The following list includes more than 200 alumni who were considered by our panel that selected the 25 most influential Princeton alumni in history, published in the Jan. 23, 2008, issue.
Government / public affairs
1. Samuel Alito ’72 – Current Supreme Court justice; his appointment changed the balance of the Court and has led to 5-4 decisions on key issues such as school desegregation and abortion.
2. R.W. “Johnny” Apple ’57 – Famed New York Times correspondent. In 40 years, he war, politics, and food and drink. He led The Times’ coverage of the Vietnam War, the Persian Gulf, and the Iranian revolution.
3. Norman Armour ’09 *15 – U.S. diplomat, served in France, revolutionary Russia (1916-19), fascist Spain (1924), post-revolutionary Chile (1938), and elsewhere. The New York Times called him the “ideal” diplomat.
4. Hamilton F. Armstrong ’16 – Founding editor of Foreign Affairs, an important American journal on international relations.
5. N. Lloyd Axworthy *72 – The former Canadian foreign minister, he campaigned against the use of child soldiers and the international trade of light weapons. He also brokered the Ottawa Treaty, an international agreement that banned anti-personnel land mines, for which he was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize.
6. James Baker ’52 – Former secretary of state, treasury secretary, and White House chief of staff, and chairman of the Iraq Study Group.
7. Peter Bell *64 – Former President and CEO of CARE, the international antipoverty organization.
8. Moe Berg ’23 – Professional baseball player who later served as a spy for the Office of Strategic Services during World War II; his intelligence work led to the bombing of an atomic research facility and to the capture of several German atomic scientists who also were wanted by the Russians.
9. Frances Preston Blair 1841 – A politician who opposed the extension of slavery (despite the fact that he was a slave owner) and secession, Blair was active in the Missouri Free-Soil Party. He campaigned for Abraham Lincoln in the 1960 Presidential election, served as a general during the Civil War, and was nominated as the Democratic candidate for vice president in 1868. Historians say that he helped ensure that Missouri did not join the Confederacy.
10. William Bradford 1772 – A Princeton buddy of James Madison and Aaron Burr, Bradford served as a colonel in the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War. He served as U.S. attorney general from 1774 until his death in 1795.
11. Bill Bradley ’65 - Hall of Fame basketball player, Rhodes scholar, former U.S. senator from New Jersey, and presidential candidate who challenged Vice President Al Gore for the Democratic Party’s nomination in the 2000 election,
12. Aaron Burr 1772 –Served as vice president of the United States before he mortally wounded Alexander Hamilton in a duel.
13. Frank Carlucci ’52 – Secretary of defense for 14 months under President Reagan after holding positions in the state department, Office of Economic Opportunity (director), Office of Management and Budget (deputy director), Health, Education, and Welfare (under secretary), and the CIA (deputy director).
14. W. Hodding Carter III ’57 –Journalist and civil rights activist. Helped run the Delta-Democrat Times, a Mississippi newspaper owned by his family that was known for its support of racial tolerance. Helped organize a biracial delegation to the 1968 Democratic National Convention to unseat the all-white segregationist Mississippi delegation. Served as assistant secretary of state for public affairs during the Iran hostage crisis.
15. William Colby ’40 – CIA director from 1973-1976, after spending several years in the field in Sweden, Italy, and Vietnam. In Vietnam, he headed the U.S./South Vietnamese rural pacification effort, an attempt to quell the Communist insurgency in the South. This initiative included the controversial Phoenix Program, designed to identify and attack Viet Cong infrastructure. It is alleged to have involved assassination and torture, but many argue that it successfully reduced the level of insurgent strength in South Vietnam.
16. Julius Coles *66 – President of Africare, a nonprofit organization that provides humanitarian aid in Africa. Spent 28 years as senior official with the U.S. Agency for International Development.
17. William Crowe, Jr. *65 – During his 47-year career in the Navy, Crowe served as a commander in several regions and, from 1985-1989, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. From 1993-94, he chaired the President’s Foreign Intelligence Board.
18. George Mifflin Dallas 1810 – Dallas was a U.S. senator from Pennsylvania and the 11th vice president of the U.S., under James K. Polk. In gratitude for his support for the annexation of Texas, the city of Dallas was named for him in 1846. Ambassador to Great Britain from 1856 to 1860 under President James Buchanan.
19. John Danforth ’58 – U.S. senator from Missouri for 18 years, special counsel to investigate the federal raid at Waco, Texas, and representative to the U.N. Was appointed special envoy to Sudan in 2001 for peace talks there. Currently writing about the dangers of the rise of the religious right in politics.
20. Price Day ’29 – A writer for the Baltimore Sun, Day won the 1949 Pulitzer Prize for international reporting for his coverage of India’s first year of independence. He also covered the Potsdam conference and the Nuremberg trials. He later became editor of the Sun, and he is credited with the paper’s strong stance in support of civil rights and against corruption.
21. William L. Dayton 1825 – U.S. senator; minister to France during most of the Civil War; convinced the government of Napoleon III not to recognize the independence of the Confederacy or allow it the use of French ports.
22. John Doar ’44 – Assistant attorney general in the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice from 1960 to 1967, the critical years of the civil rights movement. He successfully prosecuted several civil rights violations and race-motivated murders during this period, and he helped draft the Civil Rights Act of 1965. Also served as special counsel to the House of Representatives for President Nixon’s impeachment proceedings.
23. Allen Dulles *16 – Director of the CIA from 1953-1961. During this period, the CIA overthrew the governments of governments in Iran and Guatemala, and was embarrassed by the downing of a U-2 spy plane over the Soviet Union. Dulles was implicated in the failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in April 1961, and he resigned that autumn.
24. John Foster Dulles ’08 – Secretary of state under President Eisenhower and architect of several critical foreign policies during the Cold War period. Helped to prepare the United Nations charter, and played crucial roles in the development of the South East Asia Treaty Organization and the Central Treaty Organization (CENTO, which united Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Pakistan in a defense organization). Strongly advocated the principle of nuclear deterrence.
25. Oliver Ellsworth 1766 – The third chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. Member of the Continental Congress and a delegate to the federal Constitutional Convention, where he brokered the Connecticut Compromise that broke the deadlock between the large states (represented by Princetonian James Madison) and the small states (represented by Princetonian William Paterson). As a U.S. senator, he drafted the Judiciary Act of 1789, which established the court system that continues to exist today.
26. James Forrestal ’15 – Served as secretary of the Navy and, after the National Security Act of 1947 was passed, as the first secretary of defense. As Navy secretary, he directed a naval expansion and procurement program during WWII. As defense secretary, he initiated a reorganization of the U.S. armed services.
27. William Frist ’74 – A physician and former U.S. senator from Tennessee who served as Senate majority leader from 2003-2007. At Princeton, he and other family members donated the Frist Campus Center, and he is teaching Princeton students about health-care policy during the 2007-08 academic year as a member of the Woodrow Wilson School faculty.
28. Barton Gellman ’82 – Washington Post reporter who shared the 2002 Pulitzer Prize in national reporting for coverage of the war on terrorism. Gellman contributed an important piece about failed efforts to catch Osama bin Laden before the 9/11 attacks, and he subsequently broke stories about the intelligence reports that led up to the war in Iraq.
29. Andrew Goodpaster *50 – NATO Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, commander in chief of the United States European Command, and the 51st superintendent of the United States Military Academy at West Point.
30. Lisa Halaby ’74 – Queen Noor of Jordan. Involved in numerous humanitarian efforts, including United World Colleges, the United Nations University International Leadership Academy, the Landmine Survivors Network, Women Waging Peace, Seeds of Peace, the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, the Aspen Institute, the World Wildlife Fund International, Refugees International, and the International Commission on Missing Persons.
Government / public affairs (cont.)
31. Keith Hansen *87 – Responsible for overseeing the World Bank’s AIDS initiatives in Africa.
32. Richard Holbrooke *70 (one year as fellow at the WWS) – Assistant secretary of state; brokered a peace agreement among the warring factions in Bosnia that eventually led to the signing of the Dayton Peace Accords in 1995.
33. William Johnson Jr. 1790 – An associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1804 until his death in 1834. His independence earned him historical distinction as the “first dissenter”; in many cases, he was the only one on the Marshall court. He wrote 34 minority opinions, far more than his contemporaries on the court.
34. Nicholas Katzenbach ’43 – Attorney general in the Johnson administration. Key person behind the Warren Commission, which investigated President Kennedy’s assassination. He was active in several Justice Department civil rights initiatives, including the desegregation of the University of Mississippi in 1962, the desegregation of the University of Alabama in 1963, and the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
35. Thomas Kean ’57 – New Jersey governor and co-chairman of the 9/11 Commission, which ultimately concluded that the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks were preventable.
36. George Kennan ’25 – U.S. diplomat during the Cold War. Responsible for articulating the containment strategy, among other policies, and helped George Marshall draft the Marshall Plan to rebuild post-War Europe.
37. Wendy Kopp ’89 – Founder of Teach for America, one of the most popular and influential public-service programs today; author of a book on the state of education.
38. Henry Labouisse ’26 – President of UNICEF from 1965-1979. During his leadership, the organization was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for its efforts in community-based health, nutrition, education, water, and sanitation issues.
39. W. Anthony K. Lake *74 – National security adviser under President Clinton, when he helped to formulate U.S. policy toward Bosnia, North Korea, Haiti, Iraq, Somalia, and China. During the Nixon administration, he accompanied Henry Kissinger, then the national security adviser, for the first secret meeting with North Vietnamese negotiators in Paris.
40. James M. Landis ’21 – New Deal lawyer who served as adviser to three U.S. presidents and as dean of the Harvard law school. Called the “dean of the regulators” by a biographer.
41. Edward Livingston 1781 – A prominent American jurist and statesman, he was influential in the drafting of the Louisiana Civil Code of 1825. Represented both New York and Louisiana in Congress, and served as the U.S. Secretary of State from 1831 to 1833.
42. H. Brockholst Livingston 1774 – Jurist on New York and then U.S. Supreme Court. By 1791 he emerged as a notable anti-Federalist, helping carry New York for Jefferson. On the New York court, his decisions supported emerging capitalism. On the U.S. Supreme Court, Livingston reverted to Federalism and fell under the sway of Chief Justice John Marshall; his death in 1823 marked the beginning of the breakup of Marshall’s influence over the court. (He was a distant cousin of presidents Bush.)
43. James Madison 1771 – Called the “father of the Constitution” for his involvement in drafting the document, Madison later served as the fourth president of the U.S.
44. Harold Medina 1909 – A federal district court judge in New York, Medina is remembered for hearing a 1949 case in which 11 leaders of the U.S. Communist Party were convicted of plotting to overthrow the government.
45. Judith Miller *71 – A Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for The New York Times, Miller wrote a piece about weapons of mass destructions in Iraq that was used by administration officials to justify the invasion. She spent time in jail for contempt of court for refusing to testify before a federal grand jury investigating the Valerie Plame CIA leak.
46. Ralph Nader ’55 – Consumer advocate and three-time presidential candidate (1996, 2000, 2004).
47. Joseph Nye ’58 – A former dean of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government (where he expanded the core faculty, increased financial aid, and created new student programs and fellowships), Nye has served as assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs and as chairman of the National Intelligence Council. With Robert Keohane, Nye developed the influential “neoliberal model” of international relations (which posits that international cooperation is possible because states are rational actors that seek to maximize their gains, and though there are opportunities for conflicts and cheating, institutions and regimes generally keep the system in check).
48. John Oakes ’34 – Editor of The New York Times editorial page from 1961 to 1976. Credited with creating the modern op-ed page and inspiring The Times’ strong voice. Helped to make environmental issues a prominent topic both on the page and in national debates.
49. Don Oberdorfer – A journalist for 38 years, 25 of which were spent at The Washington Post covering the Nixon White House, northeast Asia, and U.S. diplomacy. Oberdorfer is also the author of five books, including an award-winning book about the Tet offensive and another book about Princeton history.
50. Maurice Pate ’15 – Founded UNICEF in 1947.
51. William Paterson 1763 – A signer of the Constitution who is best known for helping to shape the legislative branch at the Constitutional Convention. Later, as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, he participated in the landmark Marbury V. Madison case, which established the court’s power to declare laws unconstitutional.
52. Claiborne Pell ’40 – A U.S. senator from Rhode Island from 1961-1997, Pell is responsible for the creation of Pell Grants, which provide financial aid to low-income U.S. college students, and the congressional bill that eventually created the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities.
53. David Petraeus *85 *87 – A general in the United States Army; commander of U.S. forces in Iraq.
54. Mahlon Pitney 1879 – U.S. congressman from New Jersey, then associate justice on the U.S. Supreme Court. He and another justice wrote a potentially important in-chambers decision (written when the full court was not in session and an emergency ruling was required) stemming from a dispute over rebellious presidential electors who wanted to cast their Electoral College votes for Theodore Roosevelt instead of William Howard Taft. The justices ruled that in the midst of an election dispute, if ruling in favor of one side is likely to cause the same “injury” as ruling for the other side, the Supreme Court should stay out of the dispute until the state courts sort things out, and not pick the winner. Some legal scholars say it might have pertained to Bush v. Gore, had the Gore team brought it up.
55. Joseph Reed 1757 – A delegate to the Continental Congress, a signer of the Articles of Confederation, and a governor of Pennsylvania, Reed was the first to detect the treason of Benedict Arnold. He tried Arnold despite strong opposition from other members of Congress.
56. Tapping Reeve 1763 – Founded Litchfield Law School, a leading law school in the 19th century that trained Aaron Burr, John C. Calhoun, Horace Mann, and Noah Webster.
57. Syngman Rhee *1910 – Controversial first president (and dictator) of South Korea from 1948 to 1960. He led South Korea through the Cold War and earned American support for his strong stance against Communism. He died in exile in Hawaii, after embezzling $20 million of government money.
58. Anthony Romero ’87 – The first openly homosexual and first Hispanic to be the executive director of the ACLU. A vocal critic of Bush administration policies after 9/11.
59. Donald Rumsfeld ’54 – U.S. congressman and ambassador to NATO before becoming defense secretary for presidents Ford and George W. Bush. He is blamed for the Bush administration’s war in Iraq.
60. Paul Sarbanes ’54 – U.S. senator from Maryland from 1977-2007. Co-authored the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, which established accounting reforms and investor protections in the wake of corporate scandals at Enron, Tyco, etc.
Government / public affairs (cont.)
61. George Shultz ’42 – Former secretary of state who was well known for his opposition to the Iran-Contra arms-for-hostages scandal, and support for a U.S. invasion of Nicaragua. Also served as secretary of the treasury and secretary of labor.
62. Anne-Marie Slaughter ’80 – Dean of the Woodrow Wilson School, Slaughter is an influential writer on global governance, international criminal law, and American foreign policy.
63. Eliot Spitzer ’81 – Current governor of NY. Won national recognition during his eight years as New York state attorney general for landmark cases protecting investors, consumers, the environment, and low-wage workers.
64. Adlai Stevenson ’22 – Illinois governor and two-time Democratic presidential nominee, Stevenson frequently is remembered for his role as U.S. ambassador to the U.N., serving during the Cuban missile crisis, when he famously challenged his Soviet counterpart in the Security Council.
65. Richard Stockton 1748 – Lawyer, jurist, legislator, and a signer of the Declaration of Independence.
66. Norman Thomas ’05 – Six-time presidential candidate on the Socialist ticket. Opposed entry of the U.S. into World War I, associate editor of The Nation, founded the precursor of the ACLU, and pioneer in campaigning on behalf of minorities, such as interned Japanese-Americans and Jews fleeing Europe during World War II.
67. Smith Thompson 1788 – Secretary of the Navy in 1818 and a U.S. Supreme Court associate justice. He was one of the first to suggest and work for a Naval Academy. On the court (1823-1840), he contributed to several important decisions but was overshadowed by John Marshall. He was one of a 4-3 majority that forced Marshall into his sole constitutional dissent in Ogden v. Saunders (1827), which involved a New York insolvency law that Thompson believed was essential for any commercial society. Thompson’s major role was in interpreting the commerce clause; he believed that states could regulate commerce unless such acts directly conflicted with congressional laws. He dissented in Cherokee Nation v. Georgia (1831), writing what some called his finest opinion. The dissent set forth the concept that Indian tribes are separate sovereigns despite their conquered position.
68. Abel Upshur 1807 – Secretary of the Navy and state. He was expelled from Princeton for heckling the president of the university during a speech. (Ironically, he died aboard the USS Princeton when one of its guns accidentally exploded during an inaugural cruise.)
69. Katrina vanden Heuvel ’81 – Editor of The Nation since 1995, and its publisher since 2005, she is an influential voice on the left of the political spectrum. She has edited several books, and she frequently appears as a guest commentator in national print and television media outlets.
70. Paul Volcker ’49 – chairman of Federal Reserve Board, 1979-87; ended the stagflation crisis of the 1970s by focusing on tightening the growth of the money supply rather than targeting interest rates. Though the policy was successful, it came with a high cost, particularly in the farm sector, as many family farms went out of business. Later, Volcker investigated corruption in the Iraqi Oil for Food Program at the request of the U.N.
71. James M. Wayne 1808 – Associate justice on the U.S. Supreme Court from 1835-1867. He concurred in the court’s Dred Scott decision, supporting slavery. At the same time, he was committed to the preservation of the Union and remained on the bench through the Civil War, which earned him the contempt of his fellow Georgians.
72. Murray Weidenbaum *54 *58 – President Reagan’s first chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers from 1981-2, helping to formulate supply-side “Reaganomics.”
73. George F. Will *68 – Syndicated columnist (450 newspapers), contributing columnist for Newsweek and The Washington Post, and commentator/analyst for ABC. He won a Pulitzer Prize for commentary in 1977. He writes about politics, law, and social character. Former Washington editor of The National Review.
74. Woodrow Wilson 1879 – President of Princeton University, governor of New Jersey, and 28th president of the U.S. during World War I. Proposed the League of Nations. (You know the rest).
75. John G. Winant ’13 – First head of the Social Security board, head of the International Labor Office in Geneva, and U.S. ambassador to Great Britain from 1941-46. He was a strong advocate of progressive reforms, especially for women and children, including a minimum wage. As ambassador to Britain, he became an important adviser to President Roosevelt during the war.
Arts, entertainment, and culture
1. R.W. “Johnny” Apple ’57 – Famed New York Times correspondent. In 40 years, he covered war, politics, and food and drink. He led The Times’ coverage of the Vietnam War, the Persian Gulf war, and the Iranian revolution.
2. Milton Babbitt *42 *92 – American composer who is particularly noted for his pioneering serial and electronic music. In 1982, the Pulitzer Prize board awarded him a “special citation for his life’s work as a distinguished and seminal American composer.”
3. Hobey Baker ’14 – Led Princeton to a national championship in football (1911) and two national championships in hockey (1912 and 1914) before enlisting in the U.S. Army as a pilot in 1917. Baker was immortalized in classmate F. Scott Fitzgerald ’17’s literature, the Princeton hockey rink is named for him, and the Hobey Baker Memorial Award is given annually to the top American college hockey player.
4. Alfred Barr ’22 *23 – The founder of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. He broke with common museum practices by creating advertising campaigns to ensure that exhibitions be financially and intellectually accessible to the public. Scholars say the works he selected for MoMA have formed the canon of modern art history.
5. Roger Berlind ’64 – Successful Broadway producer and philanthropist. The Berlind Theatre (part of the McCarter Theatre Center) opened in Princeton in 2003.
6. John Peale Bishop ’17 – Poet, essayist for Vanity Fair, and poetry critic for The Nation. Classmate of Fitzgerald, and inspired one of his literary characters.
7. Bill Bradley ’65 – Hall of Fame basketball player, Rhodes scholar, former U.S. senator from New Jersey, and presidential candidate who challenged Vice President Al Gore for the Democratic Party’s nomination in the 2000 election (also listed in government / public affairs). As a basketball player, Bradley led the New York Knicks to NBA titles in 1970 and 1973. Teamed with Walt Frazier, Willis Reed and Dave DeBusschere, Bradley was often seen as a determined, selfless leader on some of the best squads in Knicks history.
8. F. Taylor Branch *70 – Pulitzer Prize-winning author. Best known for his trilogy chronicling the life of Martin Luther King Jr. and the history of the American civil rights movement.
9. Alan Brinkley ’71 – Professor of history and provost at Columbia University. Progressive historian of the New Deal era. He writes for Newsweek and The New Republic.
10. Robert Caro ’57 – Won the Pulitzer Prize twice, for his biographies of Robert Moses and Lyndon Johnson.
11. Edward T. Cone ’39 *42 – Music scholar, pianist, and composer who was a member of the Princeton faculty. He produced two of the 20th century’s most influential books about Western music, Musical Form and Musical Performance and The Composer’s Voice.
12. Ward B. Chamberlin ’43 – Spent more than 30 years as an executive in public broadcasting, working to strengthen its foundation and promote its acceptance in American culture.
13. Robert P. Tristram Coffin *16 – Poet, novelist, and essayist, he wrote 37 books while teaching at Wells College and Bowdoin College. His Strange Holiness won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1935.
14. Andres Duany ’71 and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk ’72 – Founders of New Urbanism in architecture, a critique of suburban development.
15. Michael Eric Dyson *93 – Dyson is a writer and a professor (just moved to Georgetown from Penn) who specializes in African-American culture. He has written high-profile books and articles about Martin Luther King, Tupac Shakur, Bill Cosby, Malcom X, and the Hurricane Katrina aftermath.
Arts, entertainment, and culture (cont.)
17. F. Scott Fitzgerald ’17 – Author of several short stories and novels, he is considered one of the greatest 20th-century American writers.
18. Philip Freneau 1771 – Poet; roommate and close friend of James Madison. Known as the “poet of the Revolution.” Opposition journalist. Some of his later works are understood as precursors to the transcendentalist movement, inspiring both Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson.
19. Robert Garrett 1897 – An Olympic athlete who medaled in the discus throw (despite immense competition from the Greek team), shot put, high jump, and long jump. Garrett was also a collector of Near Eastern manuscripts, which he donated to Princeton.
20. Charles Gibson ’65 – Television journalist, anchorman on World News Tonight, former host of Good Morning America.
21. Richard Greenberg ’80 – Writer of more than 25 plays, he recently won the Tony Award for Best Play for Take Me Out.
22. Hugh Hardy ’54 *56 – Architect. Projects include the new New York Botanical Garden Leon Levy Visitor Center, the reconstruction of the Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, the restoration of Radio City Music Hall, and the redesign of Bryant Park in New York City.
23. Thomas Hoving ’53 *60 – As director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Hoving presided over its large expansion and renovations.
24. Lynn Jennings ’83 – Considered one of the best female distance runners in history, Jennings is a three-time World Cross Country champion and winner of the bronze medal for the 10,000-meter race in the 1992 Olympics. She holds 39 national titles, more than any other American runner, and speaks out against doping.
25. James Johnson *69 - Former CEO at Fannie Mae, Johnson became the fourth chairman of the Kennedy Center in 1996. He began the “Performing Arts for Everyone” initiative, which increased the visibility of the center’s frequent low-priced and free events. Created and endowed the Millennium Stage, which presents a free event every evening.
26. Galway Kinnell ’48 – Poet, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award.
27. Bowie Kuhn ’47 – Commissioner of Major League Baseball from 1969 to 1984. He was the first to suggest that World Series games be played at night, in order to attract more television viewers.
28. Joshua Logan ’31 – Stage and film director and writer. Logan shared the 1950 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for co-writing South Pacific. (The show also earned him a Tony Award for best director.) He was nominated for an Academy Award for directing for Picnic and Sayonara.
29. Allan Marquand 1874 – Founder of the Department of Art and Archaeology at Princeton. One of the first to introduce the serious study of art into the curriculum of American colleges. He made important contributions to the University Art Museum, and he supplied the department’s library with books and photographs from his own collection. By the early 1900s, half of the art teachers at colleges east of the Mississippi had been trained in the graduate curriculum he had developed.
30. Jason McManus *58 – Editor-in-Chief of Time Warner from 1987-1994.
31. John McPhee ’53 – Magazine writer and Pulitzer Prize-winning author, McPhee has trained hundreds of Princeton students in creative writing as a professor.
32. William Morris Meredith ’40 – Poet, and Pulitzer Prize winner (1980). Poet laureate of the United States from 1978 to 1980.
33. W.S. Merwin ’48 - One of the most influential American poets of the later 20th century. Antiwar poet during the 1960s. Winner of a Pulitzer Prize and a Tanning Prize, which is one of the highest honors bestowed by the Academy of American Poets.
34. Charles Moore *57 – Architect and former dean of the Yale School of Architecture. Described as one of the first postmodern innovators, along with Robert Venturi ’47 *50.
35. Frederick Morgan ’43 – Co-founded the Hudson Review, a quarterly magazine about literature and the arts in NYC, in 1947, and served as its editor until 1948. He published 10 books of poems, two collections of prose fables, and two books of translations.
36. Jeff Moss ’63 – Children’s TV writer and composer. The founding head writer of Sesame Street, Moss created the personalities of Cookie Monster and Oscar the Grouch, wrote storylines, and penned tunes including “The People in Your Neighborhood,” “Rubber Duckie,” and “I Don’t Want to Live on the Moon.” Winner of 14 Emmy Awards and four Grammy Awards. He also wrote a dozen popular books published by the Sesame Street franchise, three volumes of his poetry aimed at children, and short stories. Newsday called him the “children’s poet laureate.”
37. Demetri Porphyrios *74 *80 – A leading traditional-style architect. Designer of Whitman College at Princeton as well as buildings at Oxford and Cambridge.
38. David Remnick ’81 – Editor of The New Yorker since 1998. He is the author of several books, including Lenin’s Tomb: The Last Days of the Soviet Empire, which won a Pulitzer Prize in 1994.
39. Charles Rosen ’48 *51 – Pianist and writer on music and art history who has been perhaps the leading English-language critic of music for the last 35 years.
40. Charles Scribner 1840 – Founded Scribner publishing house.
41. Charles Scribner 1875 – Founded Scribner’s Monthly Magazine, which was very popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, publishing articles by Jacob Riis, Richard Harding Davis, Edith Wharton, and Theodore Roosevelt, among others, as well as illustrations by Maxfield Parrish and Frederic Remington.
42. Brooke Shields ’87 – A child model and a TV/film/stage actress, she also embarked on a public-awareness campaign about postpartum depression.
43. Frank Stella ’58 – A painter and printmaker, Stella has had a significant influence on minimalism, post-painterly abstraction, patterns, and offset lithography. In 2001, a monumental Stella sculpture was installed outside the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.
44. Jimmy Stewart ’32 – Film and stage actor. Won an Academy Award for his role in The Philadelphia Story. He was also awarded lifetime achievement awards at both the Oscars and the Golden Globes. Other films include The Anatomy of a Murder, Harvey, It’s a Wonderful Life, and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. Stewart also had a noted military career, rising to the rank of brigadier general in the U.S. Air Force.
45. Booth Tarkington 1893 – Novelist and dramatist, he is best known for his Pulitzer Prize-winning novels The Magnificent Ambersons and Alice Adams.
Arts, entertainment, and culture (cont.)
46. Lowell Thomas *16 – Writer, broadcaster, and traveler who is best known as the man who made Lawrence of Arabia famous.
47. Robert Venturi ’47 *50 – A Philadelphia-based architect, Venturi has designed buildings on Princeton’s campus and around the world. He is a winner of the prestigious Pritzker Prize; the jury said that he “has expanded and redefined the limits of the art of architecture in this century, as perhaps no other has through his theories and built works. Of the former, his thin but potent volume, Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture, published in 1966, is generally acknowledged to have diverted the mainstream of architecture away from modernism.”
48. Cornel West *80 – Princeton faculty member and author of several works about race relations and American politics, including a historical/philosophical rap CD called “Sketches of my Culture.” He appeared in The Matrix trilogy.
49. Thornton Wilder *26 – Playwright and novelist. The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1927) brought him commercial success and his first Pulitzer Prize. In 1938 and 1943 he won the Pulitzer Prize for drama for his plays Our Town and The Skin of Our Teeth, respectively.
50. Edmund Wilson ’16 – Wilson was a writer for The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, and The New Republic during the early 20th century. His books Axel’s Castle, an international survey of Symbolist poets, and To the Finland Station, a history of socialism/communism, cemented his reputation as an influential literary critic of the era.
51. Robert Wright ’79 – Essayist for The New Republic, Time, Slate, The Atlantic Monthly, The New Yorker, and The New York Times Magazine. His most recent book, NonZero, is about the evolution of religious belief, focusing particularly on interfaith tolerance amid globalization (also included in government/public affairs).
Science & Mathematics
1. William O. Baker *39 – president of Bell Labs from 1973-79; advances made during his tenure led to the first operational fiber-optic system. Served as scientific adviser to presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, and Reagan; received 11 patents for his research on the crystalline molecular structure of plastic and rubber; awarded the Presidential National Security Medal in 1982 and National Medal of Science in 1988.
2. John Bardeen *36 – Nobel laureate in physics, 1956; co-inventor of the transistor.
3. T. Berry Brazelton ’40 – pediatrician; author of 26 books on pediatrics and child development; host of popular cable TV program, “What Every Baby Knows”; often called the most influential baby doctor since Dr. Spock. Hospitals worldwide use the Brazelton Neonatal Behavioral Assessment Scale (NBAS).
4. Michael Brown ’87 – astronomer and professor at Cal Tech; discovered Eris, the largest dwarf planet and most distant object to orbit the sun. The discovery has helped answer questions about the atmosphere surrounding Eris and Pluto.
5. Don Cleveland *77 – While still in graduate school, he developed a rapid method for identifying and characterizing proteins. Recently solved a 100-year-old genetic puzzle and determined that the same genetic mechanism that drives tumor growth also can act as a tumor suppressor. This could lead to new drug targets for cancer therapies.
6. Arthur Holly Compton *16 – Nobel laureate in physics, 1927, for his discovery and explanation of the Compton Effect (change in wavelength of X rays and other energetic forms of electromagnetic radiation when they collide with electrons. It is a principal way in which radiant energy is absorbed by matter, and is caused by the transfer of energy from photons to electrons. When photons collide with electrons that are free or loosely bound in atoms, they transfer some of their energy and momentum to the electrons, which then recoil. New photons of less energy and momentum, and hence longer wavelength, are produced; these scatter at various angles, depending on the amount of energy lost to the recoiling electrons. The effect demonstrates the nature of the photon as a true particle with both energy and momentum.) The discovery was essential to establishing the wave-particle duality of electromagnetic radiation. Compton later was instrumental in initiating the Manhattan Project, and he directed the development of the first nuclear reactors.
7. Karl Compton *12 – president of MIT, 1930-48. He developed a new approach to the teaching of science and engineering and set up the graduate school. He was a member of the committee that advised President Harry Truman on the use of the atomic bomb, and helped organize the American Institute of Physics.
8. Charles “Pete” Conrad ’53 – astronaut who walked on moon on the Apollo XII mission in 1969 (third man to walk on the moon); space commander of Gemini XI, setting a world record in highest achieved altitude. He also was a commander of Skylab II, the first U.S. space station.
9. Clinton Davisson *11 – Nobel laureate in physics, 1937, for his discovery that electrons can be diffracted like light waves, thus verifying the thesis of Louis de Broglie that electrons behave both as waves and as particles. This discovery verified quantum mechanics' understanding of the dual nature of subatomic particles and proved to be useful in the study of nuclear, atomic, and molecular structure.
10. Sidney Drell ’47 – physicist, influential arms-control specialist, winner of a MacArthur genius grant, coauthor of two books on quantum mechanics, member of the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board and Science Advisory Committee.
11. Richard Feynman *42 – Nobel laureate in physics, 1965, for expanding the theory of quantum electrodynamics; also did important research into particle theory and the superfluidity of liquid helium. Assisted in the creation of the atomic bomb; invented Feynman diagrams, a tool to calculate and conceptualize subatomic particles.
12. Henry Fine 1880 – leading 19th-century mathematician and mathematical and scientific educator; made Princeton a leading center for the study of mathematics.
13. Elaine Fuchs *77 – cell biologist and pioneer in biochemical and molecular studies of human skin diseases; leader in the modernization of dermatology; a pioneer in reverse genetics (an experimental procedure that begins with a cloned segment of DNA, and uses this knowledge to introduce programmed mutations back into the genome in order to investigate gene and protein function).
14. Margaret Geller *75 – MacArthur Fellow; co-discoverer of the Great Wall of Galaxies, a cluster of galaxies 200 million light-years away.
15. Peter Gott ’57 *58 – author of America’s most popular medical-advice column; more than 10,000 readers write to him each month with questions concerning health.
16. Harry Hammond Hess *32 – In 1960 Hess made his single most important contribution (regarded as one of the century’s most important advances in geological sciences) by theorizing that the Earth’s crust moved laterally from long, volcanically active oceanic ridges. “Sea-floor spreading,” as the process was later named, helped establish the concept of continental drift as scientifically respectable and triggered a revolution in earth sciences.
17. Robert Hofstadter *38 – Physicist who received the Nobel Prize in 1961 for his research electron scattering in atomic nuclei and his discoveries concerning the structure of the nucleons.
18. Craig Jordan *91 – Stem-cell researcher who identified a molecular switch involved in cell survival that appears to be unique to leukemia stem cells and absent from normal blood stem cells. This has led to the testing of drugs that appear effective at killing leukemia stem cells while sparing healthy stem cells.
19. Robert Kahn *64 – Received several engineering prizes, the National Medal of Technology and Innovation, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his work with Vinton Cerf on the architecture and communication protocols that gave rise to the Internet.
20. Eric Lander ’78 – Leader of the Human Genome Project; founder/director of the Broad Institute, a partnership between Harvard, MIT, the Whitehead Institute, and other hospital systems with the goal of using the human genome to understand and treat diseases.
21. Walsh McDermott ’30 – Influential public-health official; developed anti-tuberculosis drug, Isoniazid, which is used worldwide today to prevent and treat TB.
22. William McElroy *43 – Discovered luciferase, the enzyme that causes fireflies to glow. This can be used in the detection of disease (organisms can be caused to glow), forensics (helps detect traces of blood), and in other applications.
23. Edwin McMillan *33 – Nobel laureate, 1951. He discovered neptunium, the first element heavier than uranium, and made important advances in the development of the cyclotron, a machine used to accelerate charged particles. Today, this machine can help treat cancer in addition to being utilized in nuclear physics experiments.
24. William Francis Magie 1879 – Founder of the American Physical Society. As an influential, longtime Princeton physics professor, he figured in the transformation of Princeton from a college to a university.
25. John Milnor ’50 *54 – Mathematician known for his work in differential topology, K-theory, and dynamical systems. His most celebrated single result is his proof of the existence of 7-dimensional spheres with nonstandard differential structure. Fields Medal winner.
26. W. Jason Morgan *64 – The first to propose that the Earth’s surface was formed of plates; co winner, 2000 Vetlesen Prize for Earth Science Achievement; current Princeton professor.
27. Henry Fairfield Osborn ‘1877 – Eminent paleontologist and the driving force behind the establishment of the American Museum of Natural History as a preeminent scientific institution. Promoted eugenics.
28. Tullis Onstott *80 – Princeton geology professor known for his research into endolithic life beneath the Earth’s surface, named one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world (2007) because his work has shown that life can exist in extreme conditions on earth and hence possibly in outer space.
29. John Prausnitz *55 – As the creator of an entire discipline, molecular thermodynamics, he ranks among the most influential engineers of the last 50 years. His work (more than 660 papers, a major textbook, and five monographs) has led to the insights, developed the techniques, and demonstrated the value of combining approximate molecular theory with strategic data and computational power to establish foundations for uncovering and describing patterns of behavior in properties of every known type of chemical system.
30. George Prendergast *89 – Cancer researcher who specializes in the areas of cancer-cell signaling and molecular cancer therapies. His current work focuses on genes that suppress cancer cells and on a novel immunomodulatory therapy that has been derived from his work. He also serves as deputy editor at Cancer Research, the leading cancer journal.
Science & Mathematics (cont.)
31. Wilder Penfield ’13 – Neurosurgeon; did important research on causes of epilepsy; found a physical basis for memory; developed a map of the brain.
32. Sydney Pestka ’57 – One of the developers of the anti-cancer drug interferon, which helps the immune system by inhibiting the reproduction of viruses and certain cancer cells.
33. Benjamin Rush 1760 – Early physician who served as surgeon general during the American Revolution. Advocated preventive medicine, including inoculations for smallpox and yellow fever, as well as hospital sanitation and respect for patients (especially the insane).
34. Henry Norris Russell *1900 – Astronomer and director of the observatory at Princeton; established (with a colleague) the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram, which was crucial to understanding stellar evolution. (The significance of the H-R diagram is that stars are concentrated in certain distinct regions instead of being distributed at random. This regularity is an indication that definite laws govern stellar structure and stellar evolution.)
35. Lewis Sarett *42 – first chemist to synthesize cortisone; a great contributor to the treatment of arthritis.
36. William B. Scott 1877 – Vertebrate paleontologist; leader of Princeton Patagonian expeditions; brought one of the most prominent paleontological collections in the world to the Princeton museum of geology and archaeology.
37. John H. Seinfeld *67 – A professor at the California Institute of Technology, Seinfeld is the atmospheric scientist who developed the first mathematical models for describing urban air quality that are now used by air-quality managers around the world. His early focus was on understanding the chemical and physical processes occurring in the polluted urban atmosphere. This work led to his landmark 1972 papers on mathematical models for air pollution. From these came the first urban air-quality models incorporated in the federal Clean Air Act, and which today provide the basic tool employed by air-quality scientists worldwide. Seinfeld's work continues to provide many fundamental advances linking atmospheric processes from local pollution formation to global climate change.
38. Frederick Seitz *34 – Co-inventor of the Wigner-Seitz unit cell, an important concept in solid state physics; president of Rockefeller University, 1968-78; noted skeptic about global warming and whether CFCs damage the ozone layer.
39. Richard Smalley *74 – Nobel laureate, 1996, in chemistry, for the discovery of a pure form of carbon called buckminsterfullerene, the so-called “Bucky Balls” (the most symmetrical molecules ever discovered). The carbon is significant because it helps physicists attain a deeper understanding of high-temperature superconductivity, which can be used in medicine, manufacturing, and other areas.
40. Henry DeWolf Smyth ’18 *21 – Physicist, diplomat, and government official who played several key roles in the early development of nuclear energy. Authored the first official history of the Manhattan Project; commissioner on the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission from 1949 through 1954; U.S. representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency 1961-1970. Princeton professor.
41. Gerald Soffen *61 – Project scientist, Viking Mars Project; founder, Mission to Planet Earth program (NASA program dedicated to understanding the total Earth system and the effects of natural and human-induced changes on the global environment); creator, NASA Academy (10-week summer program designed to give future leaders/astronauts a look into how NASA functions).
42. David Spergel ’82 – Astrophysics professor at Princeton; was a developer of the WMAP satellite and mission, which continues to beam back data from space that provides information about the origins of the universe. In 2006, Spergel and his team released groundbreaking results in support of inflation theory, a model that explains the growth of the universe following the Big Bang.
43. Lyman Spitzer *38 – Physicist known as the “Father of the Hubble Space Telescope.” Princeton professor, 1947-97; founder, Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory; NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope honors his work.
44. Connie Liu Trimble ’84 – Oncologist whose research has helped lead to a vaccine against cervical cancer.
45. John Tukey *39 – Mathematician/statistician, known for work in telecommunications industry; coined the terms “bit” and “software”; Princeton professor, 1950-2000.
46. Alan Turing *38 – Developed foundation for the modern computer; leader in breaking German “Enigma” codes during World War II.
47. Steven Weinberg *57 – Won the Nobel Prize in physics in 1979 for his work in unified field theory. Weinberg theorized that two forces in physics, the electromagnetic and the weak force, are the same at extremely high energy levels. This was an important step toward physicists’ goal of finding a single elegant equation to explain all the matter and forces in nature.
48. Frank Wilczek *75 – Nobel Prize winner in physics, 2004, for explaining the force that holds the parts of an atomic nucleus together – another important step toward developing a unified theory for everything.
49. Edward Witten *76 – Pioneer in string theory; winner of the Fields Medal, the highest honor for mathematicians; professor, Institute for Advanced Study.
Business and economics
1. Norman Augustine '57 *59 – Chairman, Lockheed Martin; led National Academies Committee on Science Engineering and Public Policy (produced report on economic competitiveness); preaches that “science education is the future strength of the US economy.”
2. Gary Becker ’51 – Nobel Prize winner in economics, 1992, for work on topics such as racial discrimination, crime, family organization, and drug addiction.
3. Jeff Bezos ’86 – Founder of Amazon.com, named Time magazine’s Man of the Year, 1999; Amazon.com was one of the first major companies to sell goods via the Internet.
4. Jack Bogle ’51 – Founder of the Vanguard Group, one of the largest mutual funds in the world; named by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2004; his investment strategy focuses on the superiority of index funds rather than the traditionally managed mutual funds.
5. David Card *83 – Labor economist; won Clark Medal for best U.S. economist under the age of 40. Has done a significant amount of research on immigration, education, inequality, and job training.
6. Barbara Cassani *84 – Built Go Airlines, the first successful budget airline in Great Britain; leader in London’s bid for the Summer Olympics in 2012.
7. Mort Collins *63 – Nationally recognized venture capitalist, who as the founder and managing partner of four previous venture funds has scored impressive achievements in markets such as life sciences, communications, software, and electronic materials. Member of the Research Roundtable of the National Academy of Sciences. Chaired President Reagan’s Task Force on Innovation and Entrepreneurship and served as a technology policy adviser to President George H. W. Bush.
8. Philip Condit *65 – Chairman and CEO, Boeing Corp.
9. Malcolm Forbes ’41 – Publisher of Forbes magazine; donated the money for one of Princeton’s residential colleges.
10. William Clay Ford ’79 – Former president of Ford Motor Co.; focused on improving fuel efficiency in the Ford fleet, but the effort did not meet goals and ultimately was scaled down.
11. James Heckman *71 – Nobel Prize winner in economics, 2000, for “theory and methods that are widely used in the empirical analysis of individual and household behavior, within economics as well as other social sciences.” He studies the impact of a variety of social programs on the economy and on society at large, and has written on the impact of civil rights and affirmative-action programs, taxes, unionism, and other issues.
12. Lee Iacocca *46 – As chairman of Chrysler Corp., he brought the company back from bankruptcy and moved to improve fuel efficiency
13. Robert Johnson *72 – Founded and led the Black Entertainment Television (BET), a media force that became the first African-American-owned company to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange.
14. Andrea Jung ’79 – CEO of Avon. Considered one of the most powerful women in American business; contributed significantly to strengthening the company’s reputation as a leading direct seller of beauty products.
15. John Kamm ’72 – Business leader who went on to found of Dai Hua Foundation; civil rights activist in China; has helped about 400 Chinese political prisoners.
16. Arthur Levinson *77 – President and CEO, Genentech. Under his leadership, the company has been a leader in the development of cancer drugs.
17. Peter Lewis ’55 – Philanthropist; CEO of Progressive Insurance. During his tenure, Progressive became the fifth-largest auto insurance company in the U.S.; major benefactor to Princeton.
18. Bruce Maclaury ’53 – Under secretary of the Treasury for monetary policy (1969-71), president of Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis (1971-77), president of Brookings Institution (1977-95).
19. Burton Malkiel *64 – Member of the Council of Economic Advisers; noted economist, writer, and Princeton economics professor; leading advocate for the Efficient Market hypothesis; wrote popular finance book, A Random Walk Down Wall Street.
20. N. Gregory Mankiw ’80 – Harvard economics professor and former chairman (2003-2005) of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers. Author of two popular college textbooks, including an introductory book, Principles of Economics, which has sold more than a million copies and been translated into 20 languages.
21. Jason D. McManus *58 – Editor-in-Chief, Time-Warner Inc. (1987-94) at the time of its creation.
22. Walter Morgan ’20 – Certified public account who created and founded the Welling Fund, one of the country’s first mutual funds, in July 1929. He followed a conservative investment policy that served him and his customers well through the stock-market crash, and the firm’s assets passed the $1 million mark by 1935. Precursor to the Vanguard Group.
23. Nathan Myhrvold *83 – As chief technology officer at Microsoft, he contributed significantly to the creation of Microsoft’s most successful operating systems: Windows, Windows NT, and Windows CE.
24. John Nash *50 – Nobel laureate in economics (1994) for his work related to game theory; best known in popular culture as subject of the best-selling novel and popular motion picture, A Beautiful Mind.
25. Michael Porter ’69 – Professor at Harvard; world authority on competitive strategy and the competitiveness and economic development of nations, states, and regions. Author of 17 books and over 125 articles; a course he developed at Harvard is now taught at universities worldwide on video, online, etc. Created and chairs Harvard Business School’s program for newly appointed CEOs of billion-dollar corporations.
Business and economics (cont.)
26. George Rathman *51 – Founder of Amgen, the world’s largest independent biotechnology company.
27. Laurance Rockefeller ’32 – Philanthropist, venture capitalist, and financier; invested in Eastern Airlines, which became the most profitable airline after WWII.
28. Louis Rukeyser ’54 – Longtime host of the popular television show Wall Street Week. He was also the author of several books about investments.
29. Eric Schmidt ’79 – Chairman and CEO of Google Inc. (since 2001).
30. Michael Spence ’66 – Nobel Prize winner in economics, 2001, for work in information flows and market development; most famous for his theory of how individuals in the job market communicate with others who have less information, which has led to a great deal of debate in the field of contract theory.
31. Paul Volcker ’49 – Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, 1979-87; ended the stagflation crisis of the 1970s by focusing on tightening the growth of the money supply rather than targeting interest rates. Though the policy was successful, it came with a high cost, particularly in the farm sector, as many family farms went out of business. Later, Volcker investigated corruption in the Iraqi Oil for Food Program at the request of the U.N.
32. Murray L. Weidenbaum *54 – Chairman of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers 1981-82; a key spokesman for the Reagan administration on financial/economic issues.
33. Meg Whitman ’81 – President and CEO of eBay; Business Week has included her on its list of the 25 most powerful business managers annually since 2000; major benefactor to Princeton.
34. Gordon Wu ’58 – Builder and philanthropist; chairman of the board of Hong Kong-listed Asian infrastructure firm Hopewell Holdings Ltd.; advocated the construction of Asia's largest bridge project linking Hong Kong, Macau and China's Zhuhai city; major benefactor to Princeton ($100 million).
Higher education, religion, and the humanities
1. Danielle Allen ’93 – Political theorist, professor of classical languages and literature, former dean of humanities division at University of Chicago, recipient of 2001 MacArthur fellowship for her writing on democracy and citizenship. Recently appointed to join the Institute for Advanced Study (to the chair formerly held by Michael Waltzer), becoming the first African-American permanent faculty member.
2. James Billington ’50 – Librarian of Congress. During his tenure, the library has expanded its public outreach significantly.
3. William Bowen *58 – Former Princeton president; sparked public debate on college admissions and the roles played by race, athletics, and income in higher education.
4. Howard Crosby Butler 1892 – Archaeologist and first director of the Princeton School of Architecture; successfully excavated Syrian ruins from 1910-1922.
5. Karl Compton *12 – President of MIT, 1930-48. He developed a new approach to the teaching of science and engineering and set up the graduate school. He was a member of the committee that advised President Harry Truman on use of the atomic bomb, and helped organize the American Institute of Physics.
6. W. Robert Connor *61 – Director of the National Humanities Center, a privately incorporated independent institute for advanced study in the humanities, from 1989 through 2002. As director, he developed programs that linked state-of-the-art scholarship with strengthened teaching at both the college and pre-collegiate levels. Formerly Andrew F. West Professor of Humanities at Princeton and president of the American Philological Society.
7. Harold Dodds *14 – President of Princeton, 1933-57, a time of great growth in the size of the student body and faculty; oversaw creation of academic departments in music, creative arts, aeronautical engineering, Near Eastern studies, building of Firestone Library and Dillon Gym, and a great expansion in the Woodrow Wilson School.
8. Elena Kagan ’81 – First female dean of Harvard Law School; former associate counsel to President Bill Clinton; deputy assistant to the president for domestic policy; deputy director of the Domestic Policy Council.
9. Raymond B Fosdick 1905 – President of the Rockefeller Foundation (1936-1948), during which time the foundation supported Planned Parenthood and organizations to promote world peace.
10. Basil Gildersleeve 1849 – Dominant figure in classical scholarship in the late 19th century.
11. Robert Goheen '40 *48 – President of Princeton, 1957-72, during which period Princeton admitted large numbers of minorities and women for the first time; U.S. ambassador to India, 1977-1980.
12. James Hepburn 1832 – His work in developing a Romanized Japanese alphabet and Japanese-English dictionary was seminal and is still influential.
13. Richard Land ’69 – Head of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, perhaps the strongest lobbying organization on the religious right; spokesman for conservative viewpoint.
14. Chang-Lin Tien *59 – President of University of California, Berkeley, 1990-97; fought to preserve the university’s academic excellence during time of severe cuts in state funding.
15. James Manning 1762 – First president/founder of Brown; delegate for Rhode Island in the Continental Congress in 1786.
16. Allan Marquand 1874 – Founder of the Department of Art and Archaeology at Princeton. One of the first to introduce the serious study of art into the curriculum of American colleges. He made important contributions to the Unversity’s Art Museum, and he supplied the department’s library with books and photographs from his own collection. By the early 1900s half of the art teachers at colleges east of the Mississippi had been trained in the graduate curriculum he had developed.
17. Anthony Marx *90 – President of Amherst College; leader in national movement to make Amherst and other colleges more accessible to qualified students from lower-income families.
18. Whitney Oates ’27 – Founding member of National Council on the Humanities; professor of classics and Greek.
19. Hikoichi Orita 1876 – A student of James McCosh, he was instrumental in revolutionizing and modernizing the Japanese system of higher education.
20. Henry Fairfield Osborn 1877 – Renowned paleontologist and the driving force behind the establishment of the American Museum of Natural History as a preeminent scientific institution.
21. Moses T. Pyne 1877 – Major benefactor to Princeton; gave collections of rare books that became the origins of Princeton’s Department of Rare Books and Special Collections.
22. John Rawls ’43 *50 – Philosopher; considered one of the most influential proponents of liberalism since John Stuart Mill.
23. John D. Rockefeller III ’29 – Philanthropist; established the Asia Society and the Asian Cultural Program in 1967 to encourage East-West cultural and economic exchange.
24. Laurance Rockefeller ’32 – Philanthropist, venture capitalist, and financier; invested in Eastern Airlines, which became the most profitable airline after WWII.
25. George Rupp ’64 – Former president of Columbia (1993) and Rice (1985); head of International Rescue Committee.
26. Harold Shapiro *64 – Former president of Princeton and University of Michigan; at Princeton, he oversaw a huge increase in Princeton’s endowment. Co-chaired National Bioethics Advisory Commission (1996-2001).
27. Henry P. Van Dusen ’19 – Theologian; helped found World Council of Churches.