List of Columbia University people

This is a partially sorted list of notable persons who have had ties to Columbia University.

Nobel Laureates: Alumni or Alumni/Faculty

Chemistry

1932	Irving Langmuir	(metallurgical engineering degree, 1903; M.A., 1906)
1946	John H. Northrop	(B.S., 1912; M.A., 1913; Ph.D., 1915)
1972	William H. Stein	(Ph.D., 1938)
1981	Roald Hoffmann	(B.A., 1958)
1985	Herbert A. Hauptman	(M.A., 1939)
2001	William S. Knowles	(Ph.D., 1942)
2005	Robert H. Grubbs	(Ph.D., 1968)

Economic science

1971	Simon S. Kuznets	(B.S., 1923; M.A., 1924; Ph.D., 1926)
1972	Kenneth J. Arrow	(M.A., 1941; Ph.D., 1951)
1976	Milton Friedman	(Ph.D., 1946; faculty member, 1964 to 1965)
1993	Robert W. Fogel	(M.A., 1960)
1996	William S. Vickrey	(M.A., 1937; Ph.D., 1948; faculty member, 1946 to 1996)
1997	Robert C. Merton	(B.S., 1966)

Peace

1906	Theodore Roosevelt	(Law, 1880 to 1882)
1931	Nicholas Murray Butler	(B.A., 1882; M.A., 1883; Ph.D., 1884, president of Columbia, 1902 to 1945)

Physics

1923	Robert A. Millikan	(Ph.D., 1895)
1944	I.I. Rabi	(Ph.D., 1927; faculty member, 1929 to 1988)
1965	Julian S. Schwinger	(B.A., 1936; Ph.D., 1939)
1972	Leon N. Cooper	(B.A., 1951; M.A., 1953; Ph.D., 1954)
1975	James Rainwater	(M.A., 1941; Ph.D., 1946; faculty member, 1939 to 1986)
1978	Arno A. Penzias	(M.A., 1958; Ph.D., 1962)
1980	Val L. Fitch	(Ph.D., 1954; faculty member, 1953 to 1954)
1988	Leon M. Lederman	(M.A., 1948; Ph.D., 1951; faculty member, 1951 to 1989)
1988	Melvin Schwartz	(B.A., 1953; Ph.D., 1958; faculty member, 1958 to 1966, 1991 to present)
1989	Norman F. Ramsey	(B.A., 1935; Ph.D., 1940; faculty member, 1941 to 1947)
1995	Martin L. Perl	(Ph.D., 1955)

Physiology or Medicine

1946	Hermann J. Muller	(B.A., 1910; M.A., 1911; Ph.D., 1916; faculty member, 1918 to 1920)
1950	Edward C. Kendall	(B.S., 1908; M.A., 1909; Ph.D., 1910)
1956	Dickinson W. Richards	(M.A., 1922; M.D., 1923; faculty member, 1925 to 1973)
1958	Joshua Lederberg	(B.A., 1944; faculty member, 1990 to 1999)
1964	Konrad E. Bloch	(Ph.D., 1938; faculty member, 1938 to 1946, 1966)
1967	George Wald	(M.A., 1928)
1976	Baruch S. Blumberg	(M.D., 1951)
1980	Baruj Benacerraf	(B.S., 1942)
1989	Harold E. Varmus	(M.D., 1966)
1998	Louis J. Ignarro	(B.S., 1962)
2004	Richard Axel	(A.B., 1967; faculty member, 1978 to present)

Nobel Laureates: Faculty, Research Fellows, Others

Chemistry

1934	Harold C. Urey	(faculty member, 1929 to 1945)
1960	Willard Libby	(faculty, 1941 to 1944)
1989	Sidney Altman	(graduate student, teaching assistant, 1960 to 1962)

Economic science

1982	George J. Stigler	(faculty member, 1947 to 1958)
1987	Robert Solow	(fellowship year, 1949 to 1950)
1992	Gary S. Becker	(faculty member, 1957 to 1970)
1999	Robert Mundell	(faculty member, 1974 to present)
2001	Joseph Stiglitz	(faculty member, 2001 to present)

Literature

1987	Joseph Brodsky	(faculty member, 1978 to 1985)
1991	Nadine Gordimer	(faculty member, 1971 to 1972, 1976 to 1978, 1983)
1992	Derek Walcott	(faculty member, 1979, 1981 to 1983, 1984)

Physics

1938	Enrico Fermi	(faculty member, 1939 to 1945)
1949	Hideki Yukawa	(faculty member, 1949 to 1954)
1955	Polykarp Kusch	(faculty member, 1937 to 1972)
1955	Willis E. Lamb	(faculty member, 1938 to 1952, 1960 to 1961)
1957	Tsung Dao Lee	(faculty member, 1953 to present)
1963	Maria Goeppert Mayer	(faculty member, 1940 to 1946)
1964	Charles H. Townes	(faculty member, 1948 to 1961)
1975	Aage Bohr	(faculty member, 1949 to 1950)
1976	Samuel C.C. Ting	(faculty member, 1964 to 1967)
1979	Steven Weinberg	(faculty member, 1957 to 1959)
1981	Arthur L. Schawlow	(faculty member, 1949 to 1951, 1960)
1984	Carlo Rubbia	(research fellow at Nevis, 1958 to 1960)
1988	Jack Steinberger	(faculty member, 1950 to 1970, 1985 to 1986, 1988 to 1998)
1998	Horst L. Stormer	(faculty member, 1998 to present)

Physiology or Medicine

1933	Thomas Hunt Morgan	(faculty member, 1904 to 1928)
1956	Andre F. Cournand	(faculty member, 1935 to 1988)
1969	Salvador E. Luria	(faculty member, 1940 to 1942)
1973	Konrad Lorenz	(Columbia College, 1922 to 1923)
1976	D. Carleton Gajdusek	(postgraduate training, 1946 to 1947)
1978	Daniel Nathans	(intern and medical resident, 1954 to 1959)
1982	Sune Bergström	(research fellowship, 1940 to 1941)
1990	E. Donnall Thomas	(faculty member, 1955 to 1963)
2000	Eric Kandel	(faculty member, 1972 to present)
2004	Linda Buck	(postdoctoral fellow 1980 to 1984; associate 1984 to 1991)

Notable Alumni

Politics, military, and law

• Madeleine Albright - President Clinton's Secretary of State
• Bhimrao Ambedkar - (MA 1915, PhD 1928, LLD 1952 (hon.)) A founding father of modern India, architect of nation's constitution
• Hafizullah Amin - the second President of Afghanistan
• Marek Belka - Prime Minister of Poland since March 2004
• Boutros Boutros-Ghali - (Fulbright Research Scholar, 1954-1955) Secretary-General of the United Nations
• Harold Brown - Secretary of Defense under the Carter Administration
• Pat Buchanan (Journalism) - Conservative commentator, speechwriter, senior advisor to three U.S. presidents
• Arthur Frank Burns - (B.A. 1925, M.A. 1925, Ph.D. 1934) Austrian-born U.S. economist, Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers (1953-1956), Chairman of the Federal Reserve System (1970-1978), Ambassador to Bonn (1981-1985)
• Benjamin Cardozo - Chief Justice of US Supreme Court
• DeWitt Clinton - Former governor of New York State, former mayor of New York City, main proponent of the Erie Canal
• Colgate Darden - Governor of Virginia, president of the University of Virginia
• Gray Davis - (Law) Former Governor of California
• Thomas E. Dewey - (Law 1925) Governor of New York (1943-1955)
• William Donovan (Wild Bill) - Wartime head of the OSS (predecessor to the CIA)
• William O. Douglas - US Supreme Court justice
• Ruth Bader Ginsburg - (Law) Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court
• Dore Gold - (B.A. 1975, M.A. 1976, Ph.D. 1984) U.S.-born Israeli diplomat, former Ambassador to the United Nations (1997-1999), President of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs
• Jack Greenberg - (B.A. 1945, LL.B. 1948) litigator of Brown v. Board of Education, Professor at Columbia Law School
• Alan Greenspan - Federal Reserve Bank Chairman, studied for a PhD in economics
• Judd Gregg - Republican Senator fron New Hampshire (2005)
• Alexander Hamilton - Founding father, co-author of The Federalist Papers
• John D. Hawke, Jr - US Treasury, Comptroller of the Currency
• Jim Hightower - Progressive activist
• Johan Jørgen Holst - (B.A. 1960) Norwegian Foreign Minister, The Oslo Accord of 1994 between Israel and the Palestinians
• Charles Evans Hughes - US Supreme Court Justice
• Jacob Javits - Republican Senator from New York (1957-1981)
• John Jay - Founding Father, First Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, political theorist
• Thomas Kean - Governor of New Jersey (1982-1990)
• Jeane Kirkpatrick - (Ph.D. 1968, political science) US ambassador to UN under Reagan
• Wellington V. Koo - Chinese diplomat
• Frank Lautenberg - Democratic Senator from New Jersey (2005)
• John Lindsay - Mayor of New York City (1966-1973)
• Robert Livingston - Founding Father, drafter of the Declaration of Independence, U.S. Minister to France, negotiator of the Louisiana Purchase
• Seth Low - University president, Mayor of New York City
• Li Lu - Law/Business, leader of the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989
• James McGreevey - (B.A. 1978) Governor of New Jersey (2002-2004)
• John McLaughlin - Political commentator
• James Meredith - American civil rights movement figure
• Gouverneur Morris - Founding father, creator of the Manhattan street grid system, a builder of the Erie canal
• Robert Moses - Leader of mid-century urban "renewal," who re-shaped New York City
• Constance Baker Motley - First African-American woman federal court judge, NYS Senator, Manhattan Borough president
• Barack Obama - (B.A. 1983) Democratic Senator from Illinois (2005), first African-American editor of the Harvard Law Review
• George Pataki - (Law 1970) Governor of New York (1995-present)
• Mario Laserna Pinzón - (B.A. 1948) Colombian statesman and educator; founder, Universidad de los Andes
• Norman Podhoretz - Distinguished editor of Commentary Magazine, a founder of Neoconservatism
• Stanley Forman Reed - US Supreme Court justice
• William Remington - Spy for the Soviet Union
• Hyman G. Rickover - USN Admiral, father of the US nuclear submarine fleet
• Franklin Delano Roosevelt - (Law) 32nd President of the United States
• James P. Rubin - (B.A. 1982, M.A. 1984) U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs (1997-2000)
• Theodore Roosevelt - (Law) 26th President of the United States, Nobel Peace Prize recipient
• Charles F.C. Ruff - (Law) Washington lawyer, represented Anita Hill (vs. Clarence Thomas) and Bill Clinton (impeachment)
• Mikhail Saakashvili - (Law 1994) President of the Democratic Republic of Georgia (2004-present)
• Thomas Sowell - African-American economist and author
• Ben Stein - (B.A. 1966) Actor, conservative commentator
• George Stephanopoulos - (B.A. 1982) Senior advisor to Bill Clinton, television anchor
• Harlan Fiske Stone - US Supreme Court Justice
• Telford Taylor - chief US prosecutor at Nuremberg Trials
• George Tenet - (M.A.) Director of Central Intelligence Agency (1997-2004)
• Daniel D. Tompkins - 6th Vice President of the United States
• Shao-yi Tong - First Prime Minister of the Republic of China

Business

• John Jacob Astor III - 19th century real estate baron
• Wolfgang Bernhard - former COO of Daimler Chrysler, Chairman of Volkswagen
• Donald Clifford Brace - (B.A. 1904) Co-Founder of Harcourt Brace
• Warren Buffett - (M.A. Economics) Investor, president of Berkshire Hathaway
• Bennett Cerf - Founder of Random House
• Jason Epstein - Editorial director at Random House
• Stephen Friedman - Chairman of Goldman Sachs, National Economic Council director
• Mario Gabelli - investor
• Michael Gould - CEO of Bloomingdale's
• Larry Grossman - former CEO of PBS and NBC
• Armand Hammer - President, Occidental Petroleum, noted internationalist
• Alfred Harcourt - (B.A. 1904) - Co-Founder of Harcourt Brace
• Herman Hollerith - (Engineer of Mines 1879, Ph.D. 1890)- founder of the Tabulating Machine Company, a predecessor to IBM
• John Kluge - Founder of Metromedia
• Alfred A. Knopf - (B.A. 1912) Founder of Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. Publishers
• Robert Kraft - Owner of New England Patriots
• Henry Kravis - (MBA 1969) Investment banker who invented the leveraged buyout
• Rochelle Lazarus - CEO of Ogilvy and Mather
• Randolph Lerner - CEO of MBNA Bank, and owner of Cleveland Browns
• Frank Lorenzo - (B.A. 1961) corporate raider
• John R. MacArthur - (B.A. 1917) President and publisher of Harper's, the oldest continuously published monthly magazine in the country
• George Macy - Founder of Macy's Department Stores
• Philip Milstein - CEO of Emigrant Savings Bank
• Eric Ober - Former President of CBS News division, and Food Network
• Ben Rosen - Founder of Compaq
• Samuel Rosen - Chairman of 20th Century Fox
• Robert Rosencrans - (B.A. 1949) formed the USA Network, inducted into the Cable Television Hall of Fame in 2000
• Edwin Schlossberg - (B.A. 1967, Ph.D. 1971) Founder of ESI Design (also its Principal Designer)
• Max Lincoln Schuster - (B.A. 1919) Co-Founder of Simon & Schuster
• David O. Selznick - Legendary movie producer
• Robert Shaye - (J.D. 1964) CEO of New Line Cinema
• Richard L. Simon - Co-Founder of Simon & Schuster
• Joe Tucci - (MBA) Chairman of the Board, EMC
• Richard Vault - former president of NBC News division, former senior vice-president of ABC News
• S. Robson Walton - (J.D. 1969) Chairman of the Board, Wal-Mart

Arts and literature

• John Ashbery - Poet
• Isaac Asimov - (B.A. 1939, Ph.D. 1948) Science fiction author, I, Robot
• Paul Auster - (B.A. 1969) Postmodern author, The New York Trilogy
• Béla Bartók - Composer, pianist, and early scholar in ethnomusicology
• James Blish - Science fiction author
• John Corigliano - (B.A. 1959) American composer
• Andrew Delbanco - English professor, named Best Cultural Critic by Time Magazine
• Peter Eisenmann - (M.A.) Architect
• Walter Farley - (B.A. 1941) Author, The Black Stallion
• Paul Gallico - Author, The Snow Goose, The Poseidon Adventure, The Silent Miaow
• Allen Ginsberg - (B.A. 1948) Beat Generation poet
• Anthony Hecht - Pulitzer Prize-winning poet
• Joseph Heller - Author, Catch-22
• Langston Hughes - African-American writer and poet
• Kentaro Kaji - Soi-disant "marshal" of the postmodern monster in conceptualist aesthetics
• Jack Kerouac - (College 1940-1942; dropped out) Founder of the Beat Generation movement; author, On the Road
• Tony Kushner - Playwright
• Edward MacDowell - American composer, professor of music
• Carson McCullers - Author, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter
• Isamu Noguchi - Sculptor
• J.D. Salinger - Author, The Catcher in the Rye
• Upton Sinclair - Populist author, The Jungle; presidential candidate
• Robert A. M. Stern - (B.A. 1960) Postmodern architect
• Mark Van Doren - Pulitzer Prize-winning poet
• Eric Van Lustbader - Author, The Ninja
• Sophie Wilkins - Editor at Alfred A. Knopf and translator
• Herman Wouk - Pulitzer Prize-winning author, War and Remembrance
• Roger Zelazny - Science fiction author

Performing arts

• Emanuel Ax - (B.A. 1970) - Pianist, won Avery Fisher prize at age 30, won three Grammy Awards along with cellist Yo-Yo Ma; also awarded the John Jay award by the University
• Kathryn Bigelow - Director, Strange Days
• Sorrell Booke - (B.A. 1949)- Actor, best known as "Boss Hogg" on the weekly series Dukes of Hazzard
• Sidney Buchman - (B.A. 1923) - screenwriter, won an Academy Award for writing for Here Comes Mister Jordan.
• James Cagney - (B.A. 1922) - Actor, White Heat and Yankee Doodle Dandy
• Vanessa Carlton - Singer, songwriter
• Peter Cincotti - Pianist, singer, songwriter, actor, model
• Brian Dennehy - (B.A. 1960) - Actor
• Brian DePalma - Movie director, Carrie and The Untouchables
• I.A.L. Diamond - (B.A. 1941) Co-winner of an Academy Award for writing for The Apartment
• Matthew Fox - (B.A. 1989) Actor, Lost, Party of Five
• Dan Futterman - (B.A. 1989) Actor, The Birdcage, Judging Amy
• Art Garfunkel - (B.A. 1965) - Of Simon and Garfunkel
• Joseph Gordon-Levitt - Actor, 3rd Rock from the Sun
• Jake Gyllenhaal - Actor, Donnie Darko, The Good Girl
• Maggie Gyllenhaal - Actress, Secretary
• Oscar Hammerstein II - Lyricist and librettist of such musicals as the Pulitzer Prize-winning Oklahoma!, The King and I and The Sound of Music, collaborator with Richard Rodgers
• Ed Harris – (dropped out) actor
• Utada Hikaru - Japanese pop singer (did not graduate)
• Lauryn Hill - R&B singer, one-time Fugees frontwoman (only attended first year)
• Famke Janssen - actress and Mac user [1]
• Jean Kelly - Actress
• Alicia Keys - Singer, composer (briefly attended)
• Joel Krosnick - Cellist; member of the Juilliard String Quartet; chairman of Cello Department at Juilliard School
• Tony Kushner - (B.A.) Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright, Angels in America
• William Ludwig - (B.A. 1932) Screenwriter, co-winner of an Academy Award in 1955 for Interrupted Melody, founder of the Screen Writers Guild (known now as the Writers Guild of America)
• Herman J. Mankiewicz - (B.A. 1917) Won an Academy Award for co-writing Citizen Kane; older brother of Joseph L. Mankiewicz
• Joseph L. Mankiewicz - (B.A. 1928) won four Academy Awards, including Academy Award for Best Director and writing. Younger brother of Herman J. Mankiewicz.
• Terrence McNally - (B.A. 1960) Dramatist, winner of four Tony Awards, an Emmy, a Pulitzer Prize, and two Guggenheim Fellowships
• Rachel Nichols - Actress, model
• Anna Paquin - Academy Award-winning actress, The Piano and X-Men
• Amanda Peet - Actress, The Whole Nine Yards
• Richard Rodgers - Composer of musicals including the Pulitzer Prize-winning Oklahoma!, The King and I and The Sound of Music, collaborator with Oscar Hammerstein
• George Segal - (B.A. 1955) Actor, Just Shoot Me
• Julia Stiles - Actress, Save the Last Dance, 10 Things I Hate About You
• Charles Wuorinen - (B.A. 1961, M.A. 1963) American musician, pianist, and composer

Journalism

• R.W. Apple - (B.A. 1961) Senior Correspondent, Associate Editor, former Washington Bureau chief, The New York Times
• Richard L. Berke - Washington editor, New York Times
• Max Frankel - (B.A.) Executive editor, New York Times, Pulitzer Prize winner
• Ken Hechtman - Maverick journalist jailed by the Afghanistan's Taliban government as a suspected spy in 2001
• Joseph Lelyveld - (M.A., Journalism) Executive editor, New York Times
• Robert Lipsyte - (B.A. 1957) winner of an Emmy Award in 1990, host of The Eleventh Hour on PBS, correspondent for The New York Times and ABC Nightly News
• Claire Shipman - (B.A. 1986) Senior National Correspondent for ABC, winner of an Emmy Award for her CNN coverage of the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, winner of the 1991 Peabody Award
• Richard Smith - (M.A., International Affairs) CEO of Newsweek
• Gideon Yago - MTV News Correspondent

Science and technology

• Roy Chapman Andrews - Dinosaur bone hunter
• Virginia Apgar - (M.D. 1933) Created the Apgar score which is used to evaluate the health of newborn babies
• Edwin Armstrong - (B.S. 1913) Inventor of radio circuitry such as the regenerative circuit and FM radio, pioneer in feedback amplifiers
• Oswald Avery - (M.D. 1904) discoverer of DNA's role in transmitting genetic information
• John Backus - (B.A. (mathematics) 1949) Inventor of Fortran programming language
• Charles Drew - (M.D. 1940) Inventor of blood plasma preservation system
• Stephen Jay Gould - (Ph.D. 1967) - Paleontologist and author
• Ben Graham - B.A. (1914) Father of Modern Security Analysis and value investing, taught Warren Buffett
• Robert Jastrow - (B.A, M.A. Ph.D.) Astronomer
• Arthur Jensen - (Ph.D. 1956) Educational psychologist who argued for heritability of intelligence
• Robert Moog - Inventor of Moog synthesizer
• Joel Moses- (B.A., M.A.) MIT Provost and author of Macsyma
• Edward Lawry Norton - (M.S. 1925) Electrical Engineer, discovered the Norton circuit equivalent
• William Barclay Parsons - (B.S. 1879) Civil Engineer
• Michael Pupin - (B.S. 1883) - Inventor of telephone transmission coils and scientist, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for his autobiography
• Benjamin Spock - (M.D. 1929) - Olympic rower, physician, author
• John Stevens - (A.B. 1768) - Built first steam railroad, responsible for first patent law in the US

Astronauts

• Kenneth D. Bowersox - (M.S. 1979)
• Kevin P. Chilton - (M.S. 1977)
• William G. Gregory - (M.S. 1980)
• Michael J. Massimino - (B.S. 1984)
• Story Musgrave - (M.S. 1964)
• Eugene H. Trinh - (B.S. 1972)

Academics and history

• Mortimer Adler - Founder of the Great Books movement
• Frederick A.P. Barnard - University president, founder of Barnard College
• Jacques Barzun - Historian
• Ruth Benedict – social anthropologist, author of The Chrysanthemum and the Sword, a WWII-era study of Japanese culture
• Walter Block - PhD in Economics
• Franz Boas - Father of American Anthropology
• Nicholas Murray Butler - University President, Nobel Laureate
• Joseph Campbell - Noted professor of mythology
• John Dewey - Philosopher, developed theory of pragmatism
• Richard Epstein - Noted legal scholar
• Livingston Farrand (M.D.) - public health advocate & President of Cornell University
• Eric Foner - DeWitt Clinton Professor of History at Columbia
• Lynne Hanley - literary critic
• Jane Jacobs - Urban theorist
• Marshall Kay - Noted geologist
• Grayson L. Kirk - University President
• Paul Lazarsfeld - Founder of the University's Bureau for Applied Social Research
• Margaret Mead - Noted anthropologist
• Marvin Opler - Noted anthropologist and social psychiatrist
• Robert Nozick - Philosopher
• Edward Sapir - Linguist and anthropologist
• William Sloane - Founder of the U.S. Olympic Committee
• Stephen Joel Trachtenberg - President of George Washington University
• Lionel Trilling - Literary critic
• David Truman - Political scientist and educator

Sports

• Roone Arledge - (B.A.) Pioneer of sports and news broadcasting with ABC, "Monday Night Football", "20/20", etc.
• José Raúl Capablanca - World Chess Champion (1921-1927)
• Annie Duke - professional poker player
• Lou Gehrig - (B.A. 1921–1923) Baseball player for the New York Yankees, enshrined in the Baseball Hall of Fame, suffered from Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (now commonly known as "Lou Gehrig's Disease")
• Sandy Koufax - Baseball Hall of Fame pitcher
• Sid Luckman - (B.A.) American football quarterback, enshrinee of the Pro Football Hall of Fame
• Paul Robeson - American football All-American, attorney, musician, activist
• David Stern - (J.D.) NBA Commissioner
• Marcellus Wiley - (B.A. 1997) American football player, Pro-Bowl defensive end, now with the Dallas Cowboys

Notable faculty

• Alfred Aho - Computer Science professor, the "A" in the programming language AWK.
• Charles Beard - Historian and co-author of The Development of Modern Europe
• Jagdish Bhagwati - Economics professor, author of In Defense of Globalization
• Lee Bollinger - University President/law professor, First Amendment scholar, Affirmative Action advocate
• Alan Brinkley - Professor of American history and University Provost; son of legendary newscaster David Brinkley
• Zbigniew Brzezinski - National Security Advisor under the Carter Administration, taught Foreign Affairs
• Richard Bulliet - History professor and Middle East scholar, author of Kicked to Death by a Camel
• John Burgess - Founder of modern political science
• Charles Frederick Chandler - Pioneering chemist, president of the New York Metropolitan Board of Health, inventor of the flush toilet
• Arthur Danto - Johnsonian Professor of Philosophy emeritus, renowned art critic
• William Theodore De Bary - Famous scholar and translator of East Asia, particularly the classical Chinese canon
• John Dewey - Former Philosophy professor
• Theodosius Dobzhansky - Researcher in population genetics
• Dwight Eisenhower - Supreme Commander, Allied Expeditionary Force, President of Columbia University, 34th President of the United States
• Jon Elster - Robert Merton Professor of Social Science, leading theorist of rational choice theory, Marxism, and social theory
• William Maurice Ewing - Earth scientist and pioneer
• Enrico Fermi - Manhattan Project member, founder of Fermilab, Nobel laureate
• Milos Forman - Film director, One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest, Amadeus, The People vs. Larry Flynt
• Eric Foner - Noted historian, authority on Reconstruction
• Erich Fromm - Noted pyschologist
• Fred W. Friendly - Pioneering CBS News producer and distinguished media scholar
• Benjamin Graham - Father of value investing, mentor of Warren Buffet
• Bradford Garton- Composer
• Brian Greene - Mathematics and Physics professor, researcher and popular author in String Theory
• Richard Hofstadter - Noted historian
• Annette Insdorf - Film studies professor, noted film historian.
• Kenneth T. Jackson - Preeminent historian of New York City
• Eric Kandel - Neuroscientist, 2000 Nobel laureate
• Kenneth Koch - Poet
• Tsung Dao Lee - Physics professor, Nobel laureate
• Konrad Lorenz - Psychology professor, Nobel laureate (Physiology or Medicine, 1973)
• John Anthony McGuckin - Professor of Byzantine Christian Studies
• Margaret Mead - Professor of Anthropology
• Eben Moglen - Law and the Internet Society, General Counsel of FSF
• Sydney Morgenbesser - John Dewey Professor of Philosophy
• Robert Mundell - Economics professor, 1999 Nobel laureate in Economics
• Mira Nair - Director of Monsoon Wedding, film studies professor
• Richard Pena - Head of the New York Film Festival, film studies professor
• Lorenzo da Ponte - professor of Italian language and literature; librettist to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
• Charles Lane Poor - Astronomer
• Mary Robinson - Former President of Ireland; former U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights
• Jeffrey Sachs - Head of the United Nations Millenium Project to end poverty
• Edward Said - Former English professor, Palestinian activist, author of Orientalism, widely considered founder of Postcolonial studies
• Andrew Sarris - Film Studies professor and famous auteur theorist
• Simon Schama - History Professor
• James Schamus - Film Studies professor, co-president of Focus Features, screenwriter and producer
• Gayatri C. Spivak - English professor
• Joseph Stiglitz - Economics professor, 2001 Nobel laureate in Economics
• Charles Van Doren - English professor, involved in deception on TV quiz show Twenty-One
• Kenneth Waltz - Political Science professor and noted neorealism scribe
• Chien-Shiung Wu - Physics professor, first woman to head the American Physical Society

See also

• Columbia Law School People

External links

• Nobel Prize Winners associated with Columbia University
• Columbians Ahead of Their Time - list of notable Columbians created by Columbia University for their 250th anniversary.