Cornell University Notable Alumni

Bill Nye is an American mechanical engineer, television presenter, and science communicator. He is known for hosting the live-action science program Bill Nye the Science Guy. He is credited with inventing a hydraulic resonance suppressor tube, which is used on the Boeing 747 airplanes. He also helped develop MarsDial, a sundial that became part of the Mars Exploration Rover missions.

Science-fiction author Kurt Vonnegut is best remembered for the novel Slaughterhouse-Five, which became a New York Times bestseller. The Hugo Award-winner had also fought against the Germans in World War II and expressed his anti-war and atheist views through his works, which also include short stories, plays, and autobiographical works.  

Ratan Tata is a well-known Indian industrialist and the former charman of Indian multinational conglomerate Tata Sons. His reign as chairman was marked by acquisitions of iconic global brands, such as Tetley, Jaguar Land Rover and Corus by the Tata Group. Ratan Tata was instrumental in turning Tata Group from a largely India-centrist group into a global business.

The first Jewish woman to serve on the US Supreme Court, Ruth Bader Ginsburg was a jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. An advocate for gender equality and women's rights, she spent the majority of her legal career championing these causes. She remained professionally active until her death in 2020.

Christopher Reeve had a flying start to his acting career as he played the iconic Superman in four films. Unfortunately, he became a quadriplegic after suffering an accident at an equestrian competition. Despite the setback, he continued contributing to the film industry and also founded the Christopher Reeve Foundation as part of his charitable work.

Jimmy Smits is an American actor who achieved popularity after portraying Victor Sifuentes in the legal drama television series L.A. Law. Also known for his charity work, Smits helped establish the National Hispanic Foundation for the Arts, which supports Latinos working in the entertainment, media, and telecommunications industries. He has also donated to organizations, such as the American Red Cross.

Huey Lewis is an American actor, singer, and songwriter. He is credited with forming the popular rock band, Huey Lewis and the News, which contributed to the soundtrack of the film Back to the Future. Apart from writing many of the band's songs, Huey Lewis also plays the harmonica and serves as the lead singer for his band.

Former NASA astronaut Mae Jemison became the first Black woman to fly into space, as a mission specialist on the Space Shuttle Endeavour. A qualified physician, she has served as a Peace Corps doctor, too. She has written several books and established a non-profit and a tech research organization.

Taiwanese politician and academic, Tsai Ing-wen, is currently serving as the seventh president of the Republic of China (Taiwan). She has been in office since 2016. She is a member of the Democratic Progressive Party and the first female president of Taiwan. As the president, she has taken steps to fund green energy initiatives and supports LGBTQA+ rights.

Brian Hallisay is an American actor known for his portrayal of important characters in TV series, such as Privileged and The Client List. From 2018 to 2019, he played the recurring role of Jason Bailey in the popular procedural television series 9-1-1 alongside his real-life spouse Jennifer Love Hewitt.

Thomas Pynchon initially joined Cornell to study engineering physics, but changed his major to English after a brief stint with the U.S. Army. A master of black humor, he soared to fame with novels such as The Crying of Lot 49 and Inherent Vice. He is media-shy and is rarely photographed.

Nobel Prize- and Pulitzer Prize-winning American author Pearl Buck was raised in China by her missionary parents. She grew up to teach English literature in Chinese universities and later penned books such as East Wind, West Wind and The Good Earth, which were based on her experiences in China.

S. E. Cupp is an American TV host, writer, and political commentator. As a writer, Cupp has contributed to several popular publications like The Washington Post, Maxim, and New York Daily News. A regular guest host on Fox News' talk show Red Eye w/ Greg Gutfeld, Cupp has also hosted other talk shows like The Cycle.

Freeman Dyson was a British-American theoretical and mathematical physicist, mathematician, and statistician. He made major contributions in the fields of quantum field theory, astrophysics, random matrices, quantum mechanics, and nuclear physics. He originated the concept that went on to be known as Dyson's transform. He received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement in 1986. 

Dan Duryea was an American actor best remembered for portraying negative roles. However, he was also renowned for his versatility as he played a wide variety of leading roles as well. He also became famous as a TV actor and played important roles in series like China Smith and The New Adventures of China Smith.

Lebanese-Canadian evolutionary-psychologist Gad Saad is best-known for applying evolutionary-psychology to marketing and consumer behaviour. He is a professor of marketing at Concordia University, an advisory fellow for the Centre for Inquiry Canada, and the Concordia University Research Chairman in Evolutionary Behavioural Sciences and Darwinian Consumption. He hosts the YouTube channel The Saad Truth and writes a blog for Psychology Today.

American astronomer Vera Rubin is best known for her pioneering discoveries on galaxy rotation rates, her groundbreaking work confirming the existence of dark matter and for her life-long advocacy for women in science. She studied the galactic rotation curves and provided strong evidence of the existence of dark matter. The Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile is named after her.

The grandson of Max Katz, who once headed the Society of American Magicians, Ricky Jay started his career as an opening act for prominent entertainers such as singer Tina Turner. He gradually established himself as the greatest sleight-of-hand artist of his time. He has also appeared in films such as Boogie Nights.

Richard Meier is an American architect and abstract artist who is credited with designing many iconic buildings, such as the San Jose City Hall, the Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art, and the Getty Center, Los Angeles. Over the years Richard Meier has won several prestigious awards like the Pritzker Prize and the American Academy of Achievement's Golden Plate Award.

Thomas Midgley Jr. was an American chemical and mechanical engineer. Midgley played a key role in the development of leaded gasoline and chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), which were later banned due to their negative impact on the environment and human health. Thomas Midgley Jr. was granted over 100 patents during his lifetime.

Junot Díaz is a Dominican-American writer who works at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as a creative writing professor. He is also known for his association with the quarterly political and literary magazine Boston Review, where he works as a fiction editor. In 2017, he was made an inductee of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Barbara McClintock was a scientist and cytogeneticist who received the 1983 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. She earned her Ph.D. in botany from Cornell University and began her lifelong work in the development of maize cytogenetics. She eventually gained recognition as among the best in the field and was honored with several prestigious awards.