Harvard University Notable Alumni: Top 10 Famous Personalities

Ranked 4th amongst the top 10 universities in the world by QS World Rankings 2024, Harvard University is known for academic excellence and extensive research. As an Ivy League school, the university has a rich tradition of producing global leaders, scientists, and entrepreneurs like JF Kennedy, Neil DeGrasse Tyson, and Natalie Portman. According to the Harvard Alumni Association, there are over 400,000+ alumni members across the world. Keep reading to find out more about the Harvard University Notable Alumni and where they are now!

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Harvard University Notable Alumni 

Harvard graduates have made substantial and creative contributions to society, the arts and sciences, business, and national and international politics for more than three and a half centuries. Eight US presidents, 188 surviving billionaires, 79 Nobel laureates, seven Fields Medal winners, nine Turing Award laureates, 369 Rhodes Scholars, 252 Marshall Scholars, and thirteen Mitchell Scholars are among Harvard’s alumni. Harvard students and graduates have won ten Academy Awards, 48 Pulitzer Prizes, 108 Olympic medals (including 46 gold medals), and founded a slew of prominent businesses around the world.

Also Read: National University of Singapore Notable Alumni

Top 10 Famous Notable Alumni of Harvard University

Let’s take a look at the top 10 famous notable alumni of Harvard University:

John F. Kennedy

JFK, or John Fitzgerald Kennedy, was an American politician who served as the 35th President of the United States from 1961 until his assassination towards the conclusion of his third year in office. He went to study at Harvard University and he majored in government and international relations.

Barack Obama

Barack Hussein Obama II is an American politician and served as the 44th president of the United States of America from 2009-2017. He is a member of the Democratic party, USA and was the first African-American president of the United States of America. He graduated from the Harvard Law School where he was the first black president of the Harvard Law Review.

Natalie Portman

Natalie Portman was born in Israel and is an American actress. She has had a long and successful career in movies, starring in both blockbusters and indie films and winning multiple honors, including an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, and two Golden Globe Awards. After graduating from high school, the actress enrolled at Harvard University in 1999 to pursue a bachelor’s degree in psychology, which she completed four years later. She received her first Oscar nomination for Close a year after graduating.

Matt Damon

Matt Damon is an American actor, producer, and screenwriter. He is one of the highest-paid actors of all time, with films in which he has starred grossing more than $3.88 billion in North America, making him one of Forbes’ most bankable celebrities. At age 18 he landed a small part in Mystic Pizza (1988) and also enrolled in Harvard University as an English major.

Neil deGrasse Tyson

Neil deGrasse Tyson is a renowned American astronomer, planetary scientist, author, and science communicator. Among other schools, Tyson attended Harvard University, the University of Texas at Austin, and Columbia University. He worked as a postdoctoral research associate at Princeton University from 1991 to 1994. Tyson graduated from Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with a bachelor’s degree in physics in 1980.

Conan O’Brien

Conan Christopher O’Brien is an American comedian, writer, podcaster, and producer. With a degree in History and Literature from Harvard University, he went on to work on the sets of The Simpsons and host his American talk show, Late Night with Conan O’Brien. O’Brien earned a bachelor’s degree in American history from Harvard University. He was twice elected president of The Harvard Lampoon, a venerable parody publication (the only other person to hold that distinction was humorist Robert Benchley in 1912).

Tommy Lee Jones

Tommy Lee Jones is a famous American actor and film director. In 1993, he won Best Supporting Actor for his work as US Marshal Samuel Gerard in the thriller The Fugitive, for which he was nominated for four Academy Awards. Jones earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English with honors in 1969, and his final thesis focused on “the mechanics of Catholicism” in Flannery O’Connor’s works. He studied dramatist Robert Chapman at Harvard.

Michael Bloomberg

Michael “Mike” Rubens Bloomberg is an American novelist, politician, and philanthropist. Bloomberg L.P., of which he is the major owner and co-founder, is his company. From 2002 to 2013, he served as the mayor of New York City, and in 2020, he ran for President of the United States as a Democrat. He earned his Master of Business Administration (MBA) from Harvard Business School in 1966.

W. E. B. Du Bois

Born in the United States, William Edward Burghardt Du Bois was a sociologist, socialist, historian, civil rights activist, Pan-Africanist, author, writer, and editor. Du Bois enrolled as a junior at Harvard College and graduated with his second bachelor’s degree in 1890. In 1895, he graduated from Harvard University with a Ph.D., making him the first African American to do so.

Margaret Atwood

Margaret Eleanor Atwood was born in Canada and is a poet, novelist, literary critic, essayist, teacher, environmental activist, and inventor. She is the author of The Handmaid’s Tale, a popular book that has been adapted into a television series. With a Woodrow Wilson grant, she graduated from Harvard University’s Radcliffe College. She earned a Bachelor of Arts in English (honours) with majors in philosophy and French in 1961. In 1961, Atwood began graduate studies at Radcliffe College of Harvard University, with a Woodrow Wilson fellowship.

Also Read: University of Toronto Notable Alumni

Harvard University Notable Alumni

Here are the Harvard University Notable Alumni members across diverse fields like Business, Science, technology, mathematics, medicine, psychology etc

Science, Technology, Medicine, and Mathematics

Name	Notability
Roger Adams	Pioneering organic chemist
Howard H. Aiken	Harvard Mark I designer and computer scientist
James Gilbert Baker	Astronomer, optician
John Bartlett	Minister, founder of Massachusetts General Hospital
Manjul Bhargava	Mathematician, Fields Medal winner
Craig Call Black	Paleontologist
Francine D. Blau	Economist at the National Bureau of Economic Research, the first woman to receive the IZA Prize in Labor Economics
Hilary Blumberg	Professor of Psychiatric Neuroscience
Dan Bricklin	Creator of VisiCalc
Fred Brooks	Turing Award laureate

Business

Name	Notability
Bill Ackman	CEO of Pershing Square Capital Management
Darius Adamczyk	CEO of Honeywell
William McPherson Allen	CEO of Boeing
Adam Aron	CEO of AMC Theatres
J. Paul Austin	CEO of The Coca-Cola Company
Charles Francis Adams Jr.	President of Union Pacific Railroad
Marcus Agius	Chairman, Barclays PLC
A. Charles Baillie	CEO of Toronto-Dominion Bank
Steve Ballmer	President and CEO of Microsoft
Jim Balsillie	CEO of Research in Motion

Law

Name	Notability
Sophia Akuffo	Ghana’s Chief Justice
Solomon Areda Waktolla	Member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration and Deputy Chief Justice of Ethiopia’s Federal Supreme Court.
Mary Arden, Lady Arden of Heswall	Judge of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom
Richard Reeve Baxter	Justice of the International Court of Justice
Kwamena Bentsi-Enchill	Justice of the Supreme Court of Ghana
Harry Blackmun	Supreme Court Justice of the United States
Peter Blanchard	Supreme Court Justice of New Zealand
Louis Brandeis	Supreme Court Justice of the United States
William J. Brennan	Supreme Court Justice of the United States
Stephen Breyer	Supreme Court Justice of the United States

Military

Name	Notability
John Abizaid	General of the United States Army and Commander of the United States Central Command (CENTCOM)
Douglas Campbell	Soldier, World War I ace
Erle Cocke Jr.	Officer in the United States Army during World War II, recipient of the Silver Star Medal, and National Commander of the American Legion (1950–51).
George Downing	English soldier, diplomat
Peter Fanta	U.S. Navy admiral
Manning Force	General of the Union Army, Medal of Honor recipient, judge, and author
David Gurfein	U.S. Marine Corps lieutenant colonel, and CEO of the nonprofit organization United American Patriots
Pierpont M. Hamilton	U.S. Army Air Forces general in World War II, Medal of Honor recipient
Walter Newell Hill	Medal of Honor recipient and general in the United States Marine Corps.
Henry S. Huidekoper	Union Army officer, Medal of Honor recipient

Journalism

Name	Notability
Jill Abramson	Former executive editor of the New York Times
Jacqueline Alemany	CBS News White House Reporter
Christian Alfonsi	Author of the book Circle in the Sand, which is about the Gulf War and the Iraq War.
Jonathan Alter	Former senior editor of Newsweek
Melissa Block	Host of NPR’s All Things Considered
Ben Bradlee	Washington Post executive editor during Watergate scandal
Warren T. Brookes	Columnist for the Detroit News who specialises in economics reporting.
James Brown	Sportscaster
Leslie T. Chang	Journalist (former Wall Street Journal correspondent in Beijing, China; author of Factory Girls: From Village to City in a Changing China)
Susan Chira	The foreign editor of The New York Times since 2004

Literature

Name	Notability
Horatio Alger Jr.	Novelist
Tahmima Anam	Novelist
Michael J. Arlen	Writer, journalist, critic
Margaret Atwood	Novelist
Peter Benchley	Novelist
Robert Benchley	Comedian
John Berendt	Writer
Robert Bly	Poet
Marita Bonner	Harlem Renaissance writer, essayist, poet
Bill Branon	Novelist

Film, Theater, and Television

Name	Notability
Tatyana Ali	Actress, singer
Darren Aronofsky	Film director and screenwriter
Ronald Bass	Screenwriter
S. N. Behrman	Playwright, screenwriter
Roberts Blossom	Actor, poet
Andy Borowitz	Comedian, film actor
Josh Brener	Actor
Amy Brenneman	Actress
Bill Brown	Experimental filmmaker
Nestor Carbonell	Actor

Art, Architecture, and Engineering

Name	Notability
Barbara Bestor	Architect
Anna Campbell Bliss	Artist and architect
Charles Bulfinch	Architect
Rika Burnham	Museum Educator, dancer, and PROSE Award winner
Geoffrey Chadsey	Artist
Kate Cordsen	Photographer, Artist
Allan Crite	Artist
Hardy Cross	Civil engineer
Joseph Goldyne	Artist, printmaker, curator
Gulgee	Pakistani artist and certified engineer are known for his paintings and Islamic calligraphy.

Athletics

Name	Notability
Craig Adams	NHL player, Pittsburgh Penguins
Eugene Belisle	Two-time gold medalist at the 1896 Summer Olympics
Matt Birk	NFL centre
Brian Burke	NHL general manager
Dick Button	Figure skater, two-time Olympic gold medallist, five-time world champion, and seven-time national champion from 1948 to 1954.
Ellery Harding Clark	Silver medalist in fencing at the 2008 Summer Olympics
Emily Cross	Silver medalist in fencing at 2008 Summer Olympics
Clifton Dawson	NFL player, Indianapolis Colts
Jillian Dempsey	Ice hockey player
Eli Dershwitz	2015 Saber Junior World Champion, a competitor for the US in fencing at the 2016 Summer Olympics

The Three Lies of Harvard

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