List of Oberlin College alumni

The people listed below studied at Oberlin College. Most are listed with a year of graduation. Those without years studied but did not graduate.

Nobel laureates

• Stanley Cohen (M.A. zoology, 1945), Nobel (Physiology and Medicine, 1986), for "discoveries of growth factors"
• Robert Millikan (B.A. 1891), Nobel laureate (Physics, 1923) "for his work on the elementary charge of electricity and on the photoelectric effect"
• Roger Wolcott Sperry (B.A. English 1935, M.A. psychology 1937), neurobiologist who studied split-brain research, Nobel laureate (Medicine, 1981), "for his discoveries concerning the functional specialization of the cerebral hemispheres"

Pulitzer Prize

• Carl Dennis (transferred to University of Minnesota), Pulitzer prize-winning poet of Practical Gods.
• Michael Dirda (BA 1970), Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post reviewer, author.
• Franz Wright (BA 1977), recipient of the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for Walking to Martha's Vineyard').
• George Walker (1941, honorary degree 1983), composer, the first African American to be awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Music (1996, for Lilacs).

Academy, Grammy, Tony, and Emmy awards

• Mark Boal (1995), screenwriter, recipient of two Academy Awards (Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay for The Hurt Locker (2009))
• James Burrows (1962 ), producer and creator of Cheers and Emmy award-winning director of Will & Grace, Wings, News Radio, among other television series.
• Marc Cohn (1981) , singer-songwriter, recipient of a Grammy Award (1991, Best New Artist).
• Alex Klein (1987), oboist , recipient of the Grammy (2002, Best Solo Instrumentalist with Orchestra)
• William Goldman (1952), novelist (The Princess Bride) and recipient of the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) and Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay All the President's Men(1976)).
• Bill Irwin (1973 ), actor in numerous plays and movies, including Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Rachel Getting Married, The Goat, or Who is Sylvia?, My Blue Heaven, and Eight Men Out, 1984 MacArthur Fellow, clown, Tony Award (2005 for Best Actor in a Play)
• Gregory Mosher (1971), Tony Award-winning director.
• Julie Taymor (1974), Emmy and Tony award-winning theatrical and cinematic director, filmmaker, screenwriter (Frida, Titus, Broadway's The Lion King, Across the Universe).

Academia

• Noah Bopp (1996), founder and director, School for Ethics and Global Leadership.
• Christopher Browning (1968), historian of the Holocaust.
• Kevin Clarke (1991), renowned political methodologist, currently Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Rochester.
• Johnnetta B. Cole (1957), first female African-American president of Spelman College, president of Bennett College 2002–07.
• John R. Commons (1888), well-known institutional economist and labor historian.
• John Millott Ellis (1851), acting President of Oberlin College and abolitionist.
• George Fairchild (1862), third President of Kansas State University.
• Peter Tyrrell Flawn (1947), geologist and former President of the University of Texas at Austin.
• Joseph L. Graves, Jr. (1977), Associate Dean for Research and Professor of Biological Studies at the Joint School for Nanoscience and Nanoengineering.
• Erwin Griswold (1925), lawyer, Solicitor General of the United States and dean of Harvard Law School.
• Robert Hutchins, educational philosopher, president (1929–1945) and chancellor (1945–1951) of the University of Chicago
• Walter Heller (1935), economist and educator
• Charlene Drew Jarvis (1962), president of Southeastern University.
• Robert Jervis (1962), International Relations scholar and Columbia University professor.
• Barbara Johnson (1969), literary critic, professor at Harvard University.
• J. Richard Judson (1949), Rembrandt, Honthorst, and Terbrugghen scholar and Professor Emeritus at UNC and Smith Colleges.
• Laurence Perrine, best-selling author and professor at Southern Methodist University.
• Paul Pierson (1981), well known political scientist, professor of political science at the University of California, Berkeley.
• Roger Montgomery (1949), Dean of Architecture, City Planning, and Landscape Architecture, University of California, Berkeley.
• Edward F. Mooney (1962), noted Kierkegaard scholar and Professor of Religion at Syracuse University.
• L. L. Nunn, Founder of Telluride Association and Deep Springs College.
• Willard V. O. Quine (1930), philosopher and logician.
• William Sanders Scarborough (1875), classical scholar.
• Robert E. Scott, (1965), law professor and notable contract law scholar at Columbia Law School, Board of Visitors at College of William and Mary
• C. Martin Wilbur (1931), historian, Sinologist.
• Garnet C. Wilkinson (1902), educator and administrator
• Warren Wilson, namesake of Warren Wilson College in North Carolina.

Business

• Joani Blank (1959), founder of Good Vibrations.
• Marc Canter (1980), co-founder of MacroMind (later Macromedia).
• Jerry Greenfield (1973), co-founder of Ben & Jerry's ice cream.
• John Gutfreund (1951), executive, former CEO of Salomon Brothers Inc.,Business Week named him "King of Wall Street" in the 1980's.
• Charles Martin Hall (1885), co-discoverer of the electrolytic process of producing aluminium, founder of Alcoa, Inc. (and contributor to the American spelling of "aluminum").
• Ralf Hotchkiss (1969), co-founder and current (2006) Whirlwind Chief Engineer of Whirlwind Wheelchair International, 1989 MacArthur Foundation Fellow.
• Dave Kaemmer (1985), founder of the Papyrus Design Group and iRacing.com
• Jane Pratt (1984), creator of Sassy and Jane magazines.
• Nova Spivack (1991), technology entrepreneur

Government

Premiers

• H. H. Kung (1906), Chinese banker and Premier of the Republic of China (1938–39).

Legislators

• Blanche K Bruce, second African-American Senator from Mississippi, serving 1874–1881.
• Yvette Clarke (transferred to Medgar Evers College, did not earn degree), Democratic representative for New York's 11th congressional district, 2007–present.
• Jacob Dolson Cox, politician and author.
• Paul Drennan Cravath (1882), famous lawyer, partner of Cravath, Swaine & Moore, creator of the "Cravath System" and founding Vice-President of the Council on Foreign Relations.
• John Langalibalele Dube, first (Founding) President of the African National Congress
• Richard Hodges (1986), Member, Ohio House of Representatives 1993-1999
• Hsiao Bi-khim (1993), Member of the Legislative Yuan (Parliament) of Taiwan , representing the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and the 1st Electoral District of Taipei City, and Vice President of Liberal International
• Alfred A. Laun, Jr., Wisconsin State Senator.
• Eduardo Mondlane (1953), Mozambican political leader.
• Harrison A. Williams (1941), U.S. senator and congressman from New Jersey.

Mayors

• Adrian Fenty (1992), former Mayor of Washington, D.C..
• Stephanie Rawlings Blake (1992), Mayor of Baltimore, MD

Executive council

• Richard N. Haass (1973), president of the Council on Foreign Relations and former Director of Policy Planning for the U.S. Department of State.
• Cynthia Hogan (1979), Counsel to the Vice President of the United States, Joe Biden, under President Barack Obama.
• Martha N. Johnson (1974), former official in the Clinton administration and Administrator of the United States General Services Administration
• Anne O. Krueger (1953), award-winning economist, Deputy Director of the International Monetary Fund, and Oberlin trustee (1987–95).
• Robert Kuttner (1965), co-founder and co-editor of The American Prospect, and one of five co-founders of the Economic Policy Institute.

Diplomats

• Edwin O. Reischauer (1931) Ambassador to Japan, 1961–1966
• John S. Service (1931) Foreign Service Officer, China Hand
• Durham Stevens (1871), assassinated diplomat to Japan.

Other

• Lee Fisher (1973), former Lieutenant Governor and former Attorney General of Ohio.

Activists

• Kathleen Neal Cleaver (transferred to Barnard College) Senior Research Associate at Yale Law School known for her involvement in the Black Panther Party.
• Henry Roe Cloud, Native American political leader.
• Rennie Davis, anti-Vietnam war activist and one of the Chicago Seven.
• John Mercer Langston (1849), early civil rights activist.
• James Lawson (Graduate School of Theology, 1950s), theoretician and tactician of nonviolence in US civil rights movement.
• William F. Schulz (1971), former Executive Director of Amnesty International USA.
• Lucy Stone (1847), feminist and abolitionist.
• Anna Louise Strong (1905), activist and author.
• Mary Church Terrell (1884/1888), author, activist
• John Todd (abolitionist) (1841), abolitionist, conspirator with John Brown, founder of Tabor College (Iowa)
• Wayne Bidwell Wheeler (1894), attorney, American prohibitionist.
• John W. Whitcomb (1987), civil rights attorney in Chicago.

Journalism

Broadcast media

• Alex Blumberg (1989), producer, This American Life.
• Chris Broussard (1990), ESPN sports analyst.
• Paul Brown, newscaster/reporter for NPR; from 2001 to 2003 Brown was NPR's executive producer for weekend programming, also served as acting executive producer and acting senior producer of NPR's Talk of the Nation, and as acting senior producer at NPR's Morning Edition.
• Ben Calhoun (2001), radio journalist, producer for This American Life.
• Jon Hamilton (1983), NPR science correspondent.
• Lisa Jervis (1993), creator and editor of Bitch magazine.
• Benjamin Joffe-Walt (1980), writer, CNN Africa Print Journalist of the Year
• Fred Kaplan (1976), journalist and Slate columnist.
• James Kim (1992) , Senior CNET editor and technology analyst.
• Chris Johnson (1990), filmmaker, photographer, PBS – "Voyage of the Odyssey" / earthOCEAN.tv
• Robert Krulwich (1969), television and radio journalist (RadioLab on WNYC).
• George Smith (1987), ESPN investigative reporter, Division III Track & Field All-American.

Print media

• Peter Baker (1988), New York Times journalist and author.
• Michelle Malkin (1992), Philipina writer (Los Angeles Daily News, The Seattle Times), author (In Defense of Internment), political commentator.
• James McBride (1979), journalist (Boston Globe, The Washington Post), author (The Color of Water), musician.
• Carl T. Rowan (1947), journalist.
• David Schlesinger (1982) Editor-in-Chief, Reuters news, Thomson Reuters.
• Adam Moss (1979), editor of New York magazine.
• Sonia Shah (1990), investigative journalist.

Literature

See also:Pulitzer Prize

• Paolo Bacigalupi, author of The Windup Girl
• Alison Bechdel (1981), cartoonist (Dykes To Watch Out For) and graphic novelist (Fun Home)
• Ishmael Beah (2004), author of A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier.
• Paul Bergstraesser (1989), author of several short stories and professor at the University of Wyoming.
• Jackson Bliss (1998), novelist, author of BLANK and A Travel Guide to the Broken World.
• Geoffrey Blodgett (1953), historian and author of Cass Gilbert: The Early Years.
• Wendy Brenner (1987), author of Phone Calls From the Dead.
• Alice Rowe Burks (1942), author of Who Invented the Computer?: The Legal Battle that Changed Computing History.
• Michael Byers (1991), novelist and author of The Coast of Good Intentions, Long for This World, and Percival's Planet.
• Gail Carriger (1998), fantasy novelist of Soulless.
• John Mark Carroll (1984), historian and author of A Concise History of Hong Kong.
• Tracy Chevalier (1984), novelist and author of Girl with a Pearl Earring, Falling Angels, and The Lady and the Unicorn.
• Anna J. Cooper (1884), African-American author and teacher, fourth African-American woman to receive a PhD.
• Alev Lytle Croutier, a Turkish-American author.
• Charles D'Ambrosio (1982), essayist, short story writer.
• Josh Emmons (1995), novelist (The Loss of Leon Meed, Prescription for a Superior Existence).
• Darcy Frey (1983), non-fiction writer.
• Alan Furst (1962), novelist, author of Blood of Victory.
• Myla Goldberg (1993), novelist (Bee Season, Wickett's Remedy).
• Melissa Fay Greene (1975), author (There Is No Me Without You).
• Linda Gregerson (1971), award-winning poet (Waterborne, Magnetic North).
• David Halperin (1973), author (One Hundred Years of Homosexuality).
• Bill Henderson (novelist) (1965) author of Stark Raving Elvis, I Killed Hemingway, I, Elvis: Confessions of a Counterfeit King.
• Joe Hickerson (1957), American folklorist.
• Jonathan Holden (1963), poet (Knowing: New and Selected Poems).
• Michael Hollinger (1984), playwright (Red Herring)
• Cathy Park Hong (1998), poet (Translating Mo'um).
• Tim Hurson (1967), speaker, writer, creativity theorist, author of Think Better: An Innovator's Guide to Productive Thinking
• Naeem Mohaiemen (1993), writer and artist whose projects research histories of the 1970s international left.
• David Maine (1985), novelist (The Preservationist).
• Megan McDonald (1981), writer of children's literature (Judy Moody, The Great Pumpkin Switch).
• J. Hillis Miller (1948), literary critic (The Ethics of Reading, On Literature).
• Martha Moody (1977), author of Best Friends, Office of Desire, and Sometimes Mine.
• Thylias Moss (1981), poet, playwright, and 1996 MacArthur Fellow.
• Josh Neufeld (1989), cartoonist (Keyhole) and graphic novelist (A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge).
• Thisbe Nissen (1994), novelist (Out of the Girls Room and Into the Night, Osprey Island)
• Peggy Orenstein (1983), author (Flux: Women on Sex, Work, Kids, Love, and Life in a Half-Changed World).
• Rich Orloff (1973), playwright (Big Boys).
• Dzvinia Orlowsky (1975), poet (Except for One Obscene Brush Stroke).
• Jena Osman (1985), poet (The Character).
• Suzanne Paola (1980), poet (Lives of The Saints) and memoirist.
• Lia Purpura (1986), poet (Stone Sky Lifting), essayist (Increase, On Looking).
• David Rees (1994), cartoonist (My New Fighting Technique is Unstoppable, Get Your War On).
• S. J. Rozan (1972), novelist (Reflecting the Sky).
• John C. Russell (1985), playwright (Stupid Kids).
• Kathy Lou Schultz (1990), poet (Some Vague Wife).
• Elizabeth Searle (1983), novelist (Celebrities in Disguise).
• Stephen W. Sears (1954), author (Gettysburg).
• Vijay Seshadri (1974), poet (The Long Meadow).
• Matthew Sharpe (1984), novelist (Nothing is Terrible, The Sleeping Father, Jamestown).
• Gary Shteyngart (1995), novelist (The Russian Debutante's Handbook, Absurdistan : A Novel, Super Sad True Love Story ).
• Donald J. Sobol (1948), author of Encyclopedia Brown series.
• Matthew Stadler (1981), novelist (Allan Stein).
• Jon Swan (1950), playwright, poet, librettist, and journalist.
• Michael Teig (1990), poet (Big Back Yard).
• Geoffrey Ward (1962), author (The West: An Illustrated History and The War: An Intimate History, 1941-1945).
• Bruce Weigl (1973), poet (Archeology of the Circle: New and Selected Poems).
• William Drake Westervelt (1871 and 1874; honorary degree 1926), Hawaiian historical writer.
• Thornton Wilder, novelist (The Bridge of San Luis Rey), playwright (Our Town).
• Christopher Robin "Kit" Woolsey (1964), bridge internationalist and writer (Matchpoints) and backgammon expert.
• John Wray (1993), novelist (The Right Hand of Sleep, Lowboy).

Performing arts

Film and television

• Eric Bogosian (1976), novelist, playwright (Talk Radio, suburbia (play)|subUrbia), and actor (Law and Order: Criminal Intent).
• Avery Brooks (1970 and an additional honorary degree in 1996), actor in Uncle Tom's Cabin, American History X, Spenser: For Hire, best known for Benjamin Sisko in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
• Peter Buchman (1989), screenwriter for Jurassic Park III and Che.
• John Cazale (class of 1954, transferred to Boston University), actor in The Godfather (portrayed Fredo Corleone) and The Deer Hunter.
• Su Friedrich (1975), experimental filmmaker.
• Ed Helms (1996 ), actor (The Office, The Hangover), comedian, correspondent on The Daily Show.
• Edward Everett Horton (1909; honorary degree 1953), actor (The Front Page (1931 film), Top Hat, Holiday (1938 film)), voice actor (Rocky & Bullwinkle). {Left his junior year}
• Judy Kuhn (1981), American singer, Broadway performer, and singing voice of Pocahontas
• Daniel London (1995), actor (Minority Report (film), Old Joy, Patch Adams (film)).
• Rex Lee (1990), actor, best known for his role on Entourage.
• Jim Newman (1955), founder of Dilexi Gallery and Other Minds New Music Festival, San Francisco.
• Maggie Keenan-Bolger (2006), actress and writer, wrote From the Inside, Out, co-founder of 4th Meal Productions, The Will Rogers Follies and The Music Man National tours
• Oren Rudavsky (1979), filmmaker (Hiding and Seeking, And Baby Makes Two, The Treatment).
• Corey Stoll (1998), stage and screen actor (Intimate Apparel, Law & Order: LA, Midnight in Paris).
• Larry Sweeney (Alexander Whybrow) (2003), professional wrestler.
• Daniel Radosh (1991), journalist, blogger, writing staff of The Daily Show.
• Patrick Tully (1997), actor, best known for playing the role of Noah Tannenbaum on HBO's The Sopranos
• Nick Wauters, television writer, creator of the NBC series The Event.

Stage theater

• John Kander (1951), of the musical theater team Kander and Ebb (Cabaret and Chicago, among others).
• Romulus Linney (1953, honorary degree 1994), playwright.
• Julie Atlas Muz, burlesque dancer, actress, stage director
• Richard Tatum (1988), award-nominated stage and voice actor, Associate Artistic Director of the ARK Theatre Company, Los Angeles.

Radio

• Jad Abumrad, American radio host and producer. Currently hosts and produces Radiolab on WNYC.
• Seth Rudetsky (1988), Broadway actor, pianist, writer, radio host

Music

• Benjamin Bagby (1974), vocalist, harpist, scholar, and founder of early music ensemble Sequentia.
• Richard Bliwas (1981), pianist and composer
• Chris Brokaw (1986), rock drummer for Codeine, Come, Consonant.
• Brian Chase (2000), drummer for the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.
• Chris Eldridge (2004), Guitarist, Punch Brothers; former guitarist, the Infamous Stringdusters.
• Jason Myles Goss (2003), singer-songwriter.
• Denyce Graves, an accomplished American opera singer, sang the American Anthem during the 44th Presidential Inauguration for President Barack Obama.
• Al Haig, jazz pianist.
• Moses Hogan (1978?) Composer, conductor, pianist. Director of the Moses Hogan Chorale.
• Paul Horn (1952), jazz flutist.
• Jennifer Koh (1997), violinist (1994 International Tchaikovsky Competition winner).
• Alexander Perls (1998), songwriter, music producer.
• Liz Phair (1989), singer/songwriter.
• Nancy Priddy, singer-songwriter, perhaps best known for providing back-up vocals on Leonard Cohen's debut album, Songs of Leonard Cohen.
• Josh Ritter (1999), singer/songwriter.
• Lucy Wainwright Roche (2003), musician, half-sister of Rufus Wainwright.
• Wilfred Roberts (1963), musician, principal bassoonist of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra.
• John McEntire (1991), drummer (Tortoise).
• Jason Molina (1996), singer/songwriter with Songs: Ohia and Magnolia Electric Co.
• Amy X. Neuburg (1984), classical and pop singer.
• Karen O, singer, Yeah Yeah Yeahs.
• Milt Okun (1948), arranger, producer and musical director for popular 1960s singers such as Peter Paul and Mary, The Chad Mitchell Trio and John Denver.
• Michael Rudman (1960), award-winning theater director
• Andrew Shapiro (1998), composer
• Robert Spano (1983), music director of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra.
• William Grant Still, composer.
• Dick Sudhalter (1960), jazz musician and critic
• William (Bill) Svanoe (1959), member of the The Rooftop Singers
• Jon Theodore (1996), Ex-drummer for the Mars Volta.
• Jen Trynin (1986), rock singer/songwriter.

Religion

• William Ament, controversial missionary to China, criticized by Mark Twain.
• Hobart Baumann Amstutz studied at the Conservatory 1914–15 before graduating from Oberlin High School in 1915. Later served as a Bishop for The Methodist Church.
• Antoinette Brown (1847), the first ordained female minister in the U.S..
• Lewis Sperry Chafer (1891), theologian, one of the prominent proponents of Christian Dispensationalism, founder and first president of Dallas Theological Seminary.
• Fanny Jackson Coppin (1865), influential African-American educator and missionary.
• William Hamilton (1944), theologian affiliated with Death of God controversy
• Vernon Johns (1919), African-American preacher, PhD University of Chicago, predecessor of Martin Luther King Jr. at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama, widely hailed as the father of the civil rights movement.
• Martha Root (1890s), Hand of the Cause in the Bahá'í Faith.
• Lorenzo Snow, Mormon prophet, fifth president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Science

See also:Nobel laureates

• Arthur L. Benton (1931), neuropsychologist.
• Joan Feynman (1948), Solar astrophysicist (at JPL in Pasadena, California) who created a method to predict sun spot cycles and made original studies on the interactions between the solar wind and Earth's magnetosphere . Sister of Richard Feynman.
• Jim Fixx (1957), author of The Complete Book of Running.
• Robert Galambos (1914-2010), researcher who discovered how bats use echolocation.
• John Gofman (1939), a scientist involved in the Manhattan Project and an activist concerning issues with nuclear power and radiation danger.
• Elisha Gray, an inventor of the telephone who was beaten to the patent office by Alexander Graham Bell. The records of his invention still remain in the Oberlin Archive.
• Philip Hanawalt (1954), scientist, co-discoverer of DNA excision repair.
• Ellen Hayes (1878) astronomer and mathematician
• Edward Haskell (1929), scientist and educator who dedicated his life to the unification of human knowledge into a single discipline.
• Ralph F. Hirschmann (1922–2009), biochemist who led synthesis of the first enzyme.
• Ernest Ingersoll, American naturalist.
• Richard Lenski (1977), biologist and 1996 MacArthur Fellow.
• John Edward Mack (1951), psychologist, author (A Prince of Our Disorder).
• Rollo May (1930), psychologist, author.
• Catherine McBride-Chang 1989, Psychologist, researcher in the area of cross-cultural development of early literacy skills
• George Herbert Mead (1883), philosopher, leading figure of American Pragmatism; his theories became the foundation of the symbolic interactionist school of sociology and social psychology.
• Anita Roberts (1964), molecular biologist who made pioneering observations of TGF beta
• Larry Squire (1963), Distinguished Professor of Neuroscience and Psychology at University of California, San Diego, researcher in the field of memory, Past President of the Society for Neuroscience.
• Paul Wennberg (1985), chemist and 2002 MacArthur Fellow.
• Felisa Wolfe-Simon, Geomicrobiologist at the US Geological Survey and a Fellow of the NASA Astrobiology Institute