Tulane University - Notable People

Notable People

Tulane is home to many alumni who have contributed to both the arts and sciences and to the political and business realms. For example, from literature: Shirley Ann Grau, Pulitzer Prize for Fiction winner, and Andrew Breitbart, conservative journalist; from business: David Filo, co-founder of Yahoo!, and Neil Bush, economist and brother of President George W. Bush; from entertainment: Lauren Hutton, film actor and supermodel, and Paul Michael Glaser, TV actor of "Starsky and Hutch"; from music: conductor and composer Odaline de la Martinez, who was the first woman to conduct at a BBC Proms concert in London; from government: Newt Gingrich, former Speaker of the House who famously coordinated the first Congressional Republican majority in 40 years, and Luther Terry, former U.S. Surgeon General who issued the first official health hazard warning for tobacco; from medicine: Michael DeBakey, inventor of the roller pump, and Dr. Regina Benjamin, President Obama's Surgeon General; from science A. Baldwin Wood, inventor of the wood screw pump and Lisa P. Jackson, United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator under President Obama; from sports: Bobby Brown, former New York Yankees third baseman and former president of the American League. A former graduate residence hall on campus was also named for Engineering graduate Harold Rosen, who invented the geosynchronous communications satellite. Douglas G. Hurley, NASA astronaut and pilot of mission STS-127, became the first alumnus to travel in outer space in July 2009. Christopher Callahan, BSM 2007, founder of the nation's first Four-Year Triple Degree Program (JD/MBA/Tax LL.M) at the University of Miami.

Tulane also hosted several prominent faculty, such as two members who each won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine: Louis J. Ignarro and Andrew V. Schally. Other notables such as John Kennedy Toole, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of A Confederacy of Dunces, Rudolph Matas, "father of vascular surgery," and George E. Burch, inventor of the phlebomanometer in medicine, also were on faculty at Tulane. Five U.S. Supreme Court Justices have taught at Tulane, including Chief Justice William Rehnquist. Tulane has also hosted several prominent artists, most notably Mark Rothko, who was a Visiting Artist from 1956–1957. Currently on the faculty are James Carville, Nick Spitzer, and Melissa Harris-Perry. Several football alumni play in the National Football League, including Patrick Ramsey (New Orleans Saints), J.P. Losman (Buffalo Bills), Anthony Cannon (Detroit Lions), Mewelde Moore (Pittsburgh Steelers), Matt Forté (Chicago Bears), and Roydell Williams (Tennessee Titans). Several baseball alumni play in the Major Leagues, including Andy Cannizaro (New York Yankees) and Micah Owings (Arizona Diamondbacks).