA championships with the Boston Celtics.
 * Don MacLean, UCLA and NBA basketball player.
 * Bob Melvin (born 1961), Major League Baseball player and manager of the San Francisco Giants.
 * Joc Pederson (born 1992), baseball player for the San Francisco Giants.
 * Dan Petry, pitcher for 1984 World Series champion Detroit Tigers, was born in Palo Alto.
 * Tim Rossovich, professional football player.
 * Dave Schultz, Olympic gold medalist and World Champion in freestyle wrestling, subject of film Foxcatcher.
 * Mark Schultz, Olympic gold medalist and two-time World Champion in freestyle wrestling, subject of film Foxcatcher.
 * Pop Warner, early football player and head coach of eight colleges including Stanford University (1924–1932), lived and died in Palo Alto.
 * Charles Wright, professional wrestler, formerly worked for WWE as Papa Shango and The Godfather.
 * Steve Young, former professional football player for the San Francisco 49ers and NFL Hall of Famer.
 * Vincent Zhou, figure skater, attended the 2018 Winter Olympics.