University of Pennsylvania - Notable People

Notable People

Main article: List of University of Pennsylvania people See also: List of Nobel laureates affiliated with the University of Pennsylvania

Penn has produced many alumni that have distinguished themselves in the sciences, academia, politics, the military, arts and media. The size, quality, and diversity of Penn's alumni body has established it as one of the most powerful alumni networks in the United States and internationally.

Twelve heads of state or government have attended or graduated from Penn, including former U.S. president William Henry Harrison; former Prime Minister of the Philippines Cesar Virata; the first president of Nigeria, Nnamdi Azikiwe; the first president of Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah; and the current president of Côte d'Ivoire, Alassane Ouattara. Other notable politicians who hold a degree from Penn include former ambassador to China and former 2012 presidential candidate Jon Huntsman, Jr., Mexico's current minister of finance, Ernesto J. Cordero, long-serving Pennsylvania senator Arlen Specter, and former Pennsylvania governor Ed Rendell.

The university's presence in the judiciary in and outside of the United States is also notable. It has produced three United States Supreme Court justices, William J. Brennan, Owen J. Roberts and James Wilson, Supreme Court justices of foreign states (e.g., Ronald Wilson of the High Court of Australia and Ayala Procaccia of the Israel Supreme Court), European Court of Human Rights judge Nona Tsotsoria, and founders of international law firms (e.g. James Harry Covington (co-founder of Covington & Burling), Martin Lipton (co-founder of Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen, & Katz), and George Wharton Pepper (Senator from Pennsylvania and founder of Pepper Hamilton).

Penn alumni also have a strong presence in economic life. Penn has educated several governors of central banks including Yasin Anwar (State Bank of Pakistan), Ignazio Visco (Bank of Italy), Kim Choongsoo (Bank of Korea), Zeti Akhtar Aziz (Central Bank of Malaysia), Pridiyathorn Devakula (Governor, Bank of Thailand, and former Minister of Finance), Farouk El Okdah (Central Bank of Egypt), and Alfonso Prat Gay (Central Bank of Argentina), as well as the director of the United States National Economic Council, Gene Sperling. Founders of technology companies include Ralph J. Roberts (co-founder of Comcast), Elon Musk (founder of Paypal, Tesla Motors, and SpaceX), Leonard Bosack (co-founder of Cisco), David Brown (co-founder of Silicon Graphics) and Mark Pincus (founder of Zynga, the company behind Farmville). Other notable businessmen and entrepreneurs who attended or graduated from the University of Pennsylvania include William S. Paley (former president of CBS), Warren Buffett (CEO of Berkshire Hathaway), Donald Trump, Donald Trump, Jr., and Ivanka Trump, Safra Catz (President and CFO of Oracle Corporation), Leonard Lauder (Chairman Emeritus of Estée Lauder Companies and son of founder Estée Lauder), Steven A. Cohen (founder of SAC Capital Advisors), Robert Kapito (president of BlackRock, the world's largest asset manager), and P. Roy Vagelos (former president and CEO of multinational pharmaceutical company Merck & Co.).

Among other distinguished alumni are the current presidents of Harvard University, Drew Gilpin Faust; the University of California, Mark Yudof; and Northwestern University, Morton O. Schapiro; poets Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams, linguist and political theorist Noam Chomsky, starchitect Louis Kahn, cartoonist Charles Addams, theatrical producer Harold Prince, counter-terrorism expert and author Richard A. Clarke, pollster Frank Luntz, attorney Gloria Allred, journalist Joe Klein, fashion designer Tory Burch, recording artist John Legend, and football athlete and coach John Heisman.

Within the ranks of Penn's most historic graduates are also eight signers of the Declaration of Independence and nine signers of the Constitution. These include George Clymer, Francis Hopkinson, Thomas McKean, Robert Morris, William Paca, George Ross, Benjamin Rush, James Wilson, Thomas Fitzsimons, Jared Ingersoll, Rufus King, Thomas Mifflin, Gouverneur Morris, and Hugh Williamson.

In total, 28 Penn affiliates have won Nobel Prizes, of whom four are current faculty members and nine are alumni. Nine of the Nobel laureates have won the prize in the last decade. Penn also counts 115 members of the United States National Academies, 79 members of the Academy of Arts and Sciences, eight National Medal of Science laureates, 108 Sloan Fellows, 30 members of the American Philosophical Society, and 170 Guggenheim Fellowships.