Academia
- M. A. Wazed Miah, eminent Physicist
- Michael Alcorn - Director of the School of Music and Sonic Arts at Queen's University, Belfast.
- Kenneth Allott (Armstrong) - Poet and Academic and Kenneth Muir Professor of English at Liverpool University
- Ephraim Anderson - bacteriologist, best known for his work highlighting the human health dangers of drug-resistant bacteria created by antibiotics
- Dr. Michael Aris - husband of Aung San Suu Kyi. Lecturer in Asian history at St John's College, Oxford and later at St Antony's College, Oxford. Tutor of the children of the royal family of the Himalayan Kingdom of Bhutan.
- Roy Ascott (King's) - British artist and theorist and professor at Plymouth University
- David Axon - professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology
- John Barrow FRS (Van Mildert) - Cosmologist, winner of the 2006 Templeton Prize
- Neil Bartlett FRS (King's) - chemist best known for his discovery of noble gas compounds.
- Prof. David Bellamy - botanist and environmental campaigner
- Prof. Sir George Malcolm Brown - Geologist, scientist to NASA Apollo 11 mission, winner of the Murchison Medal. Director of the British Geological Survey
- Sir Ernest Bullock - Gardiner Professor of Music, Glasgow and Director of the Royal College of Music
- Prof. Sir Kenneth Calman - Vice-Chancellor of Durham University, then Chancellor of University of Glasgow
- Prof. William Campbell - metallographer to the United States Geodetic Survey
- Dr. David Carter - Bursar at Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge University
- Martin Carver - Professor of Archaeology at the University of York
- Dr. Robin Donkin FBA (King's) - historian and geographer, reader in Historical Geography in Cambridge University
- Prof. Sir Kingsley Charles Dunham - geologist and mineralogist, Director of the British Geological Survey and winner of the Wollaston Medal
- Prof. Stanley Eveling - English playwright and academic at Edinburgh University
- Dr. Ghazi Falah - Geographer at University of Akron
- Robert Michael Franklin, Jr. - president of Morehouse College
- Prof. David Gavaghan - director of the Life Sciences Interface Doctoral Training Centre, University of Oxford
- Prof. Monica Grady - Professor of Planetary and Space Science at the Open University
- Dr. David Grant - Vice-Chancellor of Cardiff University
- Canon William Greenwell (University) - English archaeologist.
- Prof. Roy Martin Haines (St Chad's), M.A., M.Litt. Durham, D.Phil., D.Litt. Oxford, FRHistS., F.S.A.- Professor of Medieval History Dalhousie University, life member of Clare Hall, Cambridge
- William Edmund Hick - British psychologist, pioneer in experimental psychology
- Prof. Chris Higgins (Grey) - Vice-Chancellor of Durham University
- Arthur Holmes Geologist, early exponent of plate tectonics.
- Prof. David Jasper - Professor of Theology and Literature at the University of Glasgow
- Sir Harold Jeffreys (Armstrong) - mathematician and geophysicist
- Prof. Frank Kelly - professor of the Mathematics of Systems in the Statistical Laboratory, University of Cambridge, and Master of Christ's College, Cambridge.
- Prof. George Wilberforce Kakoma - professor of music, composer of Uganda's national anthem
- Gordon Manley - Climatologist
- Dominic Montserrat - (Grey) British egyptologist and papyrologist
- Muhamad Rasat Muhamad, President of the Multimedia University, Malaysia
- Richard Ovenden (St Chad's) - Head of Special Collections, Bodleian Library, University of Oxford
- Prof. Friedrich Paneth FRS - Professor of Chemistry at Durham, 1939–1953
- Nicholas Reeves - English Egyptologist
- George Rochester FRS (Armstrong) - British physicist known for having co-discovered, with Sir Clifford Butler, a subatomic particle called the kaon
- Caleb Scharf, American astronomer
- Prof. Samuel Tolansky (Armstrong) - Physicist and Nobel Prize nominee
- G. M. Trevelyan - historian
- Prof. Ji Ungpakorn - professor of Thai
- Sir Peter Ustinov - Chancellor of the University of Durham
- Prof. Paul Wellings - Vice-Chancellor of Lancaster University
- Ted Wragg (Hatfield) - Educationalist
Read more about this topic: List Of Durham University People