Columbia School of Engineering and Applied Science - Notable Alumni

Notable Alumni

The School of Engineering and Applied Science celebrates its ties and affiliations with at least 9 Nobel Laureates. The university as a whole celebrates Columbia's 95 Nobel Laureate affiliates (the most affiliates for any institution). Columbia University has graduated the third most Nobel Laureates (38), behind Cambridge (61) and Harvard (48).

Alumni of Columbia Engineering have gone on to numerous fields of profession. Many have become prominent scientists, astronauts, architects, government officials, pioneers, entrepreneurs, company CEOs, financiers, and scholars. Below is a short list of the School's ever growing elite alumni.

• Alfred Chester Beatty (1875), mining magnate and millionaire, often referred to as "King of Copper"
• Herman Hollerith (1879), Founder of IBM
• Mihajlo Idvorski Pupin (B.S. 1883), Serbian physicist and physical chemist whose inventions include the Pupin coil, winner of Pulitzer Prize for his autobiography
• Allen Tucker (1887), architect and artist
• Edward Calvin Kendall (1908), Winner of 1950 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine
• William Parsons (1882), Chief Engineer of New York City's subway system
• Irving Langmuir (1903), Winner of the 1932 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, produced gas-filled incandescent lamp, explorer of the vacuum
• Albert Huntington Chester, Professor at Hamilton College and Huntington College and the namesake of Chester Peak.
• Edwin Armstrong (1913), inventor of the frequency modulation transmission method
• Langston Hughes (1922), poet of the Harlem Renaissance
• Isaac Asimov, One of the "Big Three" science-fiction writers, along with Robert A. Heinlein and Arthur C. Clarke
• Hyman Rickover (1929), Father of the Nuclear U.S. Navy
• Raymond D. Mindlin (1931), renowned researcher and professor known for his contributions to applied mechanics, applied physics, and engineering sciences, recipient of National Medal of Science
• Helmut W. Schulz (1933, 1934), President Dynecology, developed uranium centrifugation (gas centrifuge), laser analysis, safe waste conversion
• Richard G. Newman, Chairman and former CEO of world-leading engineering firm AECOM
• Antoine Marc Gaudin (1921), professor at MIT and a founding member of National Academy of Engineering
• William F. Schreiber, renowned electrical engineer and developer of optical recognition machine
• Grover Loening, American aircraft manufacturer
• Henry S. Coleman (1946), acting dean of Columbia College, Columbia University who was held hostage during the Columbia University protests of 1968.
• Henry Michel (1949), Civil Engineer, President of Parsons Brinckerhoff
• Robert Moog, pioneer of electronic music, inventor of the Moog synthesizer
• Ed DiGiulio (1950), President Cinema Products Corporation
• Eliahu I. Jury (1953), Initiated field of discrete time systems, pioneered z-transform (the discrete time equivalent of the Laplace Transform), and created Jury stability criterion test
• Sheldon Weinig (1954), CEO of Materials Research Corporation, Vice Chairman for Engineering and Manufacturing for SONY America
• Rudolf Emil Kalman (1957), electrical engineer and recipient of National Medal of Science
• Ken Bowersox, engineer, United States Naval officer and a former NASA astronaut
• Masanobu Shinozuka (1960), probabilistic mechanics, structural stability, and risk assessment
• Eugene H. Trinh (1972), Vietnamese-American scientist and astronaut
• Kevin P. Chilton (1977), engineer, the current Commander, U.S. Strategic Command, former NASA astronaut
• Edward Lawry Norton, Bell Lab engineer, developer of Norton equivalent circuit
• Robert C. Merton (1966), Winner of the 1997 Nobel Prize in Economics and co-author of the Black–Scholes pricing model
• Robert D. Lilley (1969), Fmr. CU Trustee, Fmr. President AT&T
• Jae-Un Chung (1964, 1969), Fmr. President, Vice Chairman Samsung Electronics and Shinsegae Group
• James Albaugh (1974), Current President and CEO of Boeing Commercial Airplanes, EVP of its parent company, The Boeing Company.
• Vikram Pandit (1976, 1977, 1980, B' 1986), Current CEO of Citigroup
• Jacqueline Barton (1979), pioneering researcher of DNA repair
• William G. Gregory (1980), NASA astronaut
• Anna Kazanjian Longobardo, founder of the National Society of Women Engineers
• Joshua Bloch (1982), Software engineer, Chief Java Architect at Google
• Steve Perlman (1983), Founder and CEO, Rearden LLC; creator, OnLive Gaming; lead development, QuickTime at Apple Computer; created WebTV (now MSN TV), and other ventures
• Kai-Fu Lee (1983), one of the most prominent figures in the Chinese internet sector and founder/president of Google China
• Ted Rall (dropped out 1984), Political cartoonist, President of the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists
• Michael Massimino (1984), Current engineer and astronaut—mission specialist, STS-109, STS-125.
• Gregory H. Johnson (1985), Current colonel, engineer, astronaut for International Space Station. STS-109, support for STS-125.
• Gano Dunn, former president of Cooper Union and recipient of IEEE Edison Medal
• David Eppstein (1989), developer of computational geometry, graph algorithms, and recreational mathematics
• Ursula Burns (1991), Current CEO of Xerox Corporation, the first woman African-American Fortune 500 company CEO; Xerox is also the largest company a woman African American CEO is running.
• Andy Ross (2001), Ok Go band member: guitarist, keyboard, backup vocals
• Nullsleep (2003), 8-bit musician and founder of the 8bitpeoples collective.
• Elmer L. Gaden, Father of Biochemical Engineering
• Joseph F. Engelberger, Father of Industrial Robotics
• Arthur Loughren, Pioneer in radio engineering and television engineering
• David Steinman, director of the reconstruction of Brooklyn Bridge
• Harvey Seeley Mudd, Founder of Harvey Mudd College of Engineering, Metallurgical Engineer, President of Cyprus Mines Corporation
• Grover Loening, designer of first successful monoplane
• Henry Krumb, Pioneer in development of porphyry copper deposit
• William G. Gregory, former NASA astronaut
• James Kip Finch, renowned American engineer and educator
• Daniel C. Drucker, American engineer and recipient of National Medal of Science
• Robert Spinrad, American computer engineer and former director of Xerox Palo Alto Research Center
• Shree K. Nayar, inventor of 360° camera and developer of Oren–Nayar Reflectance Model
• Hazel Bishop, chemist and inventor of innovative cosmetics
• Chuck Hoberman, inventor and architect
• David E. Shaw, founder of hedge fund, private equity and technology development firm D. E. Shaw & Co.
• Sanjiv Ahuja, current CEO of Augere and former CEO of Orange
• José Raúl Capablanca, one of the greatest chess players of all time
• Leon Moisseiff, American engineer and designer of the Manhattan Bridge
• Philip Sporn, renowned Australian engineer and recipient of IEEE Edison Medal
• Lotfi Asker Zadeh, a renowned Iranian mathematician, electrical engineer, and computer scientist
• Sheldon E. Isakoff, chemical engineer and former director of DuPont
• DeWitt Clinton United States Senator and the sixth Governor of New York
• Chester Holmes Aldrich, former director of American Academy in Rome and architect
• Saul Amarel, computer scientist and pioneer in artificial intelligence
• Herbert L. Anderson, established Enrico Fermi Institute and nuclear physicist in the Manhattan Project
• Ferdinand Freudenstein, mechanical engineer, professor, and widely considered the "Father of Modern Kinematics"
• Vikram Pandit, American banker, CEO of Citigroup
• Alvin E. Roth, Economist, 2012 Nobel Prize Laureate in Economics